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A decade after the referendum, many UK voters seem to wish they could go back and vote a little more fearfully. Per a June 2026 poll, 75% of respondents—and 66% of Leave voters—now want closer relations with the EU.
But the one who actually sees a chance for a do-over is Carney.
“It’s very reminiscent,” he said in June, calling the separation vote a “dangerous bluff.”
“We’re literally at the 10 year anniversary of Brexit,” he said ahead of the Calgary Stampede, “and I saw first-hand what happens, what gets sold in these referenda.” He pointed to many UK voters’ assumption that they could have their cake and leave it too, with a separation vote gaining leverage without costing them their passport, currency, or other benefits.
The stakes are, at least, not as imminently high. After a judge ruled a full separation vote at this stage would violate treaty rights, Albertans will now merely vote on whether to have a future vote. And unlike Brexit, it has no high-profile politicians explicitly endorsing it; instead, Kopecky writes, Alberta’s past conservative champions have lined up against it.
But with even this limited leverage, Alberta has already gained plenty of what it wanted.
Speaking on the referendum in May, Premier Smith boasted that Carney had “adopted most of Alberta’s positions on energy and resource development,” from an end to production caps, energy regulations, and carbon taxes to a promised new pipeline through BC.
Last week, Carney and Smith together announced that a $44 billion “Pacific Link” pipeline has become the first project designated as being in the national interest. That label fast-tracks it and removes some environmental assessments and other regulatory requirements—something that Indigenous nations and even experts from within the industry have major concerns about.
Smith recently tied these concessions to Alberta explicitly to the referendum, advocating for remaining in Canada by arguing, “Why walk away from the table when we’re finally winning at it?”
Stewart Prest explores what Canada might lose in these concessions, in a story on Carney’s conservatism—and his popularity. He also questions what it will even gain, given that a previous pipe won former prime minister Justin Trudeau no Albertan goodwill, and the business case for carbon projects is increasingly shaky.
But the PM may not be as reluctant as his past climate-champion reputation would suggest; he frames the expedited pipeline as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to become a global energy superpower.”
A make or break(xit) moment for Alberta politicians
Carney isn’t the only politician navigating a divisive referendum, as Tim Querengesser writes in The Walrus.
Smith appears caught in a bind: hardline separatists think she’s really a federalist, while many federalists think she’s really, at least, a separatist collaborator. In a June poll, a majority of respondents disapproved of Smith’s handling of separatism and felt her main motive was keeping her job.
Opposition leader Naheed Nenshi has fared little better, Querengesser writes, declining in polling popularity since being elected and largely failing to realize gains from Smith’s blunders or keep up with her daily talking points.
But Nenshi’s Alberta NDP have been funding an avowedly non-partisan pro-Canada campaign this year, and they have begun to capitalize on Smith’s embrace of another topic that has divided her voters: data centres.
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