EDMONTON — Prime Minister Mark Carney called on Albertans on Friday night to vote to remain in Canada, in his second speech in as many nights at a Forever Canadian rally in Edmonton, as divisions inside the governing United Conservative Party came into focus.
Carney wrapped up a two-day trip ahead of Monday’s referendum, in which voters will decide whether to remain in Canada or hold a second, binding referendum to begin the process of separation. Albertans vote on ten Alberta referendum questions, and only the last asks about leaving the country. Earlier in the day in Red Deer, he and Premier Danielle Smith urged the province to “move forward together,” according to CTV News. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, speaking at a conference in Calgary, urged Albertans not to leave their fellow Canadians behind.
The pitch from Ottawa was blunt. “A vote against Canada is a dangerous bluff that will lead to years of deep uncertainty,” Carney said, in the headline of CTV’s video of the speech.
Smith’s own party is less settled. She has said she will vote for Option 1, which keeps Alberta in Canada. UCP MLA Jason Stephan, who represents Red Deer-South, has publicly confirmed he voted for Option 2, which would direct the government to begin the constitutional process toward a future binding referendum on separation, CTV News reported. Transportation and Economic Corridors Minister Devin Dreeshen declined to say how he would vote when asked on Friday.
Smith has called the UCP a “big-tent party” in which MLAs can hold different opinions. Stephan has argued that Option 2 does not necessarily mean supporting independence and wrote that it “puts Ottawa on notice.”
Melanee Thomas, a University of Calgary political science professor, said Albertans have seen little of the campaign they would expect from elected officials. “I think it’s because it would break the party if they actually had a campaign on it,” she said.
Elections Alberta words Option 2 as having the government “commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution” to hold a binding referendum on separation, and the order behind the question says the result is “not to be binding,” its referendum page states. CTV’s reports from Friday do not say how many UCP members or cabinet ministers would vote with Stephan, or whether a result that goes Smith’s way would settle the divisions.
