On Monday, Albertans will be voting on whether the provincial government should “commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.”
While there are nine other questions on the ballot, including five focused on restricting immigration that I’ve argued elsewhere pose the most immediate threat to Alberta’s social fabric, much of the national news media’s focus has been on the indirect independence question.
Yet there’s been scant press coverage of what exactly is the “legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.”
Even though consistent polling indicates that this question is heading for a resounding defeat on Oct. 19, federalist campaigners caution that the ultimate result will hinge on turnout.
With that in mind, it’s worth asking what we might be getting ourselves into if turnout is depressed and the separatists are able to get the ball rolling on a binding independence vote.
Gerard Kennedy, a constitutional law professor at the University of Alberta, told The Orchard that there is no clear process for holding a binding secession referendum under the Canadian Constitution.
What the constitution does do is bind the provinces to federal legislation (although one of the four constitutional questions Albertans will be voting on is whether the province should collaborate with other provinces to give provincial laws supremacy in the event they conflict with federal legislation).
In the case of secession, the relevant federal law is the 2000 Clarity Act, which requires that an independence referendum have a question and outcome that reflects a clear majority of the popular will.
“Even if a clear majority on a clear question votes to leave, all that triggers is a duty to negotiate. It doesn't guarantee secession,” explained Kennedy.
He added that Premier Danielle Smith, who says she’s voting to remain in Canada, is “fishing” for a mandate to negotiate with the federal government and consult with First Nations “so that [if] we vote again, everyone can agree that the question was clear.”
First Nations leaders in Alberta, however, are unanimously opposed to Alberta separatism, citing their existing Treaty relationship with the federal government.
Under the Clarity Act, the House of Commons is required to debate and approve the wording and majority threshold of any independence referendum.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has opted not to do so in this case, since the referendum isn’t directly asking about secession, which Kennedy said he regards as the appropriate approach at this point in the process.
“The stakes of the question are not that high legally,” explained Kennedy. “They may be very high politically, but legally … this is just the start of a very long process.”
In political terms, he added, Carney’s lack of intervention “lowers the temperature in the room.”
If the vote to have a future vote is successful, the ball is in the provincial government’s court to conduct negotiations that conform to the Clarity Act.
“The federal government doesn't have to do anything,” said Kennedy. “To be totally honest with you, there will probably be political pressure upon it to negotiate in good faith with Alberta, but it doesn't have to agree to anything in particular.”
The act’s preamble refers to “negotiations that might lead to the secession of a province from Canada, and that could consequently entail the termination of citizenship and other rights that Canadian citizens resident in the province enjoy as full participants in Canada [emphasis added].”
Some of the separatist movement’s leading figures have identified the uncertainty of securing independence, even with a successful referendum, as a problem that will require the movement to build alliances with foreign powers, chief among them the U.S.
Dr. Dennis Modry, the disgraced heart surgeon and anti-vaxxer who co-founded the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project, has said that a successful secession vote should be immediately followed by a unilateral declaration of independence and international recognition from sympathetic foreign powers.
Separatist lawyer Jeff Rath has cited Argentina, Hungary and Israel as three “like-minded” governments that could recognize Alberta independence alongside the U.S.
Modry and Rath were part of a series of separatist delegations to the U.S. State Department last year, which offered the U.S. access to Alberta’s oil, water and pipelines in exchange for American assistance, per the Globe and Mail.
University of Calgary political theorist Barry Cooper, perhaps the leading separatist movement intellectual, has gone even further.
In an interview for my book, Dark Phoenix: The Rise, Fall, and Re-emergence of Danielle Smith, Cooper spoke candidly of separatists receiving “some help from the Americans.”
When asked what he meant by that, Cooper was unequivocal — “the army” — before emphasizing that he doesn’t see the need for an invasion.
“We are so subordinate to the United States in military affairs that it wouldn’t take anything more than a quiet word,” said Cooper.
Kennedy noted that while Albertans are being asked to pursue the legal route towards independence within the confines of Canadian jurisprudence, that isn’t the only conceivable pathway to independence.
He added:
If the Canadian government becomes unable to opt to exercise effective control in Alberta, and countries like the United States are recognizing an independent Alberta, and the Government of Alberta is operating as though it was an independent country, there comes to be a point where it looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck. We say that Alberta is legally an independent state. The way it became an independent state would be illegal, but at a certain point, de facto reality has got to make an appearance in this regard.
Kennedy emphasized that this would be a genuine risk if the referendum was a direct yes or no question on independence, which has been blocked by the Court of King’s Bench, pending an appeal by Alberta’s government and the separatist organization Stay Free Alberta.
“I don't think it's worth lighting our hair on fire about this, because I think the odds of a yes vote are so small. And because the question doesn't even purport to be a question on separation, I think it will be very difficult for this to happen,” said Kennedy.
“But is it something to be worried about for the future? Yeah, it absolutely is.”
Three quarters of Canadians support windfall tax on excess oil and gas profits from Iran War
A recent poll from Abacus Data shows that three-quarters of Canadians support a windfall tax on oil and gas companies’ excess profits from the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, and that these numbers are roughly consistent across every province.
Nationwide, 76% of Canadians say they either strongly support (41%) or moderately support (35%) it; meanwhile, just 11% either moderately oppose (7%) or strongly oppose (4%) it, and 14% say they don’t know.
Support is highest in the Atlantic provinces at 78% and lowest in Alberta, where it’s still 73%.
The youngest and oldest age groups were just as likely to support it, with 78% of those aged 18 to 29 and 60-plus expressing support. Seventy-six per cent of those aged 30 to 44 support the windfall tax, as do 71% of those aged 45 to 59.
The proposal has majority support across partisan affiliation, although self-identified Conservatives were least likely to express approval at 65%, compared to 83% of Liberals and 86% of New Democrats.
According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, by April 2026, oil and gas companies were on track to make $60 billion in excess profits from Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Rather than tax these profits, the federal government has suspended an excise tax on gasoline until 2027.
The Abacus poll also asked participants about how that policy has impacted them, with two-thirds of Canadians saying it had no discernible impact on their finances, one-fifth saying that it improved their finances and 14% responding that it negatively impacted their finances.
The poll, which was commissioned by Elbows Up for Climate, was conducted via an online survey of 2,762 Canadian adults from Sept. 18 to 23.
Elbows Up for Climate co-chair David Miller, a former Toronto mayor, said in an Oct. 15 news release that these figures show that removing gas taxes has been ineffective in addressing affordability concerns, and that there is an appetite for more aggressive action.
“Now is a crucial moment for our country. We can’t succeed by tinkering at the edges with measures such as the excise fuel tax pause,” said Miller.
“Instead, we need nation-building policies — and we can pay for them with an excess profits tax from companies generating billions more in windfall profits.”