A First Nation in Alberta will be in court Tuesday seeking to shut down a petition urging the province to quit Confederation.

The Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation is in Edmonton asking a Court of King’s Bench judge to suspend the petition campaign on the grounds First Nations’ consent is required first.

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It is alleging a failure by Alberta, Canada and the province’s chief electoral officer to uphold treaty rights.

A group named Stay Free Alberta is collecting signatures to qualify for a referendum on Alberta leaving Canada.

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Premier Danielle Smith’s government has said if they get enough names, the question will be put to a vote.

Stay Free Alberta says it has already collected more than the 178,000 signatures required to trigger the vote with a month to go before it must submit the names to Elections Alberta.

Alberta’s government is calling on Ottawa to change the Constitution to give provinces more of a say in how judges are appointed at the provincial level.

It comes after Premier Danielle Smith and the premiers of Ontario, Saskatchewan and Quebec wrote a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney last week saying they would like to see only judges who are approved and recommended by their governments be appointed.

That request was quickly brushed aside by federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser, and Alberta’s government says it now needs to up the ante.

Smith and Justice Minister Mickey Amery told reporters Monday that the government will pass a motion in the Alberta legislature later this week calling for the necessary changes to the Constitution to have their call put into place. They’re hoping other provinces, Parliament and the Senate will do the same.

Quebec had passed its own motion nearly a year ago, and Smith and Amery said their motion would be identical.

“Thus far we’ve not had the progress that we were hoping for, especially through the sort of diplomatic routes,” Amery said of why the government was now formally calling for an amendment to the Constitution.

“We’re now looking for some more meaningful and consequential changes through the motion, and hopefully through the support of the Parliament.”

The Constitution currently states Ottawa alone has the right to appoint provincial superior and appeal court judges. Changing it could be done in a couple of ways, such as approval in the House of Commons, the Senate and by at least seven provinces whose combined population represents more than half of all provinces combined.

Another option is constitutional changes that affect one or more, but not all, provinces.

The judicial appointment process put forward by the premiers has been criticized as a way to politicize the courts, but Smith says it’s important for provinces to have a say in how justice gets delivered.

“It’s time for Alberta to have a real voice in selecting the judges who serve Albertans,” she said.

Smith also reiterated her argument Monday that Canada is an outlier compared to some other countries, including the U.S. and Australia, where state- or provincial-level judges are appointed by state or provincial governments.

“Addressing this gap will strengthen public confidence in the justice system and ensure provinces have a meaningful voice in appointments that shape how justice is delivered in their communities,” Smith said Monday.

Bianca Kratt, the president of the Canadian Bar Association, which represents more than 40,000 lawyers, judges and other legal professions, said in her own letter to Carney last week that comparing Canada to the U.S., for example, wasn’t applicable.

She said the justice system in each country works according to the respective constitutional framework and in Canada provincial judges have the authority to strike down federal law, whereas state-level judges are largely limited to state matters.

Opposition NDP critic Irfan Sabir told reporters Monday that Smith had “no credibility” when it came to upholding the justice system, noting various instances where she has criticized judges as being “activists” or called them “unelected judges.”

“Here we are supposed to trust them that they will do something that will strengthen our judiciary? No, this government cannot be trusted,” Sabir said.

“They just find every opportunity that they can (to) pick some needless fight with the federal government.”

Smith had sent another letter to Carney earlier this year asking for judicial reform, and threatened to withhold some court funding should Ottawa ignore the call. Amery said the threat wasn’t off the table but that normal funding had been maintained for the new fiscal year.

The first proposal, which was also quickly dismissed by Fraser, would see a new type of committee be struck to assess potential judicial appointees in Alberta. It would feature an equal number of provincial and federal representatives, Smith had said.

The existing seven-person committee that assesses applications from lawyers to be appointed provincial court judges and makes recommendations to Ottawa features one representative from the provincial government and three from the federal government.

It also includes appointees from Alberta’s chief justice, the provincial law society and the Canadian Bar Association’s Alberta chapter.

