Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada
38 points by JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | 65 comments

jszymborski 27 minutes ago
Important context, this referendum isn't binding, but rather a referendum on whether a binding referendum should be held. Separation is deeply unpopular, but Smith has been putting her thumb on the scale every step of the way, and this non-binding referendum isn't subject to the Clarity act in the same way that a subsequent binding one would be.
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nonethewiser 13 minutes ago
Is there actually even a legal process for leaving Canada? I would assume you can't just decide to leave.

EDIT: oh, there is a process. thats the Clarity Act. This seems extremely surprising - I've never heard of this sort of thing before with any other country.

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nish__ 4 minutes ago
It's a thing because Quebec has tried to separate before.
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martythemaniak 7 minutes ago
It should be the least surprising thing about Canada - it has been dealing with separatist referendums for decades.
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archimedes237 9 minutes ago
It is technically possible to separate legally, but there are so many intentional roadblocks that it is effectively impossible to do so.
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arrowsmith 15 minutes ago
I don't get it. They're having a referendum on whether or not to have a referendum? Why bother with two steps?

I googled the Clarity Act and it appears to be recently-passed US (not Canadian) legislation about regulating cryptocurrencies or something. What's its relevance here?

I am not Canadian and know nothing about Canadian politics. Someone please enlighten me.

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giarc 6 minutes ago
It's a very complicated situation in Alberta. There were basically two competing petitions. A "Forever Canada" petition which supported Alberta staying in Canada, however it was built to force the provincial government to hold a vote in parliament about separation, therefore forcing all representatives to show their true feelings on separation.

A second petition by "Stay Free Alberta" asked the government to hold a referendum on separating. However, it was blocked by a judge because a previously ruling basically said that separating would violate treaty rights of Indigenous peoples in Alberta. It's also fraught with controversy as the individuals running the petition were able to (likely illegally) obtain the voter rolls for every Albertan. They used it to build an online tool to track their progress. There is speculation (without evidence since the signatures on the petition is not public) that they simply used it to fill out the petition for people they knew. There are pieces of evidence that point to this being a possibility, for example, a Stay Free Alberta leader claimed that in some communities, nearly 98% of residents signed the petition. These are generally right leaning communities, however, getting 98% of people in a community to do a single thing would be incredibly hard.

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cf100clunk 12 minutes ago
> I don't get it. They're having a referendum on whether or not to have a referendum?

Exactly. Albertans are scratching their heads, wondering what on earth Premier Smith is trying to accomplish. Utterly ridiculous ''solution'' to some internal problems within her party, I'm guessing.

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wang_li 12 minutes ago
Bill C-20 passed in 2000. It's not so much effort to type "canadian clarity act" into a search engine or wikipedia.
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rasgkl 20 minutes ago
U.S. wants more oil and pays influencers. Even if anyone is a legitimate Albertan separatist, voting in favor of it in this political climate is self-destructive.
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SecretDreams 6 minutes ago
There's, sadly, been a significant uptick in self destructive voting tendencies for certain voting demographics as of late.
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zenethian 19 minutes ago
As a Minnesotan I would gladly trade Alberta for Minnesota and become Canadian.
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SecretDreams 5 minutes ago
I think most of Canada (and probably America) would be okay with traded all the great lakes touching American states + the US west coast for Alberta.
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opjjf 27 minutes ago
Investigate and imprison the people who are pushing this because of money received from the US.
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tclancy 19 minutes ago
This is truly trolling escaping the Internet. It's by no means the first instance; "The future is already here—it's just not very evenly distributed". The best time to have started taking this seriously was probably October 2015 or something. The next best time is now. These performative fits by thoughtless Adult Children get backed by real money, for purposes mysterious to me, but they seem purposes dark enough it would be nice to have a working system that would investigate deeply and make illustrative examples out of the benefactors. Oh but for a working democracy or a healthy journalism, what might we find? Carve "Cui bono?" on my tombstone so when they plow the place over for tract housing to cram their useful fools into, maybe the rubble will catch a person's eye and make them wonder.
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JumpCrisscross 4 minutes ago
> This is truly trolling escaping the Internet

The referendum? Or calling for imprisoning people for wrongthink?

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gmerc 2 minutes ago
You misspelled “treason”
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cactusplant7374 16 minutes ago
I know of two people that moved away from Canada and consider themselves refugees for various reasons. It seems... a little out there. But it is a thing.
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JumpCrisscross 6 minutes ago
> it is a thing

Anyone can claim refugee status. That doesn’t make them refugees.

