Pro-unity camp worries about Brexit-style upset in October vote
Thousands gathered for the Calgary Stampede, the “Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth,” but the carnival music and chuckwagon races this year were shadowed by political battle over Alberta’s future. In October, Albertans will vote on whether they want the province to remain in Canada or hold a binding referendum later on separation.
The vote is the culmination of a separatist push that MSI previously reported gained enough petition signatures last year to force a vote under provincial law. The pandemic-era Freedom Convoy protests in 2021, when hundreds of truckers from western Canada traveled to Ottawa to protest vaccine mandates, served as a turning point for many independence supporters, according to organizers.
Liberal MP Corey Hogan of Calgary told the BBC the referendum is “the cloud over everything” in Alberta politics, adding that it “underpins every other conversation we might want to have.” Hogan invited dozens of parliamentary colleagues from across Canada to this year’s stampede to promote unity. In his stampede speech, he called separatism “a poison” dividing families across the province.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is slated to make his own appearance in Calgary this weekend and is expected to deliver a unity message, according to the BBC.
Thomas Lukaszuk, a former Progressive Conservative Alberta lawmaker, leads the pro-unity group Forever Canadian, which recently opened its campaign headquarters in Calgary. He told the BBC his aim is not to tell Albertans how to vote but to remind them of what it means to be Canadian and what he described as the dire consequences of separation. He has spent two months driving a maple-leaf-decorated “Unity Bus” — a refurbished 1997 camper van — across the province, handing out pins and lawn signs and speaking with voters.
Despite polls suggesting the pro-unity side will comfortably win, supporters told the BBC they remain anxious, comparing their position to the “Remain” campaign before the UK voted to leave the European Union.
“The shadow of Brexit is hanging over this whole thing,” said Andrew Kemle, a graduate student at the University of Calgary. “An entire country sleepwalked into an economic disaster.”
Justin Perkins, an Albertan who spoke to the BBC while fueling his car in rural Alberta, expressed a belief that Alberta is misunderstood and overlooked by decision makers in Ottawa.
“I would say I’m 100% Canadian, but every year it is a little less,” Perkins said. “When you’re not respected, it’s hard to respect the people that don’t respect you… I’m the hated redneck, right? That’s me. Not that I did anything wrong, I’m just born here.”
The main motivator behind the separatist push, according to supporters and opponents alike, is a belief that Alberta is misunderstood and overlooked by decision-makers in Ottawa. The oil-rich, landlocked province has struggled to secure support for building more pipelines to get its resources to market, a point of contention across the political spectrum. Carney’s main appeal to the province so far has been to push for approval of an oil pipeline to the west coast, a longtime demand from Alberta.
Chris Scott, an Alberta independence organizer who took part in the Freedom Convoy, spoke to the BBC at his cafe and truck stop in Mirror, Alberta, decorated with the province’s blue flag and drawings from the protests. He said then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s handling of the protest, including the invocation of the Emergencies Act to grant authorities expanded powers to clear the demonstrations, fundamentally shifted his view.
“I was raised believing that Canada was a free country,” Scott said. He said Alberta had no option left but to set its own rules and that independence is “inevitable,” regardless of the outcome in October. He has bought his own camper van to rival Lukaszuk’s Unity Bus.
The referendum question does not ask directly whether the province should separate, but whether Albertans want to explore the possibility — leading opponents and some supporters to dismiss it as a “referendum on a referendum.” Nevertheless, many on the pro-Canada side are treating it as a binding vote.
“I think we’re all very worried that Alberta politics could be consumed by this forever,” Hogan said.
The reason a binding referendum is not taking place is a court challenge by First Nations groups, who argued they were not properly consulted and that their treaty rights were placed at risk. The decision is now under appeal.
Chief Samuel Crowfoot of Siksika First Nation, located just east of Calgary, told the BBC he believes “our future is more secure if we stay in Canada.” He spoke a few feet from where Treaty 7 was signed in 1877 between the British Crown and five First Nations.
“Those treaties will be honoured more so if we stay within Canada,” Chief Crowfoot said. “There is no guarantee, there’s no talk from the separatists, no outreach from any of the movements to speak with any First Nations about what this new Alberta would look like if we were to separate.”
Chief Troy Knowlton of Piikani First Nation told the BBC he would rather be “dealing with the devil that we know today.”
Chief Crowfoot argued that First Nations have done the most to keep Canada together, saying a binding referendum “would still be moving full steam” if not for the legal battle launched by Indigenous Albertans.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who must navigate a political base with separatist leanings while being personally and politically pro-unity, argued that the “referendum on a referendum” is a chance to hear directly from Albertans, the BBC reported.
The debate has been described as “divisive” and “emotional” by those who spoke to the BBC. Lukaszuk said it has reached a point where “there are neighbours not trusting neighbours, and people watching which flag is flying on which house — is it an Alberta or Canadian flag? And if it’s Alberta, suspicious that they’re separatists.”
“This has to end,” he said.
Polls indicate about 20% of Albertans back independence, which many in the unity camp dismiss as a “fringe minority.” But in Mirror, a town of about 400 people a two-hour drive from Calgary, Scott said he could “count on both hands how many people that I’ve encountered that are dead set against independence” — a sign of the urban-rural divide on the issue.
As the 10-day Stampede comes to a close this weekend, both sides say the campaign has just begun.
For Lukaszuk, “loss is not an option. We will do everything we possibly can to win this referendum.”