Juno News - Alberta separatists FURIOUS over Smith’s referendum question

00:00:00.000 Albertans who favor independence will have two hurdles to climb now first they'll have to vote

00:00:10.200 in favor of holding a referendum and if that succeeds they'll get a chance to vote for

00:00:16.060 independence. Premier Danielle Smith has announced she'll be adding the question to

00:00:21.420 the upcoming fall referendum scheduled for October the 19th. The additional question will be

00:00:28.160 Should Alberta remain a province of Canada? Or should the government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?

00:00:43.400 Now, Smith says she favors Alberta remaining part of Canada, but disagrees with a court decision that quashed a citizen-led independence referendum.

00:00:52.480 Now, I want to be clear. I support Alberta remaining in Canada. That is how I would vote on separation in a provincial referendum. It is also the position of my government and my caucus. However, despite my personal support for remaining in Canada, I am deeply troubled by an erroneous court decision that interferes with the democratic rights of hundreds of thousands of Albertans. Alberta's future will be decided by Albertans, not the courts.

00:01:21.200 Well, some separatists are not buying it now and are targeting the leadership of Daniel

00:01:26.260 Smith, whom they see as standing in the way of independence.

00:01:30.920 Prime Minister Carney may have a caucus rebellion to deal with.

00:01:34.760 After backsliding on the government's climate goals, 14 liberal MPs have come out in opposition

00:01:41.640 to the government, easing its environmental position on Alberta pipeline construction.

00:01:47.040 CBC obtained a copy of the letter, but is not releasing the names to protect the signatories.

00:01:53.480 It reads, we remain deeply concerned the government's credibility will be seriously compromised.

00:02:01.640 Our guest today is pro-independence lawyer Keith Wilson.

00:02:05.520 Keith, welcome to the show.

00:02:07.860 Good to be here.

00:02:09.180 Let's listen again to part of Premier Smith's announcement.

00:02:12.520 The additional question will be, should Alberta remain a province of Canada?

00:02:18.280 Or should the government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution

00:02:23.240 to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?

00:02:30.200 All right, so Keith, what do you think of this?

00:02:32.620 Is this the right way to proceed as far as Premier Smith goes?

00:02:38.260 Well, I think those of us who support Alberta independence would have preferred a simple up-down vote, you know, leave-stay.

00:02:47.180 Unfortunately, I think she's right that if she explained, the Premier did, that if she had done that,

00:02:54.720 it would have probably been a matter of weeks or a couple of months before the courts would have stopped it,

00:02:59.100 just like they stopped the two previous attempts.

00:03:01.840 So I think she was kind of boxed in.

00:03:04.000 so one approach she had and this is just me looking at things from the outside is to have

00:03:10.700 put the whole thing on hold and waited for the courts and i think that would have been very bad

00:03:14.240 for the independence movement and what i'm hoping to achieve which is alberta becoming achieving

00:03:19.240 nationhood um so i think she she uh came up with a reasonable compromise as much as it's not ideal

00:03:27.900 because it allows those people who are convinced Alberta

00:03:34.260 should stay in Canada to vote accordingly,

00:03:36.240 and it allows those who think Alberta should either leave to vote that way

00:03:42.700 and also for those who currently would vote to stay

00:03:46.080 but are very concerned and unhappy with Ottawa.

00:03:48.360 So it allows them to say, you know what,

00:03:50.200 let's actually hold a referendum on this.

00:03:52.120 So I can live with it.

00:03:54.280 Quebec had two referendums without asking whether Quebecers wanted a referendum or not they just

00:04:01.320 moved ahead with it so it just seems like she's ragging the puck a little bit I mean is this

00:04:07.180 really a delaying tactic um well if she really wanted to delay she would just say I'm gonna wait

00:04:15.220 for the courts that would have been the easiest justification for delay so what this approach does

00:04:22.900 and again it's not optimal but there's no way to get around the court problem we just got to let

00:04:28.100 that run its course the only way she could get around it was to make it hypothetical and that's

00:04:33.160 what she did so it still allows those of us myself and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands

00:04:40.620 of albertans who want to convince more even more albertans about the benefits of independence and

00:04:49.540 the dark course we're on staying in canada to keep that momentum going and keep the the focus

00:04:57.220 on uh dialogue and building even more support so it allows us to to keep pushing forward

00:05:04.600 uh and not stopping that all of the other options she had would have caused

00:05:10.720 if she faces backlash from within her own party i mean maybe you can make the case that she 0.98

