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Last Notes

2026-10-21 10:26:51 GMT

Danielle Smith to disgruntled separatists, federalists: Thanks everyone, let’s move on!
Standing behind a blue coroplast sign reading “Stronger Alberta within a united Canada” – surely a big step down from the heady days of a “Sovereign Alberta within a united Canada” – Premier Danielle Smith delivered a 12-minute, two-second postprandial peroration on her late, not-so-great separation referendum yesterday evening.
Forever Canadian petition proponent and unity campaign leader Thomas Lukaszuk, a former Progressive Conservative deputy premier (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).
In case you missed it because you were still digesting your dinner, or washing the dishes afterword, it can be summarized as follows: OK. Thanks everyone. Let’s move on!
Pay no attention to the $130 million we spent – were still spending as the premier spoke, actually – on the months-long exercise in uncertainty and bad faith intended to help the premier keep her misnamed United Conservative Party united behind her. We’ll be remaining in Canada, she explained, the Liberals in Ottawa are a changed government, and, um, and could we please just blame the referendum on Thomas Lukaszuk.
I paraphrase, of course. “The question whether Alberta should remain a province within Canada was put on the ballot because of Alberta’s citizen-initiated referendum process,” she explained, misleadingly. “Two petitions were put forward by the people and received hundreds of thousands of signatures from Albertans. Out of respect for that democratic process, that question was added to the referendum.”
This explanation has been spun beyond all recognition. Her government moved Heaven and Earth to get the secessionist Alberta Prosperity Project’s separation petition on the ballot and, when that failed thanks to a couple of court rulings, used the hard work of Mr. Lukaszuk’s Forever Canadian petition volunteers as an excuse to put a government-drafted separation question before us instead. The notorious referendum on a referendum, that is. The goal of the Forever Canadian effort was to block a separatist referendum, as Ms. Smith well knows.
Whatever Ms. Smith expected to say tonight when she booked the airtime, surely it wasn’t this: “At the end of it all, the people of Alberta cast their votes in an open and democratic referendum, and the resulting vote from Albertans has given our government a clear mandate. Alberta will remain a province of Canada.”
Alberta NDP Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).
Anyway, she went on, that’s not a problem because thanks to her – erm, us – the federal government has changed, even if the party in charge didn’t. “Both the federal Conservatives and federal Liberals are united in supporting Alberta and our key industries in a manner we haven’t seen in a generation.”
“Only the marginal voices in the NDP and Green Party say otherwise,” she added, a sly dig at the Opposition Alberta NDP led by former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, which appears to have edged past the UCP thanks to nonpartisan blowback from the referendum.
Tweeted Mr. Lukaszuk moments after the premier’s image disappeared from our screens: “I can’t decide whether I like the last week’s tearful Danielle Smith that coddled separatists and MAGA, or today’s Danielle who appears to have bought a federal Liberal membership and became Captain Canada. Would the real Danielle please stand up!”
Ms. Smith again: “I want to make it clear tonight that for as long as I am premier, I will honor this mandate from Albertans and will not be holding another referendum on this issue.” This was presumably meant to be reassuring – commercial media certainly saw it as the most important part of the story. But it was also a riposte to the threats by prominent separatists to move against Ms. Smith and replace her with one of their own as UCP leader.
Watch out, she seemed to be saying. You may not like me, but it could be worse!
Hand-counting of ballots was continuing as Ms. Smith spoke – a MAGA-inspired UCP policy that has slowed vote counting to a glacial pace – but she took the apparent narrow passage of most of her nine intentionally confusing policy referenda as permission to scapegoat immigrants for UCP failures and push ahead with meaningless constitutional fights with Ottawa.
Political scientist Keith D. Brownsey (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).
“Although results are still coming in, it appears that Albertans have directed the provincial government to take greater control over immigration, so we can moderate the extraordinary population growth our province has experienced,” she said. (That is, population growth that earlier in her mandate she was demanding that Ottawa facilitate.)
Some of the votes are close enough, though, that some results could still change. However, as noted in this space in the wee hours yesterday, all the questions are likely to be rendered meaningless by the fight that is soon to erupt over Ms. Smith’s continued leadership and the desire of a large percentage of the UCP’s remaining members to openly declare it to be a separatist party.
“We will be pursuing the reforms approved by Albertans through this referendum in the coming months and years ahead,” Ms. Smith promised, although how many years that might turn out to be remains to be seen.
Then she turned to trying to mollify the separatist cadres within her own party. “Many of you view Ottawa as having threatened your freedoms and blocked your path to prosperity, and I acknowledge the legitimate frustrations you felt, most especially during the Justin Trudeau-Liberal-NDP coalition years,” she said. “But I am convinced that the federal government is no longer targeting and trying to phase out and eliminate Alberta’s largest economic sectors as they attempted to do under the previous prime minister.” That is, the prime minister who bought Alberta a new pipeline to the West Coast.
Possible translation: It’s Trudeau’s fault! Please don’t dump me!
“She should resign,” said Calgary-based political scientist Keith D. Brownsey. “Smith is an embarrassment to the province and country. Nothing has changed.”
In its final moments, Ms. Smith’s address took a maudlin turn, lauding “our impossibly beautiful landscapes and coastlines, our sacred national anthem, our beloved national sport, our shared heritage and history” … Even Terry Fox got a mention!
At the end, it descended into pious drivel, sounding as if it might have been concocted by one of those AI data centres Ms. Smith so loves: “This is our province. This is our country. This is our home and our family. Our true north, strong and free. And together, I know we will keep Alberta and Canada forever strong and free!”
Fade to black. I didn’t make this up. Here’s the read-out.
https://albertapolitics.ca/2026/10/danielle-smith-to-disgruntled-separatists-federalists-thanks-everyone-lets-move-on/
https://i0.wp.com/albertapolitics.ca/wp-content/uploads/DanielleSmithMain-7.png?fit=1024%2C573&ssl=1
https://i0.wp.com/albertapolitics.ca/wp-content/uploads/Lukaszuk-20.jpeg?resize=250%2C364&ssl=1
https://i0.wp.com/albertapolitics.ca/wp-content/uploads/Nenshi-50.jpeg?resize=250%2C345&ssl=1
#daniellesmith #thankseveryone #alberta #forevercanadian #thomaslukaszuk #premier #let #strongeralberta #move #progressiveconservative
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