埃德蒙顿的舞台本应是丹妮尔·史密斯（Danielle Smith）的安全地带，是一个让阿尔伯塔省省长沉浸在党派掌声中的地方。然而，这里却上演了一场政治“抢劫”。
The Edmonton stage should have been a safe space for Danielle Smith. A place where an Alberta premier could revel in partisan applause. Instead, it was the scene of a political mugging.
在联合保守党（UCP）2025年年度大会上，史密斯身着干练的白色套装，与内阁成员一同坐在台上，准备接受党内忠实成员的提问。
Smith sat on the stage, dressed in a crisp white suit, alongside her cabinet at the United Conservative Party’s 2025 annual general meeting to take questions from the party faithful.
一名身穿蓝色西装外套、头戴棒球帽的男子走到麦克风前，开始老调重弹，表达西部地区对联邦政府的不满。但他并不是来向史密斯提问的，他是来传达某种信息的。
One man, dressed in a blue blazer and baseball cap, stepped up to the microphone and launched into a familiar refrain of western grievance with the federal government. But he wasn’t there to ask Smith a question. He was there to send a message.
“我想问在座的各位，有多少人支持一个自由且独立的阿尔伯塔？”宪法律师、联合保守党成员、阿尔伯塔独立运动的“斗牛犬”杰夫·拉斯（Jeff Rath）高声喊道。
"My question for the room is how many of all of us favour a free and independent Alberta?" shouted Jeff Rath, constitutional lawyer, UCP member and the bulldog of the Alberta independence movement.
人群起立鼓掌。史密斯看起来并未受惊，她回敬了一句阿尔伯塔人随后会反复听到的政治格言。
The crowd rose in an ovation. Smith, appearing unfazed, shot back with a political maxim Albertans would soon hear repeatedly.
“好吧，我支持在统一的加拿大框架内实现阿尔伯塔的独立。”在过去的大会上，史密斯的此类声明总能赢得欢呼。但这一次，台下的观众却对她发出了嘘声。
"Well, I support an independent Alberta within a united Canada." At past AGMs, Smith’s proclamations were received by cheers. But on this day, the audience booed her.
在大会期间，史密斯又两次抛出她关于“统一加拿大”的论调，吹嘘自己在解决阿尔伯塔与自由党总理马克·卡尼（Mark Carney）之间的分歧上所取得的成就。她说，既然胜利在望，为什么要现在放弃呢？和之前一样，她两次都遭到了嘘声。
Smith offered her united Canada pitch twice more during the AGM, touting her successes in addressing Alberta’s concerns with Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney. Why give up now, she said, when victory was at hand? As before, she was booed. Both times.
在一场年度大会上对省长发出嘲讽并不寻常。联合保守党内部已经发生了变化。如今，这里已成为一个在新冠疫情期间被激活、一心想要分裂加拿大的运动的大本营。
The jeering of a premier at an AGM wasn’t normal. Something had changed within the UCP. It was now home to a movement, activated during the COVID-19 pandemic, bent on breaking up Canada.
“有一部分人在新冠疫情期间生活在另一种现实中，他们现在变得活跃起来了，”前阿尔伯塔省省长杰森·肯尼（Jason Kenney）说道。他于2022年的辞职，在一定程度上正是拜这场运动所赐。
"There was a cohort of the population who were living in alternative reality in COVID and they just got active," said former Alberta premier Jason Kenney, whose 2022 resignation came, in part, at the hands of that movement.
在联合保守党（UCP）大会上，分裂主义受到欢呼，省长却遭嘘声。一项调查发现，史密斯在竞选省长期间曾倚重这一运动。尽管民调一贯显示独立主张与绝大多数阿尔伯塔省民的意愿背道而驰，但省长仍宣布于10月19日举行脱离联邦的公投。
Separatism cheered, premier booed at UCP convention A investigation found that Smith leaned on this movement during her rise to the premiership. While polling consistently shows independence is out of step with the vast majority of Albertans, the premier nonetheless called a separation referendum for Oct. 19.
