By Staff Reporter
EDMONTON, Alta. — Albertans vote Monday on whether their province should begin the legal process toward a binding vote on leaving Canada. Prime Minister Mark Carney spent his last two days of campaigning there warning that the country’s unity is under pressure from beyond its borders.
“Some outside our borders are working to break us so they can own us. Never. Never,” Mr. Carney told a pro-Canada rally in Edmonton on Friday, the Associated Press reported. He did not name the United States in that line. But he has done so in past speeches, and the warning comes amid U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods and President Donald Trump’s repeated remarks about making Canada the 51st state.
What is on the ballot
The referendum is not a direct vote on independence. Voters will mark ten ballots when polls open at 9 a.m. Monday. Five questions deal with immigration and four with proposed constitutional changes, according to a CBC News guide. The tenth asks:
“Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”
Voters pick one of two options. The result is not binding. A vote for the second option would only start a longer process. Under Canada’s Clarity Act and a 1998 Supreme Court ruling on Quebec, a clear majority on a clear question would oblige Ottawa and the provinces to negotiate. It would not create a new country by itself.
One of the immigration questions will sound familiar in Western New York. Question 5 asks whether voters should have to show proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, to vote in provincial elections. That is the same kind of debate playing out in Washington and, as in Niagara County, in county legislatures on this side of the border.
An unusual alliance
Premier Danielle Smith, a conservative who called the referendum, says she wants Alberta to stay. “I’ll be voting for Option 1 to remain in Canada on question 10,” she posted on X Wednesday. “I’m voting Option 1 because standing up for Alberta and refusing to back down is working.”
She says Mr. Carney, a Liberal, has substantially addressed seven of the nine federal laws Alberta opposed, and the two appeared together Friday in Red Deer. “For the first time in a long time, Alberta and Canada are walking together,” Ms. Smith said. They still disagree on the other nine questions. She wants voters to approve them, and he has urged voters to reject them.
Ms. Smith has cited a poll showing 22% of Albertans support separation, a figure she said was still too high. Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre also urged Albertans to stay. “Don’t leave your fellow Canadians behind. Lock arms with them,” he said Friday.
Mr. Carney, who grew up in Edmonton, acknowledged the grievances driving the movement. “The frustrations that many Albertans have felt are real,” he told a crowd his office put at about 5,000 in Calgary on Thursday, according to the AP. He also warned against a protest vote. “This is not poker. A vote against Canada is a dangerous bluff that will lead to years of deep division and great uncertainty,” he said.
The separatists’ case
Independence supporters say the deals between Ottawa and Edmonton do not go far enough. Tanya Clemens, co-chair of the group Let Alberta Decide, called them “pinky promises.” Keith Wilson, another leader of the group, rejected Mr. Carney’s argument that a dangerous world makes this the wrong time. “The worst timing for this, why? I don’t understand what’s the logic,” he told the AP.
Mr. Wilson predicted that Ottawa will eventually tax oil exports to the United States as leverage in the trade war, even though Mr. Carney has said he sees no value in that. “It’s one cabinet meeting away,” he said.
Where Washington stands
The Trump administration says it is staying out. “No, we’re not meeting with the separatists and strategizing this at all,” U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra told Global News in July. “We’ve made it very clear we are not going to take a position on that. That’s a decision that has to be made by the people of Alberta, the province of Alberta, and the federal government.”
That is a break from past American practice. During the run-up to Quebec’s 1995 referendum, President Bill Clinton told Parliament that “Canada has stood for all of us as a model of how people of different cultures can live and work together in peace, prosperity and respect.”
Other remarks from Washington have fed suspicion in Canada. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in January that Alberta is a “natural partner for the U.S.” “The Albertans are a very independent people,” he said on a podcast, Global News reported. “They want what the U.S. has got.” The Financial Times reported that leaders of the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project met three times with State Department officials, and the group has said it also met with Treasury officials about a possible line of credit for an independent Alberta. Asked about a line of credit, Mr. Hoekstra said, “no, not that I know of.”
Why it matters here
For Buffalo and Niagara, Canada is not an abstraction. It is a neighbor, a customer and a supplier. Canada is the largest single source of U.S. petroleum imports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and Alberta holds most of Canada’s proven oil reserves. A long fight over the province’s future would bring more uncertainty to a cross-border economy already hurt by tariffs and fewer visitors.
A clear vote to stay could settle the question for years, which is what Mr. Carney is asking for. “Don’t let anyone tell you this is already decided. Turnout will determine the outcome,” he said Friday.
The Buffalo Chronicle will report the results Monday night.
Featured photo: The Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton. Photo by D. Benjamin Miller via Wikimedia Commons, released under CC0.
Editor’s note: This story’s headline and wording were revised on Oct. 23, 2026, for balance and accuracy.
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