Independence voices in Canada resonate far beyond Quebec. There is another region of the North American country, perhaps less known but with similar separatist impulses. This is Alberta, the largest foreign supplier of oil to the United States.
The electoral agency of the eastern province approved this Monday, regarding a citizen initiative, the question that it will ask its residents in the self-determination referendum that could take place in the coming months.
“Do you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be part of Canada and become an independent State?” will collect the ballot, seeking a Yes or No answer.
Now all that remains is the most complicated part of the process, which is none other than calling the plebiscite. This will require the United Conservative Party (UCP) of Danielle Smiththe premier of Alberta, collect the necessary 178,000 signatures in the country’s fourth most populous province, behind Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. Your Government has a period of four months.
The Alberta Prosperity Project platform and the other promoters of the independence process also have two weeks to choose a financial person responsible for the signature collection campaign. They will not be able to start the process until they take this step.
The question approved this week is similar to the one that the promoters of the consultation presented just a few months ago, declared unconstitutional by an Alberta judge.
The delay induced by the judicial review led the Smith Government to amend the rules. At the beginning of December, the Alberta Prime Minister brought forward Bill 14, which allows citizen initiatives to be approved without constitutional evaluation.
The changes caused the judicial review to be void, and also allowed the Alberta Prosperity Project to resubmit the application without incurring any additional costs.
“A citizen question should not have to go to court to be approved when the real intention of raising it was so that the Government or citizens could formulate a question, any question, and bring it before the population,” he argued this Monday. Mitch Sylvesterthe top representative of the Alberta Prosperity Project, on the network CBC News.
The Alberta Ministry of Justice closed ranks with the initiative to defend “the democratic right” of all Albertans. “If those seeking independence believe they have support, this is their opportunity to demonstrate it,” declared the head of the portfolio, Mickey Amery. “It is the purest and simplest form of direct democracy, and it has nothing to do with separatists.”
Smith, a former radio host and political commentator who was never known for her separatist positions – she says, in fact, that her job is to defend “a strong Alberta within a united Canada” – nevertheless intends to allow “the process to take its course.”
It is true that, within the legal modifications approved by his Government, he imposed a clause by which he is not legally obliged to apply the result of a referendum if doing so would mean violating the Constitution. In other words, if tomorrow Albertans vote in favor of independence, the Executive would not be in a position to decree – at least unilaterally – the political break with Ottawa, something that the Canadian Magna Carta does not allow.
independence rise
Independence sentiment has been growing at a dizzying pace in Alberta since the pandemic, partly as a protest against the political elites in the east of the country. But there is no clear majority in favor of independence.
Because less than 30% of Albertans support the idea of the province becoming an independent country, according to a Leger poll published in May. Although the Angus Reid Institute estimates that, at least, 36% of the province’s citizens welcome the holding of a referendum.
Along these lines, the Alberta electoral agency approved another parallel citizen initiative in early December, promoted by the organization Alberta Forever Canada, which posed the following question for another eventual referendum: “Do you agree that Alberta should remain within Canada?”
“Our team will be more than prepared to confront the separatists and present a strong case for why Alberta should remain in Canada,” he said in statements to the CBC former albertan deputy premier Thomas Lukaszukwhich managed to gather more than 404,000 signatures.
The prime minister Mark Carney, born and raised in Edmontoncapital of Alberta, wants to use tact to resolve political tensions. “I understand the frustrations in developing the province’s resources, realizing the full potential of Alberta,” he said last July in an interview in which he said he had “very constructive conversations with Smith.”
Asked about the separatist process, the leader of the Liberal Party – which is just one seat away from achieving a parliamentary majority after the defections of two conservative deputies – has reiterated that his Government is “trying to build, not break, Canada.” This task involves, for example, developing an oil pipeline to the Pacific to take advantage of the province’s vast oil resources.