阿尔伯塔省民对此意见分歧，联合保守党内部亦是如此。史密斯曾将一些分裂主义者纳入其“大帐篷”政党，而如今这些人却试图将她赶下台。
Albertans are divided. So is the UCP. And some of the separatists Smith once welcomed into her "big tent" party are now trying to remove her from office.
通过采访、查阅政府文件以及分裂主义者的视频档案，我们确定了独立运动为推动阿尔伯塔省走向可能改变国家命运的公投所采取的四个关键步骤。
Through interviews, reviews of government documents and separatist video archives, has identified four critical steps the independence movement took to push Alberta into a referendum that could change the fate of a nation.
第一步：接管。2021年春，一名头发后梳、嗓音尖细的瘦削男子像巡回传教士一样，从一个阿尔伯塔城镇奔波到另一个城镇，向任何愿意倾听的人发表演讲。但丹尼斯·莫德里（Dennis Modry）的使命并非传播传统宗教。他是阿尔伯塔独立共和国的布道者。
Step 1: The takeover In the spring of 2021, a slender man with slicked-back hair and a thin voice travelled from one Alberta town to another like an itinerant preacher, speaking to whoever would listen. But old- time religion wasn't Dennis Modry’s mission. He was an evangelist for an independent republic of Alberta.
20世纪80年代，莫德里曾是一位备受赞誉的外科医生，完成了加拿大西部首例心肺移植手术。
In the 1980s, Modry was a surgeon hailed for performing the first heart-lung transplant in Western Canada.
然而，他的医疗生涯在2013年戛然而止，当时阿尔伯塔省卫生服务局因表现问题暂停了他的手术资格。他曾在法庭上对这一停职决定提出抗辩但以失败告终，并于2017年未能续期执照。到新冠疫情爆发时，莫德里的医疗生涯已彻底终结。
But his medical career crashed in 2013, after Alberta Health Services suspended his surgical privileges over performance issues. He unsuccessfully fought the suspension in court and in 2017, he failed to renew his licence. By the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, Modry’s medical career was over.
到了2021年，他已将推动阿尔伯塔独立视为自己的新使命。在演讲中，莫德里规划了一条通过公投建立新国家的路径。
By 2021, he had embraced Alberta independence as his new calling. In speeches, Modry laid out a path to create a new country through a referendum.
莫德里并非呼吁组建一个分裂主义政党。过去在阿尔伯塔省的此类尝试均以选举失败告终。
Modry wasn't calling for the formation of a separatist political party. Past attempts in Alberta were electoral failures.
他推动全民公投的路径正是通过UCP本身，将其转变为一个“以独立为重点”的政府。“当杰森·肯尼和UCP当选时，他们拥有12万名成员，”莫德里在2021年对梅迪逊哈特市的一场听众说道。“我们希望将成员数量扩大到四、五、六或七十万。”他表示，即使在一个拥有近三百万选民的省份，如此庞大的群体也能影响选举结果。
His path to a referendum was through the UCP itself, by transforming it into a government with an "independence focus." "When Jason Kenney and the UCP were elected, they had 120,000 members," Modry told an audience in Medicine Hat in 2021. "We want to grow that membership to four or five or six or seven hundred thousand people." A group that large, even in a province of nearly three million voters, could shape an election, he said.
如果他们成功，莫德里常开玩笑说，2023年或许将成为阿尔伯塔省历史上最后一次省级选举。
If they were successful, Modry was fond of saying, 2023 could be the last provincial election in Alberta’s history.
莫德里与律师杰夫·拉思以及体育用品店店主米奇·西尔维斯特共同创立了“阿尔伯塔繁荣计划”，这是一个致力于推动分离主义的组织。三人也加入了UCP。
Modry joined lawyer Jeff Rath and sporting goods store owner Mitch Sylvestre in creating the Alberta Prosperity Project, an organization dedicated to promoting separation. The trio also joined the UCP.
即便有分离主义者加入UCP，只要省长兼该党创始领袖肯尼仍在任上，该党举行全民公投的可能性微乎其微。肯尼必须下台。
Even with separatists joining the UCP, there was little chance the party would call a referendum so long as Kenney, the premier and party’s founding leader, remained in office.
