TORONTO: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she will allow a referendum on the province’s separation from Canada in 2026, but only if a citizen-led petition gathers enough signatures under new rules being pushed through the legislature.

“I do not support Alberta separating from Canada,” Smith said in a video address. “However, if a citizen-led petition managed to get the requisite number of signatures for such a question to be put to a referendum, the government would enable that for 2026.”

Smith’s remarks come after Canada’s Liberal Party secured a fourth consecutive term at the centre. In response, her United Conservative Party is proposing legislation to lower the threshold for citizen-initiated referendums. The changes would allow petitions to succeed with signatures from 10 per cent of eligible voters, down from 20pc, and would give organisers 120 days instead of 90 to collect them.

“A large majority of these individuals are not fringe voices to be marginalised or vilified. They are loyal Albertans. They are quite literally our friends and neighbours who have just had enough of having our livelihood and prosperity attacked by a hostile federal government,” Smith said. “They’re frustrated. And they have every reason to be.” Smith announced she will chair a new “Alberta Next” panel that will gather ideas through public town halls on how Alberta can protect itself from what she called federal economic incursions.

“It is likely we will place some of the more popular ideas discussed with the panel to a provincial referendum so that all Albertans can vote on them sometime in 2026,” she said. Her demands to the federal government include the repeal of environmental legislation that restricts pipelines and oil exports, a guarantee of unobstructed access to the Pacific, Arctic, and Atlantic coasts for resource shipping, and an end to equalisation transfers between large provinces.

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2025