Fact Check: Who exactly wants to 'own' Canada, prime minister?
Prime Minister Mark Carney told a Forever Canadian rally that outside actors want to "break us so they can own us." The Canadian Press report names no country and cites no evidence.
Prime Minister Mark Carney told a Forever Canadian rally in Calgary that some actors outside Canada's borders are working to "break us so they can own us."
The Canadian Press report of the speech names no country. It cites no evidence.
A prime minister can warn about hostile actors abroad. That's his job, fair enough. The problem is the setting.
He said it at a rally, four days before Albertans answer 10 questions, including whether to stay in Canada or begin the process toward a binding referendum on independence.
An unnamed outsider, at that rally, on that subject, invites a reader to one conclusion: that this vote is somebody else's project.
It isn't. Elections Alberta counted 438,568 valid signatures on the Forever Canadian petition.
It counted another 279,337 valid signatures on the independence petition.
That's about 718,000 signatures counted across two petitions, roughly 627,000 after Elections Alberta's statistical verification, gathered by Albertans on both sides who wanted a vote on their own future.
In May, after a court struck down the independence petition over First Nations consultation, Premier Danielle Smith's government put a single stay-or-begin question on the October ballot. "It's time to have a vote, understand the will of Albertans on this subject, and move on," she said.
No public evidence has been offered that anyone abroad ran either petition.
Quebec sovereigntists met foreign governments openly over the years, and Ottawa called it diplomacy. That record, and the RCMP's earlier statement that it found no evidence of foreign interference driving Alberta's movement, has been laid out here before.
Quebecers were asked twice. Asking was never treated as proof that someone overseas wanted to own them.
Smith has been plain about her own position to remain, and her government backs a yes on the other nine questions. The process is public, and it is Alberta's.
If Ottawa has evidence that a foreign government is working to break Canada, the prime minister should name the government and show the evidence.
Until then, the people who started this were Albertans, and they signed their own names.
Sheila Gunn Reid
Chief Reporter
Sheila Gunn Reid is the Editor-in-Chief, Alberta Bureau Chief, member of the board of directors, and host of The Gunn Show at Rebel News. Sheila also serves as President of the Independent Press Gallery of Canada. A mother of three and longtime conservative activist, Sheila is the author of bestselling books, including her most recent release, Independence Blueprint: What Alberta Can Learn From Quebec.
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