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baggy_trough 20 minutes ago
For what crime?
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ecshafer 15 minutes ago
Wrong think obviously.
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ohyoutravel 17 minutes ago
Treason
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multiplegeorges 6 minutes ago
Sedition, technically.
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52-6F-62 7 minutes ago
[dead]
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elAhmo 25 minutes ago
Such a waste of time, money, media space, human hours on useless thing.
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nonethewiser 13 minutes ago
This is part of Democracy.
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SecretDreams 5 minutes ago
Not like this it isn't.
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JumpCrisscross 5 minutes ago
> This is part of Democracy

It doesn’t need to be. 10% of the population being able to put major policies to a referendum is a bit silly.

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52-6F-62 6 minutes ago
Smith and the UCP have not been acting democratically whatsoever. Trying to paint it that way is either ignorant or deliberately malicious.

She was openly going around all standard democratic and diplomatic protocols and holding private meetings with the American executive in Florida.

That is not part of democracy, unless you are simply calling it the corrupted part.

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steve_adams_86 11 minutes ago
I want to agree, and I do in part, but I don’t believe Smith is a particularly democratic actor and there’s more happening here that shouldn’t occur in a democracy.
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giarc 3 minutes ago
She may just be happy that MHCare is out of the news. However, I'm not sure if this is any better.
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LurkandComment 16 minutes ago
Related: Alberta Voter Data was leaked to an American Company by the separatist movement. Also, the question right now is if there will be a referendum proposal.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2026/05/20/investigations/a...

This is clear foriegn political interfierence. It's like mini-brexit. We have a weak, incompitent leader in Alberta who is giving in to her right-wing base so she can stay in power. It's David Cameron all over again.

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nonethewiser 11 minutes ago
Mini brexit? A province seceding from Canada is way bigger than the UK leaving the EU.
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JumpCrisscross 2 minutes ago
> A province seceding from Canada is way bigger than the UK leaving the EU

Genuinely debatable. The total economic destruction of Brexit was, and continues to be, far higher.

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athrowaway3z 16 minutes ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXafC7tlqt0

TLDW: There are some Dutch guys hiring Americans to pretend to be Canadians to put out YouTube slop videos to make money via AdSense on the political-idiot-doomer niche on YouTube (and at least 1 is selling a "make quick money" guide to the scheme). Whether they're just a grifting pyramid or if there are other sources of income driving it is not made clear. Though they insist its entertainment and not paid-for political motivated content (note had they admitted that they'd be in breach of various laws and ToS')

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canadiantim 15 minutes ago
If you want to understand why Alberta is holding a referendum on whether they should hold another separate legally-binding referendum in the future, you have to look at the recent court case where a judge in Alberta ruled that one of the two main petitions wasn’t allowed to proceed (The one that specifically called for a legally-binding referendum). The judges stated reason is that First Nations were not adequately consulted (interesting how this never came up in the Quebec referendums). As a result, the premier of Alberta suggested that until they appeal that court case that they cannot have a legally binding referendum. As such, for now, all they cannot do is a non-legally binding referendum on whether they should hold a legally binding referendum once they court case becomes resolved.
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arrowsmith 12 minutes ago
Why not just wait until the court case is resolved?
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vkou 12 minutes ago
95% of Alberta is unceded First Nations land. It is not a valid country without it - without the consent of the relevant First Nations, a separated Alberta would be a few municipalities enveloped by... Canada.

This is not a concern in Quebec, because the overwhelming majority of it is ceded land.

If ducks had two wheels, they'd be bicycles, and if there was anything in common between the two provinces, you might have a point.

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cf100clunk 5 minutes ago
As far as I know, First Nations lands in Alberta are indeed ''ceded'' under Treaties 6, 7, and 8 with the Crown. British Columbia is a province with a huge proportion of unceded land, but not Alberta.

A related issue is to whether, or to what extent, a seceded entity can itself be subject to internal seccession. This concern came up in Quebec when Cree and other groups suggested they'd drop out of any post-separation Quebec and ''rejoin'' Canada.

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zht 29 minutes ago
isn't this more about alberta to hold referendum on whether or not to hold a referendum on whether to remain in Canada
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vkou 30 minutes ago
And do what? There is no 'Albertan' national identity, like there is in Quebec, or Ukraine, or Taiwan or Ireland. You can't build an independent nation around something that is only wanted by a single political party, who have no fucking idea of how to include everyone who isn't a Tory on board with their project.

Trace it back a bit, and you'll find that there's nothing to this that isn't driven by the Department of State.

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blululu 7 minutes ago
Québécois separatism is also driven by a single party with no plan for what to do with all the other groups. I also don’t think that an independent Quebec would be a good idea, but they have leveraged the idea to get equalization payments and increased voting rights. These concessions largely come at the expense of Alberta, so it shouldn’t be hard to see why people would be frustrated without any cia operations.
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nonethewiser 7 minutes ago
1) There is an Albertan identity

2) Seceding doesn't necessarily mean they will be an independent nation. Cawcaw

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vkou 4 minutes ago
Strange how that indepedant Albertan national identity consists of immediately begging to be annexed by the United States.

It's almost like they are following the Russian playbook.

