Federal Tories launch 'Conservatives for Canada' campaign ahead of Alberta referendum

The federal Conservatives have launched a campaign called Conservatives for Canada to encourage their supporters to vote to stay in Canada in the upcoming Alberta referendum. The referendum, set to take place on October 19, will ask Albertans whether they want to remain a province or begin the legal process to hold a binding referendum on leaving Canada.

According to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, the party's goal is to promote unity and argue that separatists have a problem with the Liberal government, not with Canada as a whole. In a speech delivered in Calgary this summer, Poilievre stated, "We don’t need a different country in Alberta, we need different government policies in Ottawa."

Parkland MP Dane Lloyd has been named the caucus lead on the remain campaign. He said that the party is engaging with conservative Albertans and acknowledging that the status quo needs to change, but that their problem is not with Canada. Lloyd stated that Albertans feel like "their voice isn’t being heard, that their values are not being respected" by the federal government, according to Global News.

Brief written by urgent.news from CBC News, Global News, Winnipeg Free Press — 3 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.