The federal Conservatives have launched a campaign to engage their supporters and encourage them to vote to stay in Canada in the upcoming Alberta referendum.
Albertans are set to vote on Oct. 19 on whether they want to remain a province or begin the legal process to hold a binding referendum on leaving the country.
In a speech he delivered in Calgary this summer, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called for Albertans to stay united and argued that separatists have a problem not with Canada but with the Liberal government.
“We don’t need a different country in Alberta, we need different government policies in Ottawa,” Poilievre said on June 8.
Parkland MP Dane Lloyd was named the caucus lead on the remain campaign.
“We are engaging conservative Albertans with a message, and the message is not that everything’s all right,” he said in an interview on Friday.
“We know the status quo needs to change. But our problem is not with Canada.”
He said Albertans feel like “their voice isn’t being heard, that their values are not being respected” by the federal government.
That feeling persists, he said, in spite of the fact that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals cancelled the consumer carbon price, signed a memorandum of understanding with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on resource development and referred a West Coast pipeline for approval as a project in the national interest.
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Lloyd said the people he’s spoken with at roundtables “still view themselves as patriotic Canadians” but they’re frustrated with the way the province has been treated by federal governments dating back decades — with the exception of former prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.
At a time when national pride is growing stronger across the country as a result of the trade war with the United States, “we need to engage that patriotism,” Lloyd said.
Polls suggest the vast majority of Albertans want to remain in Canada.
Some of the groups actively lobbying for people to vote to begin the referendum process are arguing that a yes vote would create leverage with Ottawa.
Polling also suggests that separatism is primarily a right-wing issue and that a sizable amount of support for separation is coming from supporters of Smith’s United Conservative Party.
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Poilievre said earlier this summer that “all Conservatives will be campaigning for Canadian unity in Alberta.”
Poilievre has been in Alberta over the summer to attend the Calgary Stampede and a slate of events in his riding of Battle River-Crowfoot.
The Conservatives for Canada group launched a website on Friday and released a statement on social media.
Asked why the campaign was launched six weeks before the vote, and just over two weeks before MPs are set to return to Ottawa, Lloyd said he spent the summer meeting with people and it became clear that a concerted campaign was needed.
“As you know, during referendums the voter turnout can be very low. And I think it’s critically important that we engage at least the 1.4 million Albertans that voted Conservative in the last election to get out and vote for a stronger Alberta within a United Canada,” he said.
Elections Alberta said this week it is anticipating high turnout.
The provincial elections agency said it’s received 290,000 requests for mail-in ballots so far, and that its polling suggests voter turnout could reach a record-breaking 85 per cent.
Lloyd said the “grassroots campaign” is operating within Elections Alberta’s rules.
The campaign website prominently features donation buttons and offers information about how to vote and to volunteer.
— With files from Jack Farrell, The Canadian Press
Why bother? It’s not like they have any pull in the HoC. Regarding the MOU, so far it’s just LPC lip service.
Why is PP still talking about repealing bill c-48, the west coast tanker ban?
the route for a pipeline to prince rupert has already been nixed.
he is very disrepectful to the coastal first nations to keep pushing for a pipeline to that area, endangering their livelihood and traditions.
carney has agreed to a trajectory to the south, respecting the wishes of coastal FN promising them that he will not repeal c-48, so, whyis PP still beating this drum? PP will never be PM
It is unfortunate that the conservatives in Canada have done this to themselves as they did not try to shut down the separatist talk out of Alberta which turned the rest of the country against them and also being compared to MAGA by the media. These two items have destroyed the conservative movement in Canada so much that they will never win a federal election for some time.
The Conservatives need to realize that the majority of Canadian want to stay in Canada except for the separatists in Quebec and Alberta. To win any upcoming election they need to change their image a lot and work harder to win over Canadians! They need to change their image East of Manitoba as that is where the votes to win come from. Eastern Canada does not care about the west and if they truly did we would have pipelines to the east years ago and the Canadian trade barriers between provinces would have been dropped years ago as well.
If and when that happens then maybe this country could be while again instead of the mess we live in today!
I blame all governments from the past regardless of them either being Conservative or Liberal. Also the fact that we allowed a separatist federal party(BLOC QUÉBÉCOIS) to hold a position of power to have a say in Canadian politics.
To change the Conservative leadership will do nothing as well until the party takes a hard look at what they want to portray to Canadians and Canada as a whole.
Change can’t be worse that the status quo. Chances are better in a life boat than going down with the ship on the captain’s say so.
Aks the seprtists
These comments here are ridiculous. The phony Conservatives and Reformers in Alberta cheated us out of our oil and tax wealth that Peter Lougheed intended us to have. Pierre Poilievre wants to preserve his position in politics, so now he is speaking out against separation.
All Canadian Conservatives should move to Alberta. We separate, build a safe,law abiding economic powerhouse of a Nation while the rest of Canada degrades to a slum level Liberal wonderland and then one day,without warning ,we strike,take the balance of Canada while driving the Liberals west to the Pacific and set them afloat to their admired partner China.
We will be the Greatest Nation on Earth
Ya don’t have to be rocket scientist to see canada is a toilet bowl full of turd, brain dead libbys will never see the light
geez. an elbows up pants down getting bum holed idiot. -what’s wrong with you??? worried about your family being deported no more free money ??
well of course, with out Alberta, there would be no more washing money by donations to other countries, who is going to support all them immigrants??
Geez!!
All of you smart A## separatists, just MOVE to the US already!! Unless you’re ALL to scared of Donald Duck!!?? Go ahead, what’s stopping you, if you think the US is better and will listen to all of your Whinings!??
For once the Conservatives are going in the right direction!
Better the US strip mines oilsands and provides hundreds of thousands of jobs than Ottawa sits there with cucumber up their azz
Alberta separation is Quebec 2.0. Read the “plan”, it’s full of ifs and maybes and to be negotiated – all dependant on the rest of Canada just going along. Now Polly trying to get some attention after he’s basically faded into the wallpaper for months. Smith has manipulated this situation and likely would be happy to be Governor of the Great State of Alberta while the US strip mines the place.
All federalists are worried their ATM is leaving.
Like an spouse that has been abused for years and wants to leave the relationship. There is always someone that says “Stick it out a while longer, things should get better”
Danielle smart, pp not so much
Luv Danielle, hate pp
Federal cons are losing while con supporting AB is still within Canada.
Just imagine if somehow AB was no longer part of Canada…