Similar committees exist for every province and territory.

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The premiers of Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan are jointly calling on the federal government to give them more of a say in judges who are appointed to their superior and appeal courts.

They say in a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney that having their governments actively engaged in the process will help ensure judicial appointments “appropriately reflect the diversity and the unique needs of each province and territory.”

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The premiers are asking for the federal government to choose from a pool of candidates recommended and approved by the provinces when appointing judges to superior trial courts and courts of appeal.

Justice Minister Sean Fraser says that is not something his government is considering right now.

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He says the federal government consults with provinces and territories during the process to get their feedback, and the process is working well.

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The letter comes after Alberta Premier Danielle Smith made a similar request earlier this year, asking for more of a say on judicial appointments and threatening to withhold some court funding if that does not happen.

Just a few weeks ago, the Historical Society of Alberta (HSA) was discussing its upcoming plans as though it was an ordinary meeting.

However, the entire future of the organization now seems in doubt. Alberta’s 2026 budget is set to remove all provincial funding for the HSA.

“As part of Budget 2026, the funding for the HSA is being completely eliminated — not just reduced, not just as a temporary measure, but completely eliminated and highly unlikely to ever be restored,” said HSA president Lorien Johansen.

It really was a blindside for the volunteer-run organization.

“There was no indication that the phone call I was going to get was, ‘Yeah, sorry, no more money.’”

The HSA was founded in 1907 by Alberta’s first premier, Alexander Rutherford. Since then, it has persevered through some of the most trying times in recent human history.

“The HSA has survived both world wars, it has survived pandemics, it has survived recessions,” said Johansen.

The group was expecting to receive $76,000 from the province this year, but now that number is zero.

Johansen says the amount would have been microscopic when added to the multi-billion-dollar deficit, yet it would have gone a long way toward history-keeping in Alberta.

“It’s not just the articles, it’s not just the publications — it’s the filmmaking, it’s the preservation of ethnic stories of people who built the province.”

Beyond history, there is concern this may even snowball and negatively affect an industry that brought in more than $15 billion last year.

“When things like the HSA start to fall away, we will start to see the impacts to that,” said Erin Crane, CEO of Tourism Lethbridge.

The HSA says tourists come to Alberta for the culture, history, stories and more. That view is shared by industry experts like Crane.

“The stories (the HSA) tells, the information they provide, it is imperative to us being able to tell those stories to visitors and bring them into our community.”

Alberta’s Ministry of Arts, Culture and the Status of Women sent a statement to Global News saying they aren’t going to abandon history, but the budget was a challenge this year.

“Although we face a tough budget, Alberta’s government is committing more than $55 million to support the provincial archives, historic sites and heritage grants,” said Juliana Rodriguez, press secretary for the Ministry of Arts, Culture and the Status of Women.

The statement continues, saying several organizations will continue to be supported and the HSA can still apply for grant funds.

“This includes maintaining annual funding for the Alberta Museums Association and the Archives Association of Alberta — supporting training, programs and services for heritage organizations across the province. Other heritage non-profit organizations, including the Historical Society of Alberta, are welcome to apply for grants of up to $75,000 through the Community Initiatives Program.”

However, the HSA says this could truly be the end if funding isn’t restored.

“History and the collection and preservation of it is not something you can defer for a year and hope the momentum is there when you pick it up in a year.”

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Albertans should be taking the time to think about whether the province’s tax structure is the right one nowadays, the finance minister says.

Nate Horner said Thursday that he wants taxpayers to think about that after he tabled Alberta’s 2026 budget, which features a staggering $9.4-billion deficit for the year.

“This is a novel time, but there will be lots of questions, no doubt, and there should be at kitchen tables everywhere: is this the right tax structure for the province?” he asked.

“Affordability is still such a major concern. One thing I am interested in is if our tax structure is the most efficient for Alberta. It’s challenging when your main buckets are really only PIT [personal income tax] and CIT [corporate income tax].”

