Surrounded by wooden plaques bearing the brands of Alberta cattlemen, a group of Alberta farmers and ranchers sat around a hotel bar discussing the vote that could set their province on a path to break away from Canada.
With Albertans about to start casting ballots, their debate captured the divisions that have cropped up in their province since secession advocates began laying the groundwork for a referendum last year.
The vote on Monday will not lead directly to secession. It instead asks voters whether they want to to remain part of Canada or if Alberta should hold a second referendum about breaking away. If it passes, it will put the province that much closer to a future some embrace and others fear.
Stuart Cannon, whose family has ranched in the foothills of the Rockies since 1889, said that he had initially liked the idea of separation, but that he had changed his mind. He told the group at the Twin Cities Hotel in Longview, Alberta, that he would vote to remain in Canada because of what it would cost for the province to become an independent nation.
“We can’t pay that money,” said Mr. Cannon, who wore a black cowboy hat. “It doesn’t matter how good we’re doing, that money is huge.”
Hugo Gertin, seated next to Mr. Cannon, dismissed the idea of secession as “crazy talk.” If Alberta leaves Canada, he predicted, “Trump’s going to come through there” and just take control.”
When Rick Quarrel stopped by the table, though, he said it was past time to cut ties with Canada.
“I have got more blood and sweat into the dirt of Alberta than I do anywhere else and I will probably die here — and I hope this vote goes through,” he said. “Alberta’s tired, we’re tired of fighting. This is our way of saying, ‘We are done.’”
Whatever their differing views about separation, the group was united in their disappointment with the province’s premier, Danielle Smith, who called the referendum.
Ms. Smith became the leader of the United Conservative Party largely through the support of separatist activists who had dislodged her predecessor. After a court struck down a petition from separatists to hold a direct vote on quitting Canada, Ms. Smith added the secession question to an already-scheduled referendum on other issues.
She has since said that she will vote to remain in Canada, though she will not require elected members of her party to do the same. That approach has alienated people on both sides of the debate.
Mitch Sylvestre, the head of one of the most prominent separatist groups, characterized Ms. Smith’s position as a betrayal of her party’s base.
“She’s playing a very interesting game that I think has very dire consequences for her,” Mr. Sylvestre, who leads the Alberta Prosperity Project, said in an interview. “I just don’t understand why she’s got to put her thumb on the scale.”
Ms. Smith was conspicuously absent on Thursday and Friday from large pro-Canada rallies in Calgary, Alberta’s largest city, and Edmonton, its capital. At both, Prime Minister Mark Carney was the feature attraction.
After the Calgary event, Thomas Lukaszuk, a former provincial lawmaker who helped organize the rallies, questioned Ms. Smith’s commitment to remaining in Canada. He noted that she has continued to urge separatist legislators not to leave the United Conservative Party.
“For her” he said, “it is more important that separatists stay in her party so that they can win another election than actually doing the right thing for Canada and saying, ‘If you’re for separatism, there is no room for you in this party. Some things are more important than holding on to power.”
Ms. Smith’s office said that she was not available for an interview.
Since Ms. Smith added the separation question to the referendum in May, no clear version has emerged of what an independent Alberta might look like. Nor has any one separatist group come to dominate the public debate.
Some groups have suggested that they want an independent Alberta to be guided by Christian doctrine. One podcast that promotes separatism, “The Lavigne Show,” has posted signs along highways showing a family walking toward an oversize cross and a Christian church at sunrise with the words: “Independence protects our future, our families and our faith.”
Immigration policy, which is addressed by other questions on the referendum ballot, is a major issue for many separatists, including some of those who favor cutting ties with Canada during the discussion at the Twin Cities hotel last week.
“Our immigration here in Alberta is terrible,” Mr. Quarrel told the table, saying that immigrants were “taking over.”
Separatists don’t always agree about what an independent Alberta’s relationship with the United States should look like. Some traveled to Washington last year for meetings, apparently with low-ranking officials at the State Department.
The Globe and Mail recently reported that, at one of those meetings, some secession backers broached several possible deals. Under one of them, if the United States let the oil-rich new nation build a pipeline to the Pacific through Washington State, Alberta would pay royalties and offer a slice of its territory for a railway to Alaska.
Alberta and its neighbor Saskatchewan were created by Canada’s federal government in 1905 on land it had purchased from the Hudson’s Bay Company. But Albertans soon came to resent the federal government.
The tensions grew only worse after a major oil find in 1947, followed by the development of the oil sands in the 1970s, brought the province wealth. Many Albertans were particularly unhappy about the federal government distributing tax dollars to poorer provinces to ensure even standards of services in areas like health care across the country.
After months of campaigning, it appears that the separatists have not won many voters to their cause. A Janet Brown Opinion Research poll for CBC News found that 72 percent of respondents planned to vote to remain in Canada, while 23 percent back a second vote on succession.
Some believe that Ms. Smith may end up paying a price for political opportunism
Craig Snodgrass, the mayor of High River, a town south of Calgary, said Albertans have been politically volatile since the Covid pandemic. Alberta has been home to some of Canada’s largest protests against vaccinations and public health restrictions.
“Covid empowered a lot of people to to fight government, and they’re really comfortable doing it,” he said from his office in Town Hall. “This is just their next thing: We can’t be a part of this country anymore.”
Mr. Snodgrass said that Ms. Smith, whom he views as a close friend, had channeled that pandemic anger through her radio talk show into a political comeback. She once led a right-wing party that formed the United Conservatives through a merger.
Now, he said, her ties to the separatists may come back to bite her.
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