{"id":698508,"date":"2026-05-28T03:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T03:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/698508\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T03:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T03:32:12","slug":"alberta-premier-contradicts-united-conservative-party-president-on-separation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/698508\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta premier contradicts United Conservative Party president on separation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith<\/a> is at odds with the president of her own party on the issue of the province quitting Canada.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rob Smith, the president of the United Conservative party, has said the UCP will not take a position on the upcoming referendum regarding whether Alberta should stay in Canada.<\/p>\n

Premier Smith, however, begs to differ.<\/p>\n

Speaking in a radio interview on Wednesday with host Shaye Ganam on QR Calgary and 880 CHED<\/a>, Smith said she is the one who speaks for the party, and the party\u2019s position is Alberta stays in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur party had as its founding principles that we support autonomy for Alberta within the United Canada. It\u2019s right in our founding principles \u2014 every one of my MLAs got elected on that,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s why I say that our party, our caucus and our government are on board with working on what we need to do to remain in Canada and to address the legitimate concerns that Albertans have.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Get<\/p>\n

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Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you’ll never miss the day’s top stories.<\/p>\n

The president of the UCP, who is not related to Danielle Smith, could not be immediately reached for reaction to the premier\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1:58
\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\tCarney warns Alberta separation referendum question is \u2018dangerous bluff\u2019\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

During the interview, Smith was also asked about some of the challenges that Alberta would face if the province eventually decided to separate from Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s massive startup costs. I mean, remember we have never had national defence. We don\u2019t have independent courts. Those would have be set up. We don\u2019t have border control. I don\u2019t know how many folks who go and regularly visit family in Saskatchewan and British Columbia would want to show passports and have to stop at border,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThese are the very practical things that they\u2019ve discovered in the United Kingdom, that none of the promises of windfalls panned out \u2014 but a whole bunch of irritations ended up coming up that prevented them from being able to expand trade, travel freely, work freely, own houses in Spain. Those are the things I want people to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can listen to Shaye Ganam\u2019s entire interview with Premier Danielle Smith at Global News online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Albertans will go to the polls on Oct. 19 to vote on whether to stay in Canada or begin the process to hold a second referendum on leaving.<\/p>\n

\u2013with files from Global News.<\/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\tWill Alberta\u2019s referendum result in a formal separation process?\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is at odds with the president of her own party on the issue of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[25159,25158,49,48,53105,44,714,53112],"class_list":["post-698508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta-referendum","tag-alberta-separatism","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-danielle-smith","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-ucp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698508","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=698508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}