The budget is a result of the drop in the price of oil — a $3.1-billion drop in non-renewable resource revenue — along with global uncertainty and an increase in demand for services, the province said on Thursday.

The province projects West Texas Intermediate to average US$60.50 a barrel in the upcoming fiscal year, but it’s not nearly enough to balance the books. Alberta will continue to be in the red for the next two fiscal years, with the deficit projected to drop to $7.6 billion next year and $6.9 billion in 2028-29.

While there will be no changes to PIT and CIT in the budget, there are several other ways Albertans will be paying more through fees and changes to the education property tax.

Consumers will also pay more on several items, from dangerous driving tickets to registry fees and car rentals.

If oil prices stay low indefinitely, Alberta’s structural deficit will become “extremely obvious,” Horner said, but added he doesn’t have a mandate to tinker with the province’s tax system right now.

Though it has been flirted with in the past, Alberta doesn’t have a provincial sales tax.

“We have made some small changes in this budget around the tourism levy, increasing from four to six per cent. There’s a rental car tax addition. There is some challenges there, but I think it’s something we need to hear from Albertans,” Horner said.

“There’s no immediate plan to increase tax rates or taxes outside of the ones that we spoke about … but I do think it’ll spark larger conversations across the province, as it should.”

Earlier this week, Horner said a five per cent sales tax in an economy like Alberta’s could drive about $6 billion in revenue.

However, the budget estimates that Alberta’s current tax structure saves businesses and individuals about $17 billion – if not more – when compared with tax rates in other provinces.

Moshe Lander, a senior lecturer of economics at Concordia University, told Global News Friday that as frustrating as it would be to have a sales tax, it would provide stability for the government.

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It needs to be carefully considered, and it could be rebated back to lower-income Albertans, he added.

“There are ways that you could adjust the income tax structure so that overall it doesn’t necessarily, at the average, increase the amount we have to pay. The good thing about the sales tax, if I could sell a sales tax, is that it’s pretty stable. It’s not going to be subject to oil and gas prices,” Lander said.

“People are loath to change their spending plans, regardless of the climate in which they find themselves. That means the amount of revenue the government can book is going to be stable, too. That allows them to make clear decisions about what their spending plans are going to be going forward.”

Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Mount Royal University, told Global News Friday if the government – or any future government – introduces a sales tax, “it would be destroyed.”

“No future government would get rid of it. They all acknowledge that it’s important,” he said.

“They just don’t want to be the ones to be blamed for doing it.”

The budget – which is the United Conservatives’ second in a row to feature a deficit – is getting its fair share of criticism, and even some praise.

The Opposition NDP said the government has mismanaged the economy, wasting profits from the past oil boom while saddling future generations with debt.

The mayors of Alberta’s two biggest cities have differing views, with Calgary’s Jeromy Farkas taking issue with education property taxes going up and Edmonton’s Andrew Knack pointing to the need to properly pay for schools.

The president of Alberta’s doctors’ association said the nearly six per cent increase in health-care spending is welcome news; the Alberta Teachers’ Association said it hopes the province follows through on budgeted promises of more money.

The deficit breaks a threshold for going into the red legislated by Premier Danielle Smith’s government.

Horner said the consequences of that are “political.”

“We created these rules, and I’m breaking them,” he said.

“So it bothers nobody more than it does me.”

— with files from The Canadian Press

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says out-of-control immigration levels are overwhelming the province’s core social services and has announced a referendum will take place nine months from now, asking residents to weigh in on nine questions addressing both that and possible changes to Canada’s Constitution.

(Scroll down to see the questions)

In a televised speech Thursday night, Smith said the Oct. 19, provincial referendum will be primarily focused on finding out how Albertans want the government to “deal with the issue of immigration, as well as steps we can take as a province to strengthen our constitutional and fiscal position within a united Canada.”

Smith said the changes her UCP government has determined the province needs to make to immigration are a significant departure from the status quo.

“These were far and away the issues most strongly identified by Albertans during last year’s Alberta Next panel town halls and online submissions, and in my view, it is time to act on them,” Smith said in a 13-minute televised speech that the government paid to air during the 6 p.m. primetime news hour.

