From the desk of Alberta Renewal: 25% of Albertans just voted for Option 2, the clear step to prepare the legal process for a referendum to leave Canada. In rural Alberta it was closer to 35%. That is not a fringe. It is roughly half the UCP base province-wide and closer to 70% of the UCP base in the rural ridings that decide whether the party can form government. Those voters are the balance of power. Without them, Smith’s UCP loses 2027. A deal with that base is the only path that unites the UCP and gives Smith any realistic chance of winning. Her current course does not. The Smith–Carney volume MOU locks Alberta into Ottawa’s conditions, public-capital exposure, and the Pathways ticket while C-48 and C-69 remain in force. That is the opposite of what the Option 2 voters just demanded. It prices private capital out, gives away Albertans' share, and treats full autonomy as a talking point rather than a process. The terms of any deal are non-negotiable: 1. A definitive, Quebec-style process for full autonomy and self-determination, not a two-step referendum question the Premier personally opposes, especially now that Smith has stood against her own base publicly. This is what she promised that gave her the Premier chair and the mandate she made in 2024. She must keep her word. 2. Reversal of the Ottawa-conditioned pipeline MOU. No acceptance of federal conditions, carbon frameworks, or government-capital volume as the price of a pipe. An explicit, public stand that C-48 and C-69 must be repealed as the pre-condition for any West Coast export capacity to secure public capital that Smith herself said was required of a pipeline infrastructure is a failed process. No workarounds, no “working with Ottawa,” no detours that leave the statutes standing. This must be in writing to her base. A contract. Anything short of that is not a deal. It is continued incrementalism that keeps the base split and risks Alberta takeover by Ottawa. If Smith will not meet those terms, the only remaining path is an SGM and a leadership review or loss of the next election. Which will she choose? a) make a deal to unite the UCP b) force the base to have an SGM c) lose the next election without a united UCP This @abdaniellesmith must decide, and soon. Best be done before the AGM to be able to present a public unification of the base. The rural and autonomy-minded UCP voters who just showed their numbers will not stay quiet while the volume strategy and carbon/C-48/C-69 federal conditions remain. They hold the ridings. They hold the membership. They hold the next election. Unite the base on Alberta-First terms or lose it. The 25% and the 35% have already cast the first ballot. #AlbertaRenewal #AlbertaFirst #AlbertaNow #UCP