Smith urges Albertans to ‘remain in Canada’ while PM Carney says ‘let’s move forward together’: Live updates

Just days ahead of Alberta’s referendum, members of the province’s governing party are split on how they’ll vote on the separation question. 

Premier Danielle Smith has said she will vote to remain, while UCP MLA Jason Stephan has publicly confirmed he voted in favour of moving toward a future independence referendum.

Melanee Thomas, a political science professor at the University of Calgary, said Albertans have received little of the public debate they would typically expect from elected officials ahead of a major political decision.

“Have we seen anything that looks remotely close to any kind of campaign that we would see in a general election?” Thomas said. “The answer is no.”

She argues the lack of a clear, public campaign reflects the divisions within the UCP itself.

“I think it’s because it would break the party if they actually had a campaign on it,” Thomas said.

“Because those divisions would be clear and public, and they’d fight about it.”

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One former Conservative premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney hopes that debates and federalist rallies will encourage people less likely to vote to cast their ballot in Monday’s referendum.

“I hope that gets what we call low propensity voters, people less likely to vote to get out on Monday,” Jason Kenney said in a Friday in an interview with CTV News Channel.

He added that it was important as a “democratic exercise,” but also that “the higher the turnout, the higher the vote for Canada.”

However, Kenney did admit that rallies could negatively impact a separation vote. He cited his conversations with insider federalists on the 1995 Quebec independence referendum.

“The consensus is that it was probably net unhelpful. Actually, Marc-Andre Blanchard, (Prime Minister Mark Carney’s) chief of staff, was a big organizer in the ‘No’ campaign,” Kenney said. “He told me that he thought it was counterproductive.”

“They probably lost a point or two after that … it was a razor thin edge that kept Quebec in Canada that night.”
Kenney said that too much out-of-province pressure felt like the rest of the country “butting their nose into Quebec’s business, telling them what to do.”

Smith said that although she and Carney often disagree publicly on several issues, the two agree on Question 10 of the referendum ballot: “We are voting for option one to remain in Canada.”

Smith said that despite being skeptical of Carney when he first took office, their relationship has yielded some “real change” over the past 18 months and will only get “better from here.”

The Alberta premier identified what she called “seven out of nine bad laws” that she and Carney have worked to address. She also pointed to the Pacific Link pipeline, high-speed rail, water and housing deals, defence agreements and judges recently appointed to the province’s high courts.

Smith emphasized that when Canada and Alberta work together in areas where they agree, both are stronger.
“I think that this is now a time, a moment in Canadian history, where we are going to be able to work side-by-side. I feel for the first time in a long time, Alberta and Canada are walking together,” she added.

Carney greeted supporters at a rally in Red Deer, Alta., on Friday with handshakes and smiles alongside Premier Smith.

The two sang “O Canada” with the crowd before Carney took the microphone to deliver remarks about lessons he’s learned from working collaboratively with Smith and the province.

“We have real threats to our sovereignty that come both physically, and those are growing over time, but also virtually, and we know what those are, and we have to stand up and meet them,” he told the crowd.

Carney reminded the Albertans to head to the polls Monday to stand up for Canada.

“Let's move forward together. Because we, as a country, are just getting started now,” he added.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre shared a message with Albertans ahead of Monday’s referendum vote: “Don't leave your fellow Canadians behind. Lock arms with them.”

Poilievre, a Calgarian himself, delivered a lengthy speech at the Canada Strong and Free conference in Calgary on Friday, telling the crowd that “quitting is the easy way out, and Albertans are not quitters.”

“We don't walk away. We stand and fight for what we believe in, and we reflect upon all that we have.”

He went on to emphasize that while it's easy to focus on the flaws of the country, Albertans should remember that Canada has allowed the province the freedom to fulfill its potential and become at times “the richest place anywhere on Earth.”

A University of Calgary professor says the Canada-Alberta pipeline agreement signed by Smith and Carney in November 2025 is a “parchment sign,” saying it was “almost meaningless.”
“The amount of preliminary work that has to be done before there is anybody digging a trench to put some pipe in, is just enormous,” Barry Cooper told BNN Bloomberg on Friday. “I don't think many people here actually rely on that MOU.”
Cooper said even if the vote is rejected, the issue surrounding separation is “not going away” because the problems between Canada and Alberta are “structural.”
He says he doesn’t see Canada "ever wanting to negotiate” with Alberta, referring to the separation debate.
“I don't see that it's part of their DNA, just as it's part of the DNA of a political DNA of Albertans to object to it,” Cooper said. 