00:05:18.640 did want to stall but knew full well that there would be a huge fallout politically from her

00:05:26.600 decision to do that given the level of support in the ucp for independence what do you think of that

00:05:32.040 yeah i mean it's a problem she has right like um i'm taking a fairly calm approach maybe that's

00:05:40.480 just because of who i am and i'm a litigator and i'm used to setbacks and you keep pursuing even

00:05:45.500 when you have a setback. There's a lot of people right now in Alberta, as you're aware, are extremely

00:05:52.800 upset and very angry and very motivated. There's many who are talking about having a leadership

00:06:00.680 review of replacing her. And so that's volatile. And I don't know where that will go. That's not

00:06:08.580 what I'm advocating for, but I respect others' rights to have their own views on these things.

00:06:15.300 So it's a very difficult time.

00:06:18.160 I think it puts more pressure on her, too,

00:06:20.900 in the sense that one of the things that I really

00:06:25.320 disagree with her on is her characterization

00:06:28.980 of how rosy things have apparently become with Ottawa.

00:06:34.320 I don't see it that way at all.

00:06:36.060 And with all due respect to the Premier,

00:06:38.160 I think she is grossly overstating the facts.

00:06:41.120 The nine bad laws are not gone.

00:06:44.580 they're not repealed one example the tanker ban still there i could keep going so um i think she

00:06:54.260 is now set very high expectations for herself as to what she can achieve with fixing canada

00:07:03.700 Yeah, I mean, they did come up with another deal, I suppose, that postponed the level of carbon tax, the industrial carbon tax, I guess, $130 a ton to 2040.

00:07:21.700 I think that that was the time, but apparently the industry is still not happy.

00:07:29.480 There's still aspects of this that do not please the industry whatsoever.

00:07:34.800 And so that is also a factor here, isn't it?

00:07:38.000 The fact that if you're going to attract investment into the sector, you've got to make it, you've got to create an environment where money is going to, you know, make a profit.

00:07:51.540 Well, and, you know, there's always the delta between political rhetoric and aspirational words from politicians and reality.

00:08:02.500 And I'm not seeing any indication that the industry, the people who need to make the investment decisions, agree with the rosy description of affairs.

00:08:16.900 you know the the no more pipelines law we talk about bill c69 which was the changes from the

00:08:23.860 canadian environment assessment act and they made it into the impact assessment act they put such

00:08:29.420 incredibly difficult approval conditions in that legislation it's still there all they did was they

00:08:37.760 created this national interest projects office or whatever he calls it where you have to go before

00:08:43.640 king carny you know bend a knee bring a gift and say please may i get on the list sir right and

00:08:50.560 right now there's like five projects most of which were already approved anyway you know the reality

00:08:55.240 from my perspective is that if you and i are going to create a business that's going to create a

00:09:00.160 hundred jobs or a business is going to create a thousand jobs or ten thousand jobs you shouldn't

00:09:06.840 have to plead to get on a list the government should be encouraging every job creator to create

00:09:12.120 the job every investor to be confident to invest and none of those fundamentals have changed we've

00:09:17.080 created these new add-on processes of technocratic control controlled by carney his central banker

00:09:23.080 mentality i guess the wording of the question suggests to me that there may be some confusion

00:09:30.760 when people see it written out in front of them they're going to think that they're voting for a

00:09:35.240 a referendum, because the first part talks about, you know, for those who support Alberta being part

00:09:42.060 of Canada, and then it goes on, and if you don't, you know, there's the referendum, but there's,

00:09:48.920 I suspect, a lot of Albertans who maybe are on the fence about independence, maybe want some time

00:09:57.120 to think about it. There might even be some people who lean towards federalism, but yet still want a

00:10:03.940 referendum because they want the question put forth and for the people to

00:10:08.620 decide. Do you have any issues around that? I mean,

00:10:11.460 do you think that some people might be confused by the wording of the question?

00:10:17.440 What they should have done when they ruled this out was they should have showed

00:10:20.760 the answer choices. Cause obviously you can't say yes or no to this, you know,

00:10:24.880 would you like coffee or tea? Yes. Okay. Which one? Right.

