Smith playing a ‘very strange game’ in referendum saga: Nenshi

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi discusses what to expect from Premier Smith’s address, a possible separation referendum question, and the political tensions sh

The leader of Alberta’s NDP says the Danielle Smith government has started a fire it has “no idea” how to control as the premier is expected to add a question on Alberta independence to the fall referendum ballot.

In an interview with CTV Power Play on Thursday, Naheed Nenshi said he expects Smith will add a 10th question concerning Alberta’s status in Confederation to October’s referendum.

That announcement, should it come, will be the culmination of a “very strange game” the premier has been playing with proponents of Alberta independence.

“For a year, almost two years now, the premier has been playing this very strange game as though she’s an innocent bystander in all of this and the separatists are forcing her hand,” Nenshi told CTV chief political correspondent Vassy Kapelos.

“In reality, she’s been driving the bus the whole time,” Nenshi said, adding “the separatists are the ones who got her elected” and that Smith now “owes them a referendum question.”

It’s been a long road to officially bring that question forward.

The catalyst happened last year, when Smith changed the province’s Citizen Initiative Act by lowering the threshold of signatures required to hold a referendum to 178,000, or 10 per cent of Alberta’s electorate.

Stay Free Alberta — the group led by Mitch Sylvestre, who worked as a key organizer to elect Smith in 2023 — surpassed that requirement and delivered more than 300,000 signatures for a petition calling for Alberta independence earlier this month.

That petition was quashed by an Alberta judge last week on the grounds it didn’t consult with First Nations.

Smith told reporters the court’s decision was an “error in law” and “anti-democratic” when it came down.

Many separation proponents pushed her to declare a question on separation under her power as premier — with many pointing out the premier faced a “political problem” of figuring out how to toe the line between her official stance of standing for a “sovereign Alberta within a united Canada” and appeasing those who elected her.

Nenshi said Smith is still trying to toe that line. On Thursday, a bipartisan legislative committee recommended the Alberta government include the question of whether Albertans should remain in Canada on the October referendum ballot.

“More than 400,000 Albertans signed (Thomas) Lukaszuk’s Forever Canadian petition,” a statement from the UCP caucus said on Thursday.

“Combined with the reported 301,000 who signed the Alberta independence petition, this means over 700,000 Albertans want — and deserve — the opportunity to have their voices heard in a referendum.”

But by including that question on the ballot based on the Forever Canadian petition, Nenshi said Smith is shielding her government for taking ownership of the question.

“She doesn’t want to take responsibility for this being the government’s question, so she’s trying to pin it on the pro-Canada forces,” he said.

With files from CTV News chief political correspondent Vassy Kapelos