第二步：清除异己。从一开始，杰森·肯尼就想将分离主义者排除在UCP之外。他曾表示，他认为这些人更多是种麻烦，而非明确而直接的威胁，但尽管如此，他仍试图建立一道防火墙以阻止他们加入。
Kenney would have to go. Step 2: The takedown From the start, Jason Kenney wanted to keep separatists out of the UCP. He thought they were more of a nuisance than a clear and present threat, he told , but nonetheless tried to erect a firewall to keep them out. "I wanted to send a message to them that this is not your party. You want to play in politics?
“我想向他们传达一个信息：这不是你们的政党。你们想参与政治？很好，这是一个民主国家，你们可以在自己的分离主义政党中这样做。但这个政党不是其中之一，”肯尼说道。
Good for you. It's a democracy. You get to do that in your separatist parties.
因此，当进步保守党与其对手野玫瑰党于2017年合并成立UCP时，肯尼在合并协议中加入了一项对加拿大的忠诚条款，并期望这会成为UCP的基本原则之一。
This is not one of them," Kenney said. So when the 2017 merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and its rival, the Wildrose Party, created the UCP, Kenney wrote a loyalty-to-Canada clause into the unification agreement, expecting it to be part of the UCP’s foundational principles.
然而，当该党于2018年召开首次年度会员大会时，负责决定会员投票原则的委员会并未将忠诚条款列入投票选项。肯尼本想关上的那扇门，最终却敞开着。
But when the party held its first AGM in 2018, the committee deciding on what principles members would vote on didn't include the loyalty clause on the ballot. The door that Kenney wanted to slam shut was left open.
三年后，新冠疫情将肯尼的领导地位推向了危机。一些阿尔伯塔人，包括那些后来参加2022年渥太华车队抗议和阿尔伯塔省库茨边境封锁的人，对肯尼的防疫限制措施感到愤怒。甚至他自己党内的一些省议员也发动了反叛，肯尼被迫接受领导力审查。莫德里在肯尼的政治困境中看到了别的东西。机会。
Three years later, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed Kenney’s leadership into a crisis. Some Albertans, including those who would join the 2022 Ottawa convoy and border blockade at Coutts, Alta., were enraged by Kenney’s pandemic restrictions. Even some of his own MLAs rebelled, and Kenney was forced into a leadership review. Modry saw something else in Kenney's political woes. Opportunity.
“选择无非是，肯尼被取代，或者他不被取代，”莫德里在2021年11月于阿尔伯塔省布鲁克斯发表的演讲中说道。“那个政党能否在一位新领导人或杰森的带领下，走向一个以独立为核心的未来？”肯尼在谈到这场关乎他政治生命的斗争时表示，他当时并没有意识到威胁来自何方。
"The options are, Kenney is replaced or he's not replaced," Modry said in a November 2021 speech in Brooks, Alta. "Could that party move with a new leader or with Jason to an independence-focused future?" The sequel to the convoy movement Kenney told that in the fight for his political life, he didn’t recognize where the threat was coming from.
“我承认，我和我的团队没能及时察觉到正在发生的事情，”他说。
"I will admit, I and my team were late to notice what was going on," he said.
2022年5月，肯尼仅获得了联合保守党（UCP）成员51%的支持。他随即辞职。尘埃落定后，肯尼看清了发生的一切。
In May 2022, Kenney received only 51 per cent support from UCP members. He resigned immediately. After the dust settled, Kenney saw what happened.
“在那次审查投票中，三分之二的投票者……都是新面孔，”肯尼说。“他们是因为对新冠疫情的愤怒和反疫苗情绪而来的。他们中很多人是分裂主义者。”
"Two-thirds of the people voting in that review vote … were brand new," Kenney said. "They came in on COVID anger, anti-vax sentiment. A lot of them were separatists.
