Conservative MP launches 'stay' campaign in Alberta referendum

Dane Lloyd, the party’s MP for the Edmonton-area riding of Parkland, is spearheading the initiative. He says the reason for that focus is “self-evident” in a province historically awash in Conservative blue. 

“We are the largest political demographic in Alberta,” he told the Star on Friday. “We have a critical voice that needs to be heard and needs to be engaged.”

Lloyd says the campaign will involve Conservatives from Alberta and beyond, with the focus on getting people engaged ahead of the Oct. 19 referendum through social media, lawn signs, canvassing and phone calls. 

It is launching as champions of independence argue that the referendum is less about secession than it is about Alberta’s place within Canada. 

“We’re trying to get as many people to understand that Alberta can do better,” said constitutional lawyer and independence advocate Keith Wilson. 

Albertans who vote in next month’s referendum will have their choice of two options: “Alberta should remain a province of Canada,” or “The government of Alberta should commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.” 

Lloyd was tapped by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre earlier this summer to lead their party’s response to the referendum. He told the Star he has spent the past two months hosting round tables and speaking with Albertans in both the “pro-Canada” and separatist camps. 

“What was universal was that every single one of those people viewed themselves as a patriotic Canadian,” Lloyd said. 

“What that made clear to me is that this needs to be a campaign that’s focused on reminding people of our love for our country, that it’s fundamental and that, yes, there needs to be change to the status quo,” he said.

“Ottawa does need to change, but that doesn’t mean leaving Canada.”

While Lloyd notes that there are campaigns similar to his, he says they aren’t speaking specifically to Conservative voters. 

“It’s a campaign that recognizes that the status quo is not all right. We don’t support the status quo, but fundamentally it’s not a problem with Canada. It’s a problem with Ottawa and that’s where we need to see the change,” he said. 

“There’s many campaigns out there talking to many different audiences and our campaign’s focused on reaching that audience — but not just that audience, all Albertans — to try and get them out to vote for a stronger Alberta within a united Canada.” 

Wilson, who is among the leaders of the independence group “Let Alberta Decide” and helped write a 214-page report outlining a separatist vision for what an independent Alberta could look like, argues the federalist side has “no plan” to deal with what he and others say are the structural issues that constrain Alberta. 

While Wilson says “many” supporters of Alberta independence are also support the federal Conservatives, including those who live in Poilievre’s own deep-blue riding of Battle River—Crowfoot, the issue runs deeper than frustrations over seeing the party shut out of power in Ottawa for more than a decade. 

He says past attempts to remedy those grievances — from the rise of the populist Reform Party to the election of Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, who famously declared after his first victory that the “West is in” — have failed. 

“Many have come to the conclusion that Canada is structurally broken,” Wilson said. 

For whatever frustrations exist, Lloyd argues that change is possible, pointing to past battles Alberta has won and ways the province and Conservatives have “been moving the needle” in Ottawa. 

“We’re talking about pipelines again as a country,” he said, “and it’s not a conversation about whether or not to have pipelines — it’s about when and how fast we can get pipelines built.”