‘Albertans are not quitters’: Poilievre pushes referendum vote to stay in Canada

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he understands separatist disillusionment with the state of affairs in Canada but that quitting isn’t the answer.

“We don’t just take our ball and go home. We don’t walk away. We stand and fight for what we believe in, and we reflect upon all that we have,” Poilievre said.

“Quitting is the easy way out — and Albertans are not quitters.”

Poilievre said countries like Canada are built, defended, reimagined and reinforced by generations honouring those who came before.

“Some even died (in wars) so that we can have the country that we have today,” Poilievre said.

“They had to be strong so that we could be free.”

He says the solution is to restore the greatness of a country that has been defended and built up through generations.

He said he gets how people are unhappy with rising costs and what he characterized as a lax justice system, an out-of-control immigration program and federal policies that curtail resource development.

But he urged Albertans to see the bigger picture.

“To those people who are thinking about taking out their frustration on the current government by voting for separation in the referendum, I say this: Canada is more than a government.

“It is a people, a flag, a land, a history and a promise.”

Poilievre made the comments Friday in a speech in Calgary, three days head of the Alberta referendum in which Albertans will weigh in on independence.

He and Prime Minister Mark Carney are in the province making last-ditch appeals to Albertans to vote to stay in Canada.

Albertans will vote Monday to decide whether the province should remain in Canada or hold a second, binding referendum on leaving Confederation.

That is one of 10 questions; the other nine have to do with immigration and the Canadian Constitution.

Polls have suggested a strong majority of Albertans will vote to stay in Canada, but leaders stress that voter apathy could open the door to a winning vote for separation.

Albertans have been voting by mail and, for more than a week, at advance polls in numbers that suggest the final count could set a record.

Smith called the referendum earlier this year.

She said bubbling discontent with past federal policies reached a boiling point with hundreds of thousands signing petitions for and against staying in Confederation. She said a referendum is needed to resolve the issue once and for all.

Critics, however, say Smith isn’t resolving a broad-based grievance. They say she has instead inflamed and validated latent fringe separatist sentiment, rolling the dice on the future of the country to appease hardliners in her United Conservative Party.