Will Alberta Premier Danielle Smith alienate voters by defending a referendum question?

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]Joining me now is co-founder of the Alberta based the line podcast Jen Gerson. Jen, great to have you here.

[00:00:07]Thanks for joining us.

[00:00:09]Thanks for having me. So Danielle Smith says Albertans will vote this October on a referendum on a referendum on whether to stay or leave Canada. The premier has pushed on with this despite many opportunities to shut it down. Why do you think she is set on this question going to the public?

[00:00:27]Uh because of base of her party supports separation, a significant base of her party supports separation and there's deep concerns that if she doesn't move forward that the party would split and that would provide the opportunity for the NDP to win. And we all know that allowing the NDP to win is a much worse outcome than uh any other possibility including breaking up the country apparently.

[00:00:49]But at the same time does she risk alienating uh the other side, people who want to stay in Canada?

[00:00:57]Yeah.

[00:00:59]Enormously.

[00:01:00]Look, if if the current polls show that 70% of Albertans want to stay in Canada and her fixation is on the 15 to 30% of people who uh want to leave and are deeply frustrated, it's just fascinating to me for a self-appointed federalist that she's putting all of her attention, time, empathy, and care on that very loud minority and no attention, time, empathy, or care on the vast majority of Albertans who actually don't want to go through this process. Like, where's the the the the understanding of their frustration? Where's the attention to the damage that you risk that you're that you might be putting them through, right? Um I think that you can you can use that argument. At first, I think it's a bad faith argument to begin with.

[00:01:41]I just don't think that's what's motivating this. But I think you can use you can put that argument um uh both ways and that is where is her empathy, concern, and care for the majority of Albertans who didn't vote for this, didn't give her a democratic mandate to put a succession vote on the on on the ballot, and don't want to go through what will inevitably be a very divisive and potentially risky process.

[00:02:01]Now, Smith says it's not just the 300,000 people who signed the separation petition, but it's also the 450,000 Albertans who signed the Forever Canada petition.

[00:02:14]They also want to weigh in on this debate. How What do you think of that characterization? I think it's a lie.

[00:02:24]I mean, there there has been a concerted effort to try and make this story as convoluted and confusing as as possible, and I think that that has been deliberate. It has been a deliberate attempt to try and obfuscate accountability.

[00:02:37]The only person who had the power to put this this referendum onto the ballot is Danielle Smith and she chose to do it.

[00:02:42]And she chose to do it in order to further her own political ambitions and no other reason.

[00:02:47]Firstly, the 400,000 argument, that is an absolute canard and everyone knows it. She's talking about the Forever Canadian petition, which went forward to try and generate mass support for staying in Canada ahead of what was expected to be a pro-secession referendum. Now, you can argue about whether or not that that strategy was correct or incorrect. Lots of people internally are having that argument, that's fine. But when leader of that petition sat at committee, he said, "I don't want to have a referendum. I want this vote to go to the legislature. There's no reason to be dragging Alberta through a referendum for this." And that's what the people signing that Forever Canadian petition signed up for understood and knew. That was a federalist and explicitly federalist petition. And secondly, as for the 300,000, those 300,000 names haven't been certified by Elections Alberta and never will be.

[00:03:33]So, the the accountability for holding this vote lies squarely with Danielle Smith and her government, 100%.

[00:03:40]Do not let her weasel out of that.

[00:03:43]Now, according to polls, at least a third of Albertans say they would vote yes on separation. I do know that there are other higher numbers out there as well. Could this question this referendum reach the 50% threshold for another binding referendum?

[00:04:01]I think that that's a definite possibility and risk and I think the way that this question has been structured has increased the probability of that risk. Because if you have a first non-binding vote, then you can always argue that that is a a riskless protest vote. A way Don't worry. Don't worry.

[00:04:15]This won't actually lead to separation.

[00:04:17]We're just going to give Ottawa a message, right? And when you have baseline dissatisfaction with the status quo in Canada of anywhere between 40 and 70%, that may prove to be a compelling argument for the people who actually show up to vote. And now we have separation succession as a feature of Alberta politics for years to come. This it just doesn't go away. I you know, I'm I'm I'm working with the vote to stay campaign and I'm hoping to see this as an opportunity to put this crazy to bed and say, "Look, we need to be focusing on real solutions to real problems, not allowing our attention and bandwidth bandwidth to be sucked non-productive politics this way." But like I welcome that opportunity. But look, we have a risk in our hand on our hands and like the counter argument to that is "Yeah, well, don't worry. It's a non-binding referendum. So, we'll just we'll just vote to vote to leave just to make a point." And that's incredibly risky and dangerous politics. Incredibly irresponsible thing to do.

[00:05:11]I wish so much we had more time, but we unfortunately don't. Jen, thank you so much for being here.

[00:05:16]Thank you for having me. All the best to you. That's co-founder of the line podcast, Jen Gerson.