Western Standard - April 18, 2026


CORY MORGAN： Albertans deserve the right to vote on their future

Topics
alberta independence referendum
Mentioned
Smith
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Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

205.1

Word count

911

Sentence count

53

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A referendum on Alberta's independence from Canada is finally coming up on October 9th, 2019. In the lead-up to that date, Alberta s premier, Rachel Notley, has been under fire from both sides of the independence debate, with calls for a yes or no vote on the question of whether or not Alberta should leave the federation and join the rest of Canada.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 this is going to be the year of the alberta independence referendum it's not in question
00:00:12.480 advocates for both federalism and uh independence they've collected hundreds of thousands of
00:00:18.400 signatures demanding a referendum be held and it's just time to schedule the voting date and
00:00:22.640 get on with it the authority to schedule a buying binding constitutional referendum lands squarely
00:00:27.740 in the office of the premier,
00:00:29.280 and she might as well just bite that bullet
00:00:30.480 and set the date.
00:00:31.800 I mean, the opponents to independence
00:00:33.140 have morphed their movement
00:00:34.660 from one promoting federalism
00:00:36.480 into one opposing democracy.
00:00:38.620 They're using the courts
00:00:39.580 to try and block Albertans
00:00:40.880 from having a democratic vote, 0.78
00:00:42.400 and it's only fostering more division.
00:00:44.960 Their efforts are only going to delay
00:00:46.420 the inevitable at best.
00:00:48.460 I'm not saying a positive vote
00:00:50.400 for independence is inevitable, hardly.
00:00:52.020 It's a long ways and a lot of work to be done,
00:00:53.880 but holding a referendum is inevitable.
00:00:55.660 It's going to have to happen.
00:00:56.600 the Clarity Act became law in Canada back in 2000. It laid out the process for a province to exit the
00:01:02.780 Federation through a referendum. And the process is a tough one, but it is a legal one, and it's
00:01:07.700 been in place for a generation now. It speaks volumes that Canada accepted this process as a
00:01:12.120 national law when it was under the assumption it would only be applied to Quebec. But when
00:01:15.780 Albertans decided to pursue a referendum, suddenly the ability to do so was brought before the courts.
00:01:21.440 And that double standard illustrates why a third of Albertans are ready to leave in the Federation
00:01:26.320 or more, and that number is growing. The independence movement number has had its ups
00:01:30.360 and downs since the 80s. It's never been, though, so strong and widely
00:01:34.220 organized as it is today. The 2025 federal election enraged the province
00:01:38.440 and the fury wasn't short-lived as it has been. In the past, it has been channeled
00:01:42.800 into established activism and a massive petition campaign, actually
00:01:46.280 two campaigns calling for a referendum, one on the pro and one on the
00:01:50.380 against side. In 1995, the message from Canada to Quebec as they
00:01:54.320 headed towards a referendum was, oh, please, please don't go. In 2026, the message to Canada,
00:01:59.420 to Albertans, from Canada to Albertans is you aren't allowed to go. In fact, you're not even
00:02:03.460 allowed to have a vote on the question. That's what it's down to. Not only is that an assaulting
00:02:07.760 double standard, but also sets a dangerous stage. When a movement has momentum with over one in
00:02:13.260 three people asking for a democratic exercise, and then that democratic mechanism is taken away
00:02:17.300 from them, it doesn't kill the movement. It inspires some people to work towards undemocratic
00:02:22.340 means of change. Albertans at large have no interest in violence, and even if the referendum
00:02:26.860 was blocked, the vast majority of Albertans would never consider such a thing. But let's not be so
00:02:31.440 naive as to believe there aren't at least a handful of unhinged individuals who might consider doing 0.99
00:02:34.960 something stupid if they feel there's no other path to change. A referendum releases that sort 0.98
00:02:40.800 of pressure. The FLQ vanished in Quebec when they began using democratic pursuits of independence.
00:02:45.580 It'd be foolhardy to foster the seeds of such a movement in Alberta by denying the citizens the
00:02:49.080 right to vote. Federalists are claiming the independence discussion in itself will cause
00:02:53.800 massive economic damage due to the instability it would cause, even if a yes vote doesn't happen.
00:02:58.360 Now that argument fails on two counts. I mean, for one, Alberta had $670 billion in energy
00:03:03.380 projects canceled or deferred over a decade due to the federal government's interference.
00:03:07.440 An independence referendum couldn't possibly do more damage than staying the course will.
00:03:11.860 Also, if you want stability, there's no better way to pursue it than to hold a referendum on
00:03:16.160 the issue and get it done with. Do you really think the instability would disappear by removing
00:03:20.600 the ability to hold a referendum? Do they think independent supporters are just going to shrug
00:03:25.040 and give up? The path to stability, whether yes or no on that, is peeling off the band-aid and
00:03:30.000 getting it done with. If federalists are confident support for independence will remain at the 30%
00:03:34.200 range, they should be welcoming a referendum so we can be put to bed. It's time to quit wasting
00:03:39.000 time in the courts. Premier Smith has already said if a question on independence is to be put
00:03:44.740 a referendum. It'll be done on October 9th with the other questions. She might as well take the
00:03:48.080 word if out of that and just schedule the vote. No more asking judges. Tell the chief electoral 0.97
00:03:53.660 officer the vote will be held and to either accommodate it or be replaced by a bureaucrat
00:03:59.560 who will. This is all within the premier's authority. It doesn't mean Smith supports a yes
00:04:03.280 vote, but it does mean she supports democracy, and I suspect she would phrase it that way.
00:04:08.100 The discussion of Alberta's independence must be held in a full campaign and resolved one way or
00:04:12.020 another now. It's the healthiest path we can take. So quit trying to tell us we can't go.
00:04:16.740 We can. And quit telling us why we shouldn't. Just try telling us actually why we shouldn't
00:04:22.720 choose to if you support federalism. Let's get this campaign going and have that discussion.