00:10:29.260 So that looks that way. So what's missing and will appear

00:10:33.180 is you'll see the question on the ballot and then it'll go, A, stay in Canada, B,

00:10:40.260 commence independence referendum, right? So you'll be very clear where your coffee or tea,

00:10:47.380 you say coffee. So that's point number one. But here's, think about this, and I can say this

00:10:53.080 quite concisely, and I think it'll be illuminating. Imagine two scenarios. We know as a starting

00:11:00.480 point, we know right now that if the referendum were held today, it would not pass. And there's

00:11:06.640 30 to 40% of Albertans that would vote yes, but there's 60 or more percent that are strongly

00:11:12.660 opposed to independence. But within that 60%, there's a large group that are very angry at

00:11:19.020 Ottawa and have very serious concerns about the direction of Canada and how Alberta is being

00:11:24.500 treated in the future for their kids and their grandkids. So if you give that person in that

00:11:29.140 category that is strongly opposed to independence, but it's really concerned about the direction of

00:11:34.940 the country and what Ottawa is doing. If you give them scenario A, where all they can decide is stay

00:11:40.280 or leave, then you give them scenario B, where it's stay or commence the process for a referendum.

00:11:48.520 A lot of those people will vote, commence a process for a referendum because it'll give,

00:11:54.220 they'll see it as building additional pressure on ottawa to change they'll see and they won't

00:12:01.180 feel you see what i'm saying it's not a harsh as harsh of a choice uh so i think this could

00:12:07.100 actually play to the advantage of those of us in the independence movement if we play our cards

00:12:11.100 right that um will it'll become a bridge to us to reach those folks who are very concerned about

00:12:20.380 canada and alberta's place in it but not ready to say i want to leave so it gives us a chance to

00:12:27.500 to warm them up i have a lot of friends of mine who are absolutely stay right now but

00:12:35.100 they are so concerned about what's ottawa's doing in the future for kids and grandkids and so on

00:12:39.900 uh i i pulled some of them today and i said i gave them scenario b scenario a they would vote to

00:12:45.580 stay i said what about this one they said i definitely vote for the referendum because it

00:12:49.900 it would give us one more chance

00:12:51.880 for Canada to kind of get its act together.

00:12:55.040 Well, that's one group of people,

00:12:56.940 but I suspect there are those

00:12:58.160 who are not going to understand

00:13:00.140 or are going to look at this.

00:13:01.920 I mean, if the question is,

00:13:03.340 do you want a referendum or not,

00:13:04.500 then that should be plain.

00:13:07.200 You know, yes, I want a referendum.

00:13:09.260 B, I do not want a referendum.

00:13:10.580 But in this case, you're saying

00:13:11.980 you want to stay in Canada.

00:13:14.900 But remember, too, I take your point,

00:13:17.680 but the reality is

00:13:19.060 there'll be so much campaigning going on people will make up their minds before they go into

00:13:23.920 uh the ballot uh box and the booth and they'll have a resolve even if it's made late in the day

00:13:31.400 like a few days before they'll still have enough there'll be enough campaign information out there

00:13:36.940 they'll say yeah i'm with that camp oh i'm supposed to pick a stay in canada oh no i'm

00:13:42.480 with these other guys i don't want to leave yet but i want i want to send a message so i'm going

00:13:47.440 of vote be commenced process so there'll be a lot of campaigning going on where people will be

00:13:52.260 it'll become less confusing as we get closer to october 19th i suspect there's also an extra

00:13:58.560 hurdle here for the separatist side though isn't it you've got to get the first one passed which

00:14:04.860 is do you want a referendum and then you've got to get the referendum itself and so you know they've

00:14:13.060 got two kicks at the can to kill this thing you've got it seems to me the threshold for passing it

00:14:20.340 is at least twice as hard as to stay in they'll have two opportunities to to end it um that's true 0.71

00:14:30.220 and i'm okay with that um you know i i don't i don't see any other clear option right now as i

00:14:38.860 mentioned earlier, my concern is that had she just made it a binary choice, the courts would

00:14:43.940 have stopped it and everything, all the momentum would have been lost. Whereas here we can re-channel

00:14:49.160 the momentum. And I really do believe, back to our point about our discussion rather about

00:14:56.180 Carney and is the MOU actually going to result in increased production and a pipeline? I don't

00:15:03.460 think it will. It just can't. I mean, Carney just this week alone added another condition to the

00:15:08.560 pipeline you know so it's not just you got us the industry has to find 20 billion dollars and build

00:15:16.940 the pathways project and maybe not build it but at least fund it before you can get the pipeline

00:15:23.520 well that's going to take years and years they've already said we don't have the dough we're not

00:15:27.260 prepared to put that money into it it's not revenue generating no customer for our product is asking

00:15:32.040 for this nobody's going to prepare pay a premium then you've got to get over EB's unconstitutional

00:15:37.840 veto that Carney gave him. Then you've got to get over the unconstitutional veto that Carney

00:15:42.880 gave the First Nations in BC. And then Carney announced that there has to be significant

00:15:48.720 financial participation in returns to British Columbia and to the First Nations.

