B.C. Premier David Eby pulled no punches on Thursday, discussing the push for independence within Alberta.
As premiers gathered in Ottawa this week, Eby said that actions from parties within Alberta seeking potential financing from the U.S. for separation may amount to treason.
Eby referenced a report in the Financial Times that discussed the Alberta Prosperity Project, a group which has purported to have had meetings with senior U.S. officials regarding a line of credit of $500 billion (USD) if the province were to separate from Canada and become independent.
“I understand the desire to hold a referendum, to talk about the issues you want to talk about. In Canada, we have free speech, that’s important. But to go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that, and that word is treason,” Eby said ahead of the closed-door meeting.
“It is completely inappropriate to seek to weaken Canada, to seek to go and ask for assistance to break up this country from a foreign power. With respect, a President who has not been particularly respectul of Canada’s soveriengty…I think we can all agree that while we can respect the right of any Canadian to express themselves, to vote in a referendum, I think we need to draw the line at people seeking assistance of foreign countries to break up this beautiful land of ours, that our forefathers, our foremothers, our parents and our grandparents fought for.
“There is a line, especially in this time when all Canadians have to pull together and I think we can speak as one voice about conduct like that.”
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said he’s been joking about all the talk about referenda and said in Manitoba and in relation to Canada, it would be a much different question.
“Except in Manitoba, the question is going to be ‘do you want to stay a part of Canada?’ and the two choices are going to be yeah and heck yeah,” he said.
“So that’s where we’re coming from.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford also weighed in and urged Premier Danielle Smith to put an end to the talks of separation in Alberta.
“This is an opportunity for Premier Smith to stand up and say ‘enough is enough’. Either you are with Canada or you are not with Canada. I’m with Canada, right across the board,” Ford said.
Smith said in a press conference after the meetings that she believes the U.S. needs to respect Alberta and Canada’s sovereignty and will aim to raise that with officials within her government.
“I have always been clear that our United Conservative caucus and I are supportive of a strong and sovereign Alberta, within a united Canada. That is one of the bills that we passed when I first came in. I think we always have to be realistic. Ten years under Justin Trudeau’s government, our province was relentlessly attacked. Our economy was relentlessly attacked, not only for our economy but our provincial rights and our personal freedoms and our way of life,” Smith said in a press conference after the premiers’ meetings on Thursday.
“So if you look at the polls, they suggest as many as 30 per cent of Albertans have lost hope, that’s about a million people. I’m not going to demonize or marginalize a million of my fellow citizens, when they’ve got legitimate grievances.
What we need to do, is we need to give Albertans hope. We need to show them, not just tell them, not just with words but with actions, that Canada can work. That’s what I’ve been doing.
”That’s why I signed an agreement with the Prime Minister in November so that we could work toward a common cause on correcting some of the mistakes of the Trudeau government. And it’s why we participate in these kinds of first ministers’ conferences, so that we can find the things that we agree on and work together for the betterment of the country.”