{"id":683450,"date":"2026-05-21T04:54:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T04:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/683450\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T04:54:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T04:54:17","slug":"alberta-separatists-threaten-to-oust-premier-danielle-smith-over-referendum-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/683450\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta separatists threaten to oust Premier Danielle Smith over referendum question"},"content":{"rendered":"

Political rhetoric is ramping up ahead of a planned fall referendum in Alberta.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOur view is Danielle (Smith) needs to make a decision: Is she going to support Mister Lukaszuk, or is she going to support her base? What we are saying is she needs to understand that if she abandons her base or betrays her base, there will likely be political consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the threat from Jeffrey Rath, lawyer for the Alberta Prosperity Project<\/a>, the group that said it collected more than 300,000 signatures on a citizen\u2019s petition calling for a referendum on the province\u2019s independence from Canada.<\/p>\n

However, the petition, which proposed the question: \u201cDo you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?,\u201d was recently rejected by the courts over a lack of consultation with First Nations.<\/p>\n

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Instead, in an effort to appease party\u2019s supporters, many political analysts expect Smith to call a referendum on the question asked in the Forever Canadian petition.<\/p>\n

That petition, which was spearheaded by former Alberta MLA and deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk, asks, \u201cDo you agree that Alberta should remain within Canada?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJeffrey Rath, lawyer for the Alberta Prosperity Project, vows \u201cthere will be consequences\u201d if Premier Danielle Smith holds a referendum in October using the question in the pro-federalist \u201cForever Canadian\u201d citizens petition.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the question that the separatists want because it\u2019s an affirmative question,\u201d said Mount Royal political scientist Duane Bratt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a positive question. But it\u2019s better than having no referendum question.\u201d<\/p>\n

He expects Smith to announce her plans during a paid, province-wide television address on Thursday.<\/p>\n

However, Alberta\u2019s journey toward holding a fall referendum vote on separation took a bizarre turn Wednesday, when a bipartisan committee meeting of MLAs established to review Lukaszuk\u2019s question imploded after UCP caucus sent out a premature news release announcing the vote had taken place and the motion had passed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1:49
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlberta separatism proponent wants UCP to call referendum\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

For Rath, choosing to put the pro-Canadian question on a referendum ballot amounts to a betrayal of the many Albertans who are separatists, but chose to support Smith as leader of the UCP.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think people within the UCP, you\u2019re sick and tired of being lied to. Danielle promised that if we jump through the hoops, and if we got all the signatures and did what we were supposed to do, our question would be on a ballot this fall,\u201d Rath said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re tired of being lied to by this premier about the fact that she has our interests at heart, because it\u2019s clear that she doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

To the political analysts Global News spoke with, the threats to Smith\u2019s job are very real.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tFeo Snagovsky, assistant professor of political science at the University of Alberta, says Smith faces the conflicting responsibilities of responding to the general public and to members of her cabinet, many of whom favour Alberta\u2019s independence.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Feo Snagovsky, assistant professor of political science at the University of Alberta, said while Smith has done a \u201creally good\u201d job of managing the sometimes conflicting demands of separatists and federalists within the UCP, those issues are now coming to a head.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe know that close to a majority, if not a majority, of supporters of the UCP support Alberta becoming an independent country \u2014 and the other half does not,\u201d said Snagovsky.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the public opinion polling we have available to us suggests that it still remains a minority position among Albertans, and she\u2019s facing this tension between trying to stay responsive to the general electorate and the popular will, on one hand, and on the other hand trying to make sure that she retains her job and she stays responsive within her political party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other political observers agree.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pressure cooker and heavy is the head that wears the crown,\u201d said Michael Solberg, who is a partner at New West Public Affairs and admits to being a card-carrying member of the UCP.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the premier probably wakes up every day with extraordinary new challenges that she has to face from members of her caucus, the Opposition and now certainly the far fringe of her party \u2014 which is increasingly becoming the majority of her party, at least per the threats coming from groups like Jeffrey Rath is leading,\u201d Solberg said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to discount the risks to the premier that the separatist groups have, especially if they start buying up all the memberships, but the premier is no slouch,\u201d Solberg added.<\/p>\n

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\u201cShe\u2019s a fighter. There\u2019s a lot of institutional strength behind her, and I think people who underestimate her do so at their own peril.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Smith does call a referendum on the \u201cForever Canadian\u201d citizen\u2019s petition, Rath said separatists are already planning their attempt to oust the premier \u2014 as was done with her predecessor Jason Kenney.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re asking all of the people that signed (our) petition and all of our canvassers to organize themselves to sell memberships across the province, because if our question is not put on a ballot by the end of the month, we\u2019re going to be organizing a special general meeting of the of the United Conservative Party for August,\u201d Rath said.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDanielle Smith rejects judge\u2019s ruling to quash Alberta separatism petition as \u2018anti-democratic\u2019\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Political rhetoric is ramping up ahead of a planned fall referendum in Alberta. \u201cOur view is Danielle (Smith)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7611,35933,25159,25158,49,48,28598,44,714],"class_list":["post-683450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta-legislature","tag-alberta-prosperity-project","tag-alberta-referendum","tag-alberta-separatism","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-forever-canadian","tag-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}