Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday that Alberta is “vital” to the country’s future, hours after the province’s leader moved the oil-rich region closer to a referendum on independence.
Separatists in the western province spent months gathering signatures to trigger a mandatory October vote to secede from the country.
On May 4, they submitted their petition to provincial officials, insisting they had collected more than enough names to force a vote under Alberta law.
But an Alberta judge shut down the process, saying the citizens’ plan was invalid because the secessionists failed to consult with indigenous groups whose rights could be threatened if the province seceded from Canada.
In a speech Thursday evening, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith called the judge’s decision “a mistake”, claiming it “interferes with the democratic rights of hundreds of thousands of Albertans”.
Smith, a conservative whose political coalition includes separatists, said he supported “Alberta remaining in Canada”.
