In less than two weeks, Alberta will face a question that would have sounded unthinkable a generation ago. On October 19, voters in the province will decide whether to hold a referendum on leaving Canada. It is not yet a vote on separation itself, but a vote on whether to open that door.
Interest has been intense. Demand for mail-in ballots was so high that Elections Alberta moved up its application deadline. Not everything has gone smoothly: officials say more than 3,000 mail-in ballots were rejected because of errors in the packages. Premier Danielle Smith has defended the process that allows voters to correct those mistakes.
Smith herself says she will vote to keep Alberta in Canada. A recent poll put support for separation at about 22 percent, a number the premier said is still too high for her liking. She blames years of federal policy under former prime minister Justin Trudeau for hurting Alberta’s energy industry and feeding separatist anger.
A few weeks before the vote, Prime Minister Mark Carney travelled to Fort McMurray and, standing beside Smith, named a new oil pipeline to the West Coast, called Pacific Link, a project of national interest. For many Albertans, access to markets beyond the United States has long been at the heart of their frustration.
The question of leaving Canada is echoing elsewhere too. In Saskatchewan, Premier Scott Moe gave a firm no when Elon Musk publicly urged the province to separate. And in Quebec, the newly elected Parti Québécois has promised its own referendum on independence, though not before Donald Trump leaves office.
For Polish Canadians, many of whom came here seeking stability and a country that holds together, the coming weeks are worth watching closely. A vote in Alberta will not break Canada, but it will show how deep the cracks have become.
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