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flyinglizard 27 minutes ago
Can't avoid gloating over this one. Just like the Palestinian identity was created and weaponized against Israel by the Arab world, now Canadians will get a taste of their own medicine courtesy of the Trump admin.
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elAhmo 23 minutes ago
You got the sides wrong unfortunately, one of the states you are mentioning was literally created in the last century and is now doing the same thing that prompted its creation. But it must be nice living in ignorance and buying the propaganda.
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tclancy 16 minutes ago
But why gloat? What are you winning? Even if there were prizes here (spoiler: all the loot boxes are empty in this game), do you perceive yourself better off because of this?

>now Canadians will get a taste of their own medicine courtesy of the Trump admin.

Ah so no, you're just in the higher end of the sinking canoe laughing at the people who are drowning.

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vkou 22 minutes ago
There's a minor difference.

Whether Palestinians have a national identity or not, driving them out of their homes at gunpoint and settling in is a war crime.

Albertans, while obviously the most disadvantaged and persecuted Canadians in recorded history, have not yet had anyone commiting genocide or war crimes against them.

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52-6F-62 17 minutes ago
> Albertans, while obviously the most disadvantaged and persecuted Canadians in recorded history

Um what?

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tclancy 14 minutes ago
(The author is complimenting us on our ability to recognize sarcasm in the wild, don't ruin it)
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cumshitpiss 21 minutes ago
[dead]
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briga 16 minutes ago
Albertan/Western Canadian identity is totally a thing, and has been around for a lot longer than this latest round of separatist sentiment. The west has been griping about unfair treatment from the federal government for over a century now, so 1) this isn't primarily driven by foreign interference and 2) it's not coming out of nowhere.

Whether it's a good idea is a different question. I doubt most Albertans want to be independent. I also think being a landlocked country with a resource economy means that you will always be subject to outside control, whether that be parliament in Ottawa or corporate offices in Dallas. It remains unclear if being independent will solve the issue of Alberta being land-locked.

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52-6F-62 11 minutes ago
Alberta was created out of several divisions of the NWT barely over 100 years ago, formed by the federal government of Canada.

It's not a thing.

Hatred or criticism of Toronto and Ontario at large is a thing. But that's a thing everywhere. It's a fundamental part of the Canadian identity.

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briga 4 minutes ago
If you don't think it's a thing then you're either not from here, or haven't been paying attention. The average Canadian's opinion of Alberta is also very telling, with most of the rest of the country seeming to despise the province, or think it's some sort of regressive backwater.
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swordlucky666 15 minutes ago
[dead]
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petcat 18 minutes ago
10% of the population produces nearly 20% of the country's GDP. That kind of lopsided representation is dangerous breeding ground for contempt, so this kind of thing is not really surprising. Will be interesting to see where it goes.

Nobody thought there was any realistic chance of the UK leaving the EU either...

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52-6F-62 14 minutes ago
By that framing you are saying that Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver should also all seek secession.

Likewise, you could say that NYC and LA should singularly secede from America by that same logic.

It doesn't track. There is no legal precedent. Alberta as an entity did not exist beyond Canada.

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petcat 11 minutes ago
> There is no legal precedent.

Legal precedent doesn't really matter here. If Alberta wants to leave and they're willing to fight a war over it, then that's up to them. USA already went through this once.

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boxed 6 minutes ago
I mean.. it's not like it's Alberta that produces the oil. Oil is concentrated in smaller places than that, so why shouldn't those places then separate from Alberta?
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petcat 2 minutes ago
From this article it sounds like it's the people of Alberta that want to vote on succession. Including the ones that don't literally live on an oil field.
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ecshafer 13 minutes ago
Alberta separating from Canada and splitting the country in half geographically would be the funniest thing. The idea of a judge blocking a referendum because they didn't consult indigenous groups enough is absurdity to the nth degree. I hope Alberta secedes, they would be welcome to join the USA, or just be independent.
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henry2023 54 seconds ago
Either this is sarcasm or you’re not old enough to use Internet.
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multiplegeorges 4 minutes ago
> blocking a referendum because they didn't consult indigenous groups

The requirement to do so is in our constitution, the Charter. It's not optional and not absurd to anyone with proper historical understanding of Canadian history.

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armenarmen 14 minutes ago
I met a Québécois woman years ago that said their own independence movement was shut down in part because of new immigrants to Canada not wanting to leave the commonwealth. No clue if that’s right or not. But given how much of a cash cow the western provinces are for Canada, and the mega spike in immigration it makes me wonder
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nonethewiser 6 minutes ago
Thats not hard to believe. An immigrant wouldnt be a part of some native separatist movement.
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croes 3 minutes ago
Blaming immigrants … never gets old, does it?
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dgellow 7 minutes ago
Maybe look for information instead of sharing uninformed opinions on a random anecdote?
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