00:15:54.640 But where's the pipeline company going to find the profits to make this a viable venture,

00:16:00.160 especially when the oil company are saying, we can't afford to increase our production

00:16:04.640 at these costs. So I think it's going to become clear that the MOU is a flop. I think it's going

00:16:14.160 to become increasingly clear that these nine bad laws were not repealed. Unfortunately,

00:16:20.040 like the Premier is saying, which is simply not true. Some of them were. Some of them were

00:16:24.700 adjusted and some of them are still right there. So there's going to be a, the truth's going to

00:16:31.820 come out, which is we haven't made significant changes with Ottawa.

00:16:37.340 Ottawa's ideological approach to the world continues and Albertans are at the receiving

00:16:44.340 end.

00:16:45.180 And one final point, look at the amount of energy and political capital that the premier

00:16:50.640 had to put just to get the MOU, which many say is not a very significant achievement

00:16:57.640 because it's not going to lead to a pipeline.

00:16:58.920 it brought all these additional costs to the industry and is burdening our existing exports

00:17:03.880 with new costs they didn't have before so you know this is uh my concern is this illustrates

00:17:11.000 how badly alberta needs to get out of canada because we had to work so hard to basically go

00:17:17.480 to carney saying please sir let us work harder and give you more money uh and it's like well

00:17:25.880 only if you jump through all of these hurdles right whereas if alberta is an independent

00:17:31.240 country it's like no we make the decision we do it if uh the other provinces don't want to play

00:17:36.920 along well they can find somewhere else to get their oil and gas yeah just it does seem like

00:17:42.120 both sides are very far apart and it's hard to imagine building a bridge between those two

00:17:47.880 especially now that you have carney potentially facing a rebellion in the ranks with this

00:17:52.840 letter coming out from 14 liberals liberal mps who opposed the government easing its environmental

00:18:02.840 position as far as it applies to alberta's pipeline construction so

00:18:07.800 he's facing that you know possible backlash in his own caucus and so i mean this is a tough

00:18:17.000 nut to crack and of course on the other side you've got danielle smith who's got the mou

00:18:23.640 but if construction doesn't move forward in a timely fashion i mean alberts are going to realize

00:18:30.040 we've been had you know and you know they're going to be they're going to be demanding a

00:18:35.560 referendum anyway what do you think i think that's right and uh i think that's exactly

00:18:41.160 what's going to happen because the the tiger hasn't changed its spots or whatever stripes i

00:18:46.280 I guess. And the so it says two things.

00:18:51.920 One is the Premier talks about fixing Canada.

00:18:56.400 The majority of Canadians don't consider Canada to be broken.

00:19:00.280 The people who are writing that letter, the politicians to pressuring Carney,

00:19:04.640 think that having pursuing net zero and impairing our economy and making the cost

00:19:10.240 of living skyrocket is a good thing because it's the cost to save the planet.

00:19:15.360 You know, they're they're ideologues.

00:19:18.480 And so back to how we started.

00:19:22.640 We're not going to have a referendum on October 19th,

00:19:26.880 2026 on leaving Canada.

00:19:29.840 Well, I think it's going to take until October and after October

00:19:35.280 for how badly Canada is treating Alberta

00:19:40.240 and how hopeless it is for Alberta to remain in Canada

00:19:44.000 to become more manifest than it is now and that will occur sometime closer to October and after

00:19:51.040 October and hopefully we'll be in the real campaign to leave and hopefully the actual

00:19:57.680 referendum on independence will occur in February or March of 2027. I see that as an ideal time 0.76

00:20:03.840 window for it to become patently clear to the most optimist federalist here in Alberta who

00:20:10.640 really wants to stay in Canada, I go, yeah, pains me, but the Canada I once knew doesn't exist

00:20:16.620 anymore, and I got to do this for my kids and grandkids. Keith, thank you so much for coming

00:20:21.940 on the show. We greatly appreciate it, as always. Thank you very much. If you enjoyed the show,

00:20:27.740 consider supporting great independent journalism by becoming a premier member of Juno News. Please

00:20:32.500 go to junonews.com backslash straight up. You can find the link below. Helps us do what we do here.

00:20:39.100 Thank you so much. We'll see you next time.

00:20:40.640 Thank you.

Juno News - May 23, 2026

Alberta separatists FURIOUS over Smith’s referendum question

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