Premier Danielle Smith is being roundly criticized for proposing to ask Albertans the following question in October:
“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?”
In our view, this question is not the problem. Smith’s real error was making it far too easy for a small group of Albertans to hijack the political agenda in the first place.
We, like Smith, are proponents of direct democracy. There is virtue in letting citizens have a direct say on consequential policy or legal issues.
But the threshold that citizens must meet to force a government to act should be calibrated to the gravity of the issue at hand.
For example, there is currently a campaign underway in Alberta to ask Albertans if new coal mining should be permitted in the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
The threshold for succeeding with this petition is 177,732 signatures — the very same threshold that the independence group Stay Free Alberta needed to meet to compel the government to advance a secession referendum.
For context, this number represents 10 per cent of voters who cast a ballot in the prior provincial election, or just 3.5 per cent of Alberta’s total population.
That seems like an appropriate threshold to demand of voters concerned about issues such as coal mining or school funding. It is an absurdly low threshold to meet to achieve a referendum on the hugely consequential question of Alberta’s independence.
Until July 2025, Alberta’s laws applied a higher standard. Previously, the province required organizers to show the support of at least 20 per cent of all registered voters in at least two-thirds of all electoral ridings for a constitutional referendum proposal.
We’d argue that even that 20-per-cent threshold was too low for secession questions.
A more appropriate threshold would be 30 or even 40 per cent of voters across all ridings in the province.
If that standard sounds too exacting, that is exactly the point.
Consider by analogy the formula for amending Canada’s constitution. Some constitutional changes require agreement from Parliament and all ten provinces. Others require approval from Parliament plus at least seven provinces representing at least 50 per cent of Canada’s population.
Technically, constitutional amendment is possible using these formulas. Practically, everyone knows it is almost impossible to achieve — and so it has rarely been used.
If this all sounds unfair, consider global standards.
Nearly 80 per cent of the world’s constitutions, including about 75 per cent of the world’s democracies and semi-democracies, explicitly ban secession, according to a 2019 law journal article.
That’s right: most democracies forbid a group of their people from leaving, even if a majority of that group wants it.
While explicit bans might not be the answer, setting a clear and low threshold to secede certainly isn’t either. Doing so becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. It becomes the arsenal that any disaffected group can and inevitably will reach for at some point.
In Alberta’s case, it took less than a year for this to happen.
If Alberta and the rest of Canada can convince Albertans to vote in October against having a secession referendum, Alberta’s first next act should be to tighten up its petition rules.
Of course, doing so would only put out one fire in the country.
In Quebec, the separatist Parti Québécois is the frontrunner in the polls. The party’s leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, has promised to hold a sovereignty referendum during his first term if the party wins in October’s provincial election.
If the party walks away with a majority of seats and a majority of the popular vote, the party will be well within its rights to hold a referendum on secession. If it secures a mere plurality, the right response is far less clear.
When Quebec held its two prior separation referendums, in 1980 and 1995, it had a mandate from voters to do so.
In both cases, the Parti Québécois had won the provincial election on a platform that included an explicit pledge to hold a sovereignty referendum. In both cases, the party had won majorities (although the PQ’s win in 1976 was a decisive knockout, whereas the PQ won the most seats in 1994, but not the popular vote).
The point is: the PQ had a clear legislative mandate to proceed with a referendum in those cases.
This is what Smith is effectively seeking now with the question she is putting to voters in October.
That is not crazy. The crazy decision was making it so easy for a small group to throw all Albertans and Canadians into a state of uncertainty.
