There has been a growing separatist movement in recent years in the oil-rich province, fuelled in part by a belief that it is overlooked by decision-makers in Ottawa.<\/p>\n
Opinion polls suggest that the majority of Albertans would vote against separating, with about 25% saying they support independence. A pro-unity petition gathered some 400,000 signatures earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Still, pressure had been building on Alberta’s leader, Danielle Smith, to hold an independence referendum this year. A petition calling for separation recently gathered more than 300,000 signatures – enough needed to trigger a vote.<\/p>\n
But a successful legal challenge earlier this month by First Nations groups in the province halted the process of verifying petition signatures and placed the plebiscite in limbo.<\/p>\n
The judge ruled that the Alberta government, which approved the petition, failed in its duty to consult with indigenous Albertans.<\/p>\n
Smith has said she disagrees with the court decision and, while it prevents her from moving forward with a binding referendum now, she believes Albertans want a say in the matter.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, she announced that citizens will vote 19 October on whether the province should remain in Canada or whether the provincial government should begin the legal process required to hold a binding referendum at a later date on Alberta independence. <\/p>\n
“I will not have a legal mistake by a single judge silence the voices of hundreds of thousands of Albertans,” Smith said. “Alberta’s future will be decided by Albertans, not the courts.”<\/p>\n
In the meantime, her government is appealing the court ruling, she said, noting it could be a lengthy legal battle. <\/p>\n
The premier said she will vote in favour of Alberta remaining a part of Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There has been a growing separatist movement in recent years in the oil-rich province, fuelled in part by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-598893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}