Albertans will head to the polls in October for what has been referred to as a “referendum on a referendum”. They will be asked to choose between two options: should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should their province begin the legal process to hold a binding referendum on whether Alberta should separate from Canada?

This was announced on May 21 in a televised address by Alberta’s premier, Danielle Smith – a politician who, in the same breath, said she would personally vote to stay. The question on whether Alberta should remain or separate will appear alongside other questions on immigration policy and constitutional changes.

There is support in Alberta for a referendum. Around 700,000 Albertans signed petitions in 2025 and 2026 calling for a vote about either remaining in Canada or separating. That is a remarkable number in a province of just over 5 million people.

The groups behind the petitions say they gathered enough votes to trigger a province-wide referendum on independence. However, the petitions were struck down by an Alberta court in December 2025 and May 2026 for infringing indigenous treaty rights.

Decades of grievances

Alberta sits on the fourth-largest proven oil reserves on the planet. And for decades, many people there have felt that the rest of Canada – particularly the federal government in Ottawa – has been drawing disproportionately on Alberta’s prosperity.

This anger traces back to 1980. That year, Canada’s then-prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, introduced the National Energy Program, capping........

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