“分裂主义是车队运动的续集。”随着肯尼的离去，联合保守党的队伍中充斥着分裂主义者，举行公投似乎比以往任何时候都更现实。分裂主义者需要的是一位新的、同情他们的联合保守党领导人。
"Separatism is the sequel to the convoy movement." With Kenney gone, and the UCP ranks filling with separatists, a referendum seemed more realistic than ever. What the separatists needed was a new and sympathetic UCP leader.
那个人最终成了卡尔加里一档谈话广播节目的主持人，一位政治流亡者。
That person turned out to be a political exile hosting a talk radio show in Calgary.
第三步：选举领导人 丹妮尔·史密斯曾担任反对党野玫瑰党的领导人，直到2014年，她倒戈加入了执政的进步保守党。但在2015年的选举中，史密斯没能获得进步保守党在其选区的提名。于是，史密斯靠做广播节目谋生。
Step 3: Elect a leader Danielle Smith had been the leader of the opposition Wildrose Party until 2014, when she crossed the floor to join the governing Progressive Conservatives. But when the 2015 election came, Smith failed to secure the PC nomination in her own riding. So Smith made her living on the radio.
八年后，肯尼的下台为她提供了政治复活的机会。当史密斯将目光投向联合保守党领导人之位时，她伸出了前任省长绝不会伸出的橄榄枝。
Eight years later, Kenney’s demise offered the chance for a political resurrection. When she set her eyes on the UCP leadership, Smith extended an olive branch the former premier never would have.
“我深知解决自治问题至关重要，因此我的首要行动就是与莫德里博士进行了交谈，”史密斯在由阿尔伯塔分离主义组织“阿尔伯塔繁荣计划”（Alberta Prosperity Project）主办的联合保守党（UCP）领导层辩论会上说道。“我非常认真地对待你们的诉求……因为你们拥有决定政党走向的关键力量。”在领导层竞选期间，联合保守党的党员人数激增：肯尼（Kenney）辞职时该党仅有约6万名合格选民；而在领导层选举当晚，党员人数已增至近12.4万名。
"I knew how important it was to address the issues of autonomy, and I talked to Dr. Modry as one of my first steps," Smith said during a UCP leadership debate hosted by the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project. "I take your movement very, very seriously … because you have the power to be the 'or else.'" During the leadership campaign, the UCP membership rolls exploded. At the time of Kenney’s resignation there were about 60,000 voting party members. On the night of the leadership vote, there were nearly 124,000.
史密斯拒绝了媒体的采访请求，她是七位候选人中唯一一位没有在肯尼政府中担任过职务的人。尽管她在竞选中仅获得了54%的支持率，但她最终赢得了选举，并带领联合保守党在2023年的选举中赢得了多数席位。她在竞选期间并未宣扬分离主义立场；不过选举结束后，她依然继续接纳那些支持分离主义的人加入该党。
Smith, who declined an interview request from , was the only one out of seven leadership candidates who did not serve in the Kenney government. The outsider won after six rounds of voting, returning to political prominence with only 54 per cent support. But she led the UCP to a majority government in the 2023 election. She did not campaign on separation.
例如，在2025年春季，她出席了邦尼维尔-科尔德莱克-圣保罗选区协会（Bonnville-Cold Lake-St. Paul constituency association）举办的年度筹款活动。在会议主席台的两侧，坐着两位著名的分离主义人士：该协会的主席米奇·西尔维斯特（Mitch Sylvestre）和丹尼斯·莫德里（Dennis Modry）。
But after the election, Smith continued to accept separatists in the party. In the spring of 2025, for example, she attended the annual UCP fundraiser held by the Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul constituency association. Seated on either side of her at the head table were two prominent separatists: the association’s president Mitch Sylvestre and Dennis Modry.
公投只是实现分离目标的第一步。2025年，莫德里、西尔维斯特和拉斯（Rath）开始积极筹备请愿活动，以推动公投的举行。然而他们面临诸多障碍：在阿尔伯塔省，分离主义观点并不受欢迎；根据当时的法律，请愿书必须收集到至少29.4万个签名才能获得公投资格。
The referendum was only one step away. Step 4: Hold the referendum In 2025, Modry, Sylvestre and Rath were busy marshalling their forces for a petition campaign to force a referendum. But there were hurdles. Separatism was unpopular among Alberta voters. And the law required at least 294,000 signatures on a petition for it to qualify for a referendum.