“The fact is, Alberta taxpayers can no longer be asked to continue to subsidize the entire country through equalization and federal transfers, permit the federal government to flood our borders with new arrivals, and then give free access to our most-generous-in-the-country social programs to anyone who moves here,” Smith said.

The premier noted the province will be unveiling a large deficit in next week’s budget and lower oil prices have contributed to less revenue.

According to the Alberta government, each $1 drop in the price of oil means roughly $750 million fewer royalties for the province.

However, Smith said social services costs going to more new residents is making Alberta’s budget woes even worse.

“This is not only grossly unfair to Alberta taxpayers, but also financially crippling and undercuts the quality of our health care, education and other social services.”

Mount Royal political scientist Lori Williams challenges that assertion.

“To suggest that this budget deficit is primarily caused by immigration — that non-citizens who come to Alberta are filling emergency rooms and classrooms and that’s where problems coming from — it creates, I think, a distorted picture of what’s actually going on,” Williams said after Smith’s speech aired.

Danielle Smith has been Alberta premier since 2022 and Williams believes Thursday’s speech aimed to redirect public attention away from the province.

“People are concerned very much about affordability, they’re concerned about health care, and they are concerned about education. And the government has invested in some areas, has been addressing some of the problems that have been raised — but they persist.”

“People, when a government has been in power for years, start to notice if promises aren’t fulfilled. They start ask questions and they start make more demands of a government.”

Bradley Lafortune, executive director of Public Interest Alberta, said a bad news budget is not unheard of in a province that gleans so much of its income from oil and gas royalties.

“That’s nothing new in Alberta. But what is new, I think — at least with this degree of focus and tone — is the shift in blame towards immigration and newcomers,” he said after listening to the speech.

“Fundamentally, this is a Trump-style, MAGA government that is doing their best to imitate the current Republicans in the United States,” Lafortune said.

“And what that means is blaming newcomers, cutting services, reducing taxes, and then telling everyone that we need to do more with less, at the same time as friends and insiders are receiving massive amounts of grift on the public dollar.”

Lafortune thinks Albertans should prepare for a “very bad budget” next Thursday that he predicts will contain more cuts to frontline services and the administration of them.

“What I mean by bad is it’s going to be bad for Albertans, working middle-class Albertans. I think its gonna be very bad.”

Smith said in the short-term, the government will not be implementing drastic cuts in the 2026 budget but will instead be cutting unnecessary bureaucracy, improving efficiencies in program delivery (such as more income testing for social programs) and prioritizing needs before wants as much as possible.

“The approved wage increases for our doctors, nurses, and teachers will remain in place so we can continue to attract the skilled professionals needed to catch up with our growth,” Smith said.

According to Statistics Canada, Alberta’s population surged by 202,324 residents in 2023. That’s the largest annual increase in the province’s history, the equivalent of 550 people moving to Alberta every day.

While the bulk of the growth came from international migration, Alberta also shattered a national record for interprovincial migration, most of whom came from Ontario and B.C.

The province’s population growth peaked in the third quarter of 2023, with it dropping off significantly in 2024 and 2025, according to the most recent Statistics Canada data.

“I think the federal government started realizing that they’ve been pushing too strongly on the population growth through different types of migration, international migration,” Carleton University economics professor Christopher Worswick said of the decline that began in 2024.

“So we saw caps on the number of international students coming in. I think that needed to be done because the program was growing just way too fast.”

Premier Smith blames the former Justin Trudeau Liberal government for Alberta’s population woes, saying over five years almost 600,000 people moved to Alberta, pushing the population over five million people.

“Ottawa throttled our most important job creating industries and prioritized immigration away from economic migrants and instead focused on international students, temporary workers and asylum seekers,” Smith said.

In 2022-23, the province ran a $4.95 million “Alberta is Calling” campaign aimed at attracting skilled workers to the province from other parts of the country.

