Alberta must be ‘at the centre’ of making Canada better, Carney says
Prime Minister Mark Carney says Alberta “being at the center” of Canadian development is “essential,” after Premier Danielle Smith announced a referendum that will ask whether the province should leave Canada.
“Canada is working. We’re working in a spirit of cooperative federalism to make the country better. We’re renovating the country as we go, and Alberta being at the center of that is essential,” he said on Friday, speaking from the Library of Parliament in the Centre Block reconstruction site on Parliament Hill.
“Canada is the greatest country in the world, but it can be better. And we’re working on making it better. We’re working with Alberta on making it better.”
Albertans are set to go to the polls this fall to answer a series of referendum questions, including whether or not to vote — at a future date — to leave Canada.
Premier Danielle Smith, in a paid televised speech Thursday night, said the province will be adding a question to the Oct. 19 referendum she announced the last time she took to the airwaves back in February.The additional question will be: “Should Alberta remain a province of Canada or should the government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had said in comments on Thursday ahead of the Smith announcement that “all Conservatives will be campaigning for Canadian unity in Alberta.”
“We believe that Alberta deserves a fair deal in this country, which means that we unblock the resources, we allow the oil and gas sector to grow, we get the federal government off the backs and out of the way of Alberta workers and small businesses so the province can prosper,” he said.
Liberal MP Corey Hogan, currently representing the riding of Calgary Confederation, posted a statement on X, saying that Smith “is willfully ignoring the will of the vast majority of Albertans who want no part of this separatist conversation.”
“This baffling, referendum-on-a-referendum question will do nothing to settle anything. It adds another layer of confusion. It will divide. It will distract. It will damage.”
Conservative MP Dane Lloyd, who currently represents the Edmonton-area riding of Parkland, also posted on X that he will “stand up for my country in any referendum, and I will be campaigning for a united Canada.”
More to come.
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