2025年7月，丹妮尔·史密斯领导的政府修改了相关法规，将所需的签名数量降至17.7万个，并将收集签名的时间从90天延长至120天。就在法律修订的同一天，西尔维斯特向阿尔伯塔省选举委员会提交了请愿书，提出了“是留在加拿大还是脱离加拿大”的直接选择题。
In July 2025, Danielle Smith’s government changed the rules, slashing the number of required signatures to 177,000, and boosting the number of days to get them from 90 to 120. On the same day the law changed, Sylvestre filed a separatist petition with Elections Alberta, asking a direct remain-in-Canada-or-leave question.
随后，阿尔伯塔省选举局介入了。由于独立问题涉及宪法影响，请愿书被送交法院进行审查。
Then Elections Alberta got in the way. An independence question came with constitutional implications, so the petition was sent to the courts for review.
这最终只是一个暂时的挫折。史密斯政府在2025年12月再次修改了法律，剥夺了阿尔伯塔省选举局将请愿书提交法院的权力。和之前一样，西尔维斯特在法律修改的当天就提交了文件。这一次，他的请愿书（名为“保持自由阿尔伯塔”）获得了批准。该请愿书最终以222,600个核实签名达到了降低后的门槛。
This turned out to be a temporary setback. Smith’s government changed the law again in December 2025, stripping Elections Alberta of its powers to refer a petition to the courts. As before, Sylvestre filed papers the day the law was changed. This time his petition, labelled StayFree Alberta, was approved. The petition ultimately cleared the reduced threshold with 222,600 verified signatures.
斗争并未结束。一群原住民酋长诉诸法庭，辩称阿尔伯塔省政府未履行其宪法义务，即就可能影响其条约权利的问题与他们进行磋商。
The fight wasn't over. A group of First Nations chiefs went to court, arguing the Alberta government failed its constitutional duty to consult them on an issue that could impact their treaty rights.
2026年5月13日，法院表示同意，并阻止了“保持自由阿尔伯塔”问题成为全民公投。
On May 13, 2026, the courts agreed, and stopped the StayFree Alberta question from becoming a referendum.
代表斯特金湖克里族酋长的律师奥拉·奥凯利表示，史密斯本可以利用这一裁决作为退出的台阶。然而，史密斯在5月21日宣布了她自己的问题，旨在规避法律挑战。
Smith could have used the ruling as an off-ramp, said Orlagh O’Kelly, a lawyer representing the chief of the Sturgeon Lake Cree. Instead, on May 21, Smith announced her own question, designed to evade a court challenge.
10月19日，阿尔伯塔人将有两个选择：留在加拿大，或者启动程序，就留在加拿大还是脱离加拿大进行具有约束力的全民公投。
On Oct. 19, Albertans would be given two choices: remain in Canada or start the process of having a binding referendum to stay or leave.
“丹妮尔·史密斯在2023年当选时，并没有以这些主张作为竞选纲领，”奥凯利说。“杰森·肯尼是被党内那一派系拉下马的，她很清楚这一点。”史密斯表示，她对加拿大“极其忠诚”，并将投票选择方案一——即留在加拿大。她还向分裂主义者保证，她对他们的感受感同身受。
"When Danielle Smith was actually elected in 2023, she didn't run on any of this," said O’Kelly. "Jason Kenney got taken out by that arm of the party and she knows that." Smith said she was "fiercely loyal" to Canada and would vote for Option 1 — to remain in Canada. She also reassured separatists she empathized with their feelings.
但一些联合保守党（UCP）的分裂主义者对这个关于全民公投的问题感到愤怒。对于拉斯来说，史密斯是个叛徒。为了获得他们想要的全民公投，他们还需要额外的一步。
But some UCP separatists reacted to a question about a referendum with outrage. For Rath, Smith was a turncoat. To get the referendum they wanted, they needed an extra step.