“Although sustainable immigration has always been an important part of our provincial growth model, throwing the doors wide open to anyone and everyone across the globe has flooded our classrooms, emergency rooms and social support systems with far too many people, far too quickly,” Smith said.

Overcrowded classrooms and a strained health-care system has been a documented issue in Alberta for well over a decade and Williams said blaming it on newer residents is a deflexion of responsibility.

“There’s no question that we have seen very large numbers of newcomers to Alberta. Part of that is because the Alberta government has invited people, citizens of Canada to come here and to work in Alberta.

“To somehow suggest that the problem has been created by immigration — as if these problems didn’t exist before those immigration numbers ticked up — I think is inaccurate.”

She fears it will create strife and inflame racial tensions.

“I think that impression is potentially quite problematic, particularly for those who are already struggling with people’s hostility toward them.”

The October referendum, a year before the province’s scheduled general election, could be even longer.

Last year, Smith promised a referendum on separation in 2026 if citizens gathered the required number of signatures on a petition.

One citizen-led petition to be put to lawmakers this spring could lead to a referendum vote on making it a provincial policy that Alberta stay in Canada.

Another petition effort, with a deadline for signatures in early May, seeks a referendum question about pulling the province out of Confederation.

Smith said Thursday that strengthening Alberta’s “constitutional and fiscal position within a united Canada” and immigration were the biggest issues her Alberta Next panel heard as it toured the province last year.

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One of the issues tabled for debate was whether Alberta should withhold social services from some immigrants. The panel was propped up by calls from in-person attendees who at times called for mass deportations.

In January, Smith’s United Conservative Party government walked back what it called a “premature” decision to cut off temporary foreign workers from provincial health-care coverage, including those who had already obtained work permits.

The ministry in charge said, at the time, the move was on pause pending review.

On Wednesday, Smith’s chief of staff, Rob Anderson, reposted a social media infographic about immigration numbers and invited readers to watch the premier’s televised address.

“This absolute insanity needs to stop. It will,” he wrote.

The executive director of the premier’s office, Bruce McAllister, also pointed to the same social media post to sound off on population growth.

“Does their contempt for Canada’s core values and traditions drive them to flood our borders with millions from societies not built on the same foundations that have made us thrive?” McAllister said on X.

“Why import from nations with failed systems when our Judeo-Christian heritage and principles have worked so well here? It almost feels like these elites are ashamed of what built this great country.”

Smith was asked Wednesday if her government shared McAllister’s values. She didn’t directly answer but said western society is based on “the Socratic Judeo-Christian tradition.”

“However, Alberta was also created since 1905 based on the immense diaspora communities that come here,” she said.

She said the federal government has made changes to refocus on economic migrants and that the previous system “broke.”

“It was the No. 1 issue that we heard,” she said, referring to the Alberta Next panel.

As it stands right now, the referendum in October will ask Albertans nine questions concerning immigration and the Constitution:

Immigration

1. Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities?

2. Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law mandating that only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and individuals with an Alberta-approved immigration status will be eligible for provincially-funded programs, such as health care, education and other social services?

3. Assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for social support programs as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring all individuals with a non-permanent legal immigration status to reside in Alberta for at least 12 months before qualifying for any provincially-funded social support programs?

4. Assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for public health care and education as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta charging a reasonable fee or premium to individuals with a non-permanent immigration status living in Alberta for their and their family’s use of the healthcare and education systems?

5. Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate, or citizenship card, to vote in an Alberta provincial election?

Constitution

6. Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to have provincial governments, and not the federal government, select the justices appointed to provincial King’s Bench and Appeal courts?

7. Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to abolish the unelected federal Senate?

8. Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to allow provinces to opt out of federal programs that intrude on provincial jurisdiction such as health care, education, and social services, without a province losing any of the associated federal funding for use in its social programs?

9. Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to better protect provincial rights from federal interference by giving a province’s laws dealing with provincial or shared areas of constitutional jurisdiction priority over federal laws when the province’s laws and federal laws conflict?

With files from Lisa Johnson, The Canadian Press