On an unrelated note: The news (if true) now (Thu Sep 17 14:30:09 MDT 2026) coming out of Iran suggests that Trump et al will sweep the mid-terms as Iran becomes an American allied democracy, peace becomes possible for Israel, and world energy markets settle down to wait for winter to finish off the Ukrainians - while Canada's prime minister, Mark Carney, who bet the country on Trump losing, can stick his thumb up his whatever and go away. Please God let it be so!
Back on topic
There are actually ten questions on the Alberta referenda vote now scheduled for October 19th, 2026. Number 10 on the list is:
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?Option 1: Alberta should remain a province of Canada.
Option 2: The Government of Alberta 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.
The wording here is the kind of compromise worked out in committees where two opposed groups, in this case the smart but dishonest people who dislike premier Danielle Smith and not very smart, but ideologically motivated, people who dislike Ottawa, dominate the conversation. As a result it is both self consciously politically correct and ambiguous in the sense that it does not offer an either/or choice.
In fact the right way for Albertans to win on the referendum is to select both options: saying Yes, Alberta should stay in Canada AND Yes, we should prepare to leave.
Suggesting that Albertans should write-in Yes votes for both options raises many issues - let me partially unpack some of the major ones:
- What does "win for Albertans" mean?
Ottawa has, for decades, treated Alberta (and Saskatchewan) as colonies to be exploited at will. Ottawa's equalization program, for example was originally (circa 1928) intended to ensure that all Canadian children had access to similar levels of education - but became, primarily at the hands of the first Trudeau (1968+ ) a mechanism for extracting monies from the west to pay-off Quebec. Right now, and for the last few decades, net transfers from Albertans to Ottawa amount to well over $4,000 per person, per year - and when our budget got clobbered by the oil price plunge in 2008/9 Ottawa responded by offering Edmonton and Calgary financing and credits for mass transit products made in Quebec.
What a "win for Albertans" means, therefore, is simply fair treatment for Alberta - to be included on an equal political and financial footing with the other provinces.
- Counting issues
Elections Alberta (the agency administering the referenda) will consider ballots in which both options are selected as spoiled and not count them.
Let them. If a significant share of the vote is considered spoiled, the message is nevertheless very clear: yes to Canada, no to the abuse.
- "self consciously politically correct"?
The second option includes the words "the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution" - but this is nonsense. Canada does not have a constitution in the American sense. We have a "Constitution Act" full of nice, high falutin, claims right alongside opt-out clauses for government - meaning that it binds the people, but not government. In a sense it's classic liberal perfidy: all pretense and the exact opposite of the American ideal that the constitution is the people's tool for limiting what government can do.
Worse, it's simply wrong: the constitution act doesn't cover the issue - see Too Clever by Half Why Ottawa's Clarity Act Helps Neither Side in Alberta's Separation Debate for much more on this.
- Why not just vote to have the province start the process toward independence?
Because that option is going to lose by something like an 80:20 margin - and that loss will lead Ottawa to do what abusers always do when they get away with it: double down on the abuses. In fact voting now to stay in Canada without also voting to put the framework in place for a vote on leaving almost guarantees the eventual breakup of the country as abuses and resentments both increase.
- But Yes AND yes? isn't that absurd?
Yes, but it reflects the ambiguity of the question - the reality is that an easy majority of Alberta voters want to stay in Canada but also want fair treatment - and we won't get that without holding the independence gun to Ottawa's collective head.
Remember: people say the independence threat works for Quebec and should work for us, but that's actually a significant understatement. The reality is that most of Canada would be better off without Quebec, but none of it can survive without Alberta.
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