Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is at odds with the president of her own party on the issue of the province quitting Canada.
Rob Smith, the president of the United Conservative Party, has said the party will not take a position on the upcoming referendum regarding whether Alberta should stay in Canada.
The UCP president told the Globe and Mail and CBC Radio’s Calgary Eyeopener this week that he thinks a majority of rank-and-file party members would vote against remaining in Canada, but that the party will stay neutral since its members have not had an official policy vote.
The premier, however, begs to differ.
Speaking in a radio interview Wednesday with QR Calgary and 880 CHED, Smith said when it comes to the party, her word is the last word.
“I speak for the party, and what our party has said is that we support autonomy and sovereignty for Alberta within a united Canada,” Smith said.
“It’s right in our (party’s) founding principles,” she added.
“Every one of my MLAs got elected on that, and that’s why I say that our party, our caucus and our government are on board with working on what we need to do to remain in Canada and to address the legitimate concerns that Albertans have.”
Rob Smith, who is not related to Danielle Smith, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Premier Smith told Albertans last week they will go to the polls on Oct. 19 to vote on whether to stay in Canada or begin the process to hold a second, binding referendum on leaving.
That announcement has roiled debate across the country. Smith has said it’s the best way to put the issue to rest once and for all while also giving a justifiable voice to those who feel Canada no longer works for them.
Opponents say it’s a reckless and dangerous decision, taking the country down a path fraught with unseen and unintended consequences from a party and premier that didn’t campaign in the last election on separating.
Polls suggest a large margin of Albertans want to stay in Confederation. Alberta’s Opposition NDP has accused Smith of rank opportunism, saying she is not fighting for Canada but simply to keep her job by appeasing separatist hardliners within the party.
On Wednesday’s radio interview, Smith questioned whether those who want to leave know what that entails.
She said she didn’t think many in the movement understand the costs of setting up a new country, including creating armed forces and patrolling and controlling borders.
“And I don’t know how many folks who go and regularly visit family in Saskatchewan and British Columbia would want to show passports and have to stop at border stations,” she said.
Fact check: Did 700K Albertans want a referendum on separation?
She pointed to the United Kingdom’s experience after it voted to leave the European Union following a referendum in 2016.
“These are the very practical things that they’ve discovered in the United Kingdom that none of the promises of windfalls panned out, but a whole bunch of irritations ended up coming up that prevented them from being able to expand trade, travel freely, work freely (and) own houses in Spain.”
She also said that every political party has issues, and pointed to the 14 members of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal caucus who recently wrote a letter expressing concerns about backtracking on environmental safeguards.
Smith has been casting blame on past and present political leaders she says are stoking separatist flames in Alberta by demonizing the oil and gas industry.
One of those she has singled out is federal NDP Leader Avi Lewis.
Lewis, asked by reporters in Ottawa about the separation issue Wednesday, dismissed Smith’s accusation. He, too, said Smith is trying to appease separatists within her party.
“(With) a (referendum) question about a question, we’re entering into the territory of absurdity as she tries to attend to a major part of her base on a question that won’t pass and that the majority of Canadians don’t want and courts have already thrown out,” Lewis said.
Alberta premier ‘has a real problem,’ NDP’s Lewis says on referendum question
Smith’s office didn’t directly respond to Lewis’s comments. Instead, it pointed to comments Smith made about Lewis on Wednesday in an interview to BNN Bloomberg.
Smith told BNN that provincial NDP leaders should push back against their federal counterpart.
She said Lewis’s advocacy for keeping fossil fuels in the ground is a “toxic influence” that targets Alberta and its oil wealth.
“That’s what I think Albertans have responded to. They’ve just said, ‘enough is enough,”‘ Smith said.
Alberta’s upcoming referendum overshadowed the annual gathering of Canada’s western premiers earlier this week, and it was also top of mind at an unrelated announcement in Fort McMurray on Wednesday by members of Smith’s government.
Energy Minister Brian Jean, Sport Minister Andrew Boitchenko and Tany Yao, the UCP legislature member for Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo, were asked repeatedly about separatism and where they stood on it.
Jean at one point said he was there to talk about the announcement — that Fort McMurray would play host for the 2028 Alberta Games — but he ultimately said he was onside with remaining in Canada: “Together is better.”