“我们只需要尽快除掉她，然后召开党内特别大会，像当初对待杰森·肯尼（Jason Kenney）那样对她的领导权进行投票，”拉斯（Rath）说道。第五步：罢免。随着公投日临近，史密斯（Smith）多次重申她本人及其政府的立场是投票留在加拿大。
"We just need to get rid of her sooner rather than later and proceed to have a special general meeting of the party to vote on her leadership the same way we did with Jason Kenney," Rath told Step 5: The removal As referendum day got closer, Smith repeatedly said her position, and that of her government, is a vote to stay.
但她的党派情况则截然不同。安格斯·里德（Angus Reid）春季的一项民调显示，约64%的党员支持分裂。与此同时，超过70%的阿尔伯塔省民众拒绝这一想法。
Her party is a different story. A spring poll by Angus Reid found some 64 per cent of party members were separatists. Meanwhile, more than 70 per cent of Albertans reject the idea.
在史密斯宣布公投两周后，联合保守党（UCP）主席罗布·史密斯（Rob Smith，与省长无亲属关系）在加拿大广播公司（CBC）的广播节目中道出了实情。
Two weeks after Smith’s referendum announcement, UCP party president Rob Smith — no relation to the premier — said the quiet part out loud on CBC’s radio show.
罗布·史密斯表示，许多联合保守党成员支持独立，其中包括“阿尔伯塔省各地推动”公投发生的“大量领导人”。他说，如果省长不举行公投，党内团结将岌岌可危。
Many of the UCP members are pro-independence, Rob Smith said, including "a large number of the leaders across Alberta that pushed" to make the referendum happen. If the premier had not called the referendum, he said party unity would be in jeopardy.
分裂主义者倒戈史密斯。对拉斯而言，史密斯是该党弊病的根源，也是“实现独立的彻底障碍”。“只要史密斯担任阿尔伯塔省省长，阿尔伯塔就永远无法获得自由，”拉斯在八月份于省议会大厦台阶上举行的分裂主义集会上说道。
Separatists turn on Smith For Rath, Smith is the cause of the party’s ills and "a complete impediment to independence." "As long as Premier Smith is premier of Alberta, Alberta will never be free," Rath said at a separatist rally on the steps of the provincial legislature in August.
拉斯认为，分裂主义者已经拥有了罢免史密斯的影响力，他声称他们在2025年售出了超过8000份党籍，旨在将分裂主义者送入联合保守党的董事会。
Rath believes separatists already have the influence to take Smith out, claiming they sold upward of 8,000 memberships in 2025 to put separatists on the UCP board of directors.
他一直在推动联合保守党的选区协会要求进行特别领导权审查，而这只有在87个协会中至少有22个提出要求时才能实现。截至本文撰写时，仅有两个协会提出了要求。
He has been pushing UCP constituency associations to call for a special leadership review, which can only happen if at least 22 of 87 associations call for it. As of this writing, only two have done so.
但在策划推翻史密斯的同时，拉斯也正深陷自己的法律纠纷之中。他正被两个原住民团体起诉，指控他挪用了其律师事务所监管的信托基金中的数百万美元。拉斯表示，有关他挪用信托基金的指控是不实的。
But as he plots to overthrow Smith, Rath is grappling with his own legal troubles. He is being sued by two First Nations groups that allege he misappropriated millions of dollars from trust funds his law firm oversaw. Rath has said allegations he misappropriated funds from the trust are false.
史密斯的党团内部正显现出分歧。9月29日，红鹿市省议员杰森·斯蒂芬公开与省长的立场决裂，并宣布他已通过邮寄选票投下了“选项2”，即阿尔伯塔省应就脱离加拿大一事举行具有约束力的公投。
Divisions are showing within Smith’s caucus. On Sept. 29, Red Deer MLA Jason Stephan publicly split with the premier’s position and announced he voted for Option 2 — that Alberta should hold a binding referendum on whether to leave Canada — via a mail-in ballot.
与此同时，史密