A former Alberta deputy premier says Albertans do not want the referendum.
Albertans want to prove that they “will not be the weak link in Confederation,” Thomas Lukaszuk, founder of Forever Canadian, a provincial pro-unity movement, told CTV News Channel.
He referenced polls that showed 80 per cent of respondents want “nothing to do with the referendum.”
“We simply got caught up in a political gamesmanship served to us by the current provincial government,” he said.
Residents want to move on and focus on issues like healthcare, education, national security.
“These referendum questions are a distraction,” he described, “... and they have been very damaging.” 

The number of ballots cast in Alberta’s referendum surpassed one million on Thursday.

That was after 174,500 votes were cast on the first day of advanced polls on Tuesday, 186,700 votes were cast on Wednesday, and 168,200 votes were cast on Thursday, for a total of 529,400 votes over three days of advance polls.

Additionally, some 491,000 special ballots have already been processed, pushing the grand total of cast referendum ballots to 1.02 million — or one third of Alberta’s roughly three million eligible voters.

Speaking to a crowd of Albertans on Thursday, Carney joked about comments from U.S. ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra, warning Canadian politicians against political interference  in U.S. midterms.

During the pro-Canada rally, Carney was met with loud cheers and applause after telling the audience that the Pacific Link pipeline will create more than 140,000 jobs and reduce Canada’s dependence on the U.S.

“Careful! Careful!” Carney said with a smile, “they might think that's election Interference. Just saying.”

“They're a little touchy down there. We're not. We're getting on with it,” he joked.

His response came days after Hoekstra in an interview with “The Really Big Show” podcast, suggested the actions of several Canadian politicians, including Industry Minister Mélanie Joly, could amount to interference in close American races just weeks before the crucial midterm elections.

A former Conservative MP says he expects the party leader’s keynote speech at the Canada Strong and Free Conference to echo what the prime minister delivered the night before.

“This is the final in what has been a series of unity speeches that Pierre has made in this province,” Damien Kurek, principal with Upstream Strategy Group, a public relations group. 

He said he expected Poilievre to repeat Prime Minister Mark Carney’s acknowledgement of how past policies have set Albertans against the rest of the country.

“Representing a Alberta riding, he understands and hears from folks on the ground what those frustrations are,” he said.

“... It then creates the framework that is possible to say, look, the federation can in fact work,” he said.  

Experts say no matter the outcome of Monday’s vote, nothing tangible will change the next day for either Alberta or the rest of Canada.

“It’s almost irrelevant because they’re not binding,” Concordia University economics professor Moshe Lander told CTV News from Calgary. “They don’t actually mean anything in terms of Confederation, in terms of the Constitution, in terms of law.”

Any changes to the Constitution are complicated, with many on Alberta’s list requiring support of seven provinces that represent at least 50 per cent of Canada’s population. Abolishing the Senate would require consent of all 10 provinces, the House of Commons and the Senate itself.

While no tangible change is expected next week in any referendum outcome, whether a message from a potential “yes” vote to the other nine could resonate with Canadians elsewhere is a different question.

Abigail Bimman, CTV National News, Correspondent,

Both in Alberta and nationwide, the focus of Monday’s referendum has been on the question of separation. But that’s just one of 10 questions being put to Albertans.

In a variety of camps, the others are referred to as “the nine.” Alberta’s Voice, a grassroot remain campaign, has a “no to the nine” lawn sign, while some separatists, frustrated with Premier Danielle Smith, are promoting their own boycott with the phrase “decline the 9.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney weighed in on the topic for the first time Thursday and encouraged a Calgary crowd to make sure they mark their ballots, “including, ‘No to the Nine.’”

Smith responded in a social media post repeating her counter message of “yes to the rest.”

The nine questions themselves can be split into two groups: Four ask whether the province should work to change Canada’s Constitution, on topics ranging from abolishing the Senate to allowing provinces to opt out of federal programs, such as health care, without losing federal funding.

The other five are connected to immigration, including whether the province should have more control over the system in Alberta, and whether it should charge a fee to those with a “non-permanent immigration status” for health care and education.

Abigail Bimman, CTV National News, Correspondent, Read the full article here

Prime Minister Mark Carney told thousands rallying in Calgary on Thursday night that Albertans should vote to keep the province in Canada, arguing that failing to do so will cause “deep division and great uncertainty.”

Carney spoke at a Forever Canadian rally ahead of Monday’s referendum on the whether the province should stay in Confederation or hold a second, binding referendum on separation.

Many in the cheering crowd wore red and white, hoisted hockey sticks with Canadian flags and sported Team Canada jerseys. The Prime Minister’s Office estimated at least 5,000 in attendance.

“The stakes are high,” said Carney adding the referendum comes at the worst possible time.

The world has become more dangerous and divided, he said, and some outside Canada’s borders are working to “break us so they can own us.”

“At this pivotal moment, Albertans have a choice: to build a stronger Alberta and an even greater Canada to leave for our children or we can burden them with years of deep division and great uncertainty.

“What we need is a decisive result on Monday to settle this question.”