ALBERTA
\nAlberta decides Monday if it wants to pursue a binding referendum on leaving Canada, with Prime Minister Mark Carney warning a separatist win would bring dangerous uncertainty during a trade war with the United States. Polls indicate less than a quarter of people in the western Canadian province support independence.
\nBut attention has focused on turnout in the days before the vote, and whether a motivated separatist camp could defy the polls, helped by complacent federalists. \u201cDon\u2019t let anyone tell you this is already decided. Turnout will determine the outcome,\u201d Carney told a rally on Thursday.
\nCarney, who grew up in Alberta, has called the referendum \u201ca dangerous bluff\u201d as US President Donald Trump imposes punishing tariffs and levels annexation threats aimed \u2014 the prime minister says \u2014 at breaking Canadian resolve. \u201cVote like Canada depends on it, because it does,\u201d Carney said.
\nAlberta has the world\u2019s fourth-largest proven oil reserves and separatist momentum has been driven by anger over Ottawa\u2019s management of the sector. Many Albertans loathed Carney\u2019s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, who they accused of trying to suppress oil production to advance his pro-climate agenda.
\n\u201cIf you want me to pinpoint who is responsible for the separatist sentiment, I think it\u2019s Justin Trudeau,\u201d Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told the Canadaland podcast this month. At a separatist rally in Edmonton on Saturday, 61-year-old Sandy Martel said people connected to the oil industry feel \u201crobbed, cheated (and) mistreated.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s time to stand up and say stop,\u201d she told media.
\nThe vote comes days after a fire at a military base in the province left at least four soldiers dead and wounded dozens, prompting a national outpouring of condolences. \u2018Huge uncertainty\u2019 Smith, a conservative, says she wants Alberta to remain in Canada but called the referendum to settle the divisive issue.
\nIf a majority votes to separate, she has pledged to move forward with a binding referendum. If the federalists win, Smith says the secession question should be considered closed. Analysts have compared Smith\u2019s tactics to those of former UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who had hoped to resolve the debate over Britain\u2019s European Union membership with a vote.
\nCarney led the Bank of England through the turmoil that surrounded Brexit, and issued a warning to Albertans about that experience on Thursday.
\n\u201cIt wasn\u2019t clear what \u2018Brexit\u2019 meant at the time,\u201d he told a Calgary television station. \u201cFor the next few years, while that was being determined, there was huge uncertainty, investments stopped, the economy started to underperform,\u201d he added, cautioning over unintended economic consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ALBERTA Alberta decides Monday if it wants to pursue a binding referendum on leaving Canada, with Prime Minister Mark Carney warning a separatist win would bring dangerous uncertainty during a trade war with the United States. Polls indicate less than a quarter of people in the western Canadian province support independence. But attention has focused …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":104578,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104584,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104559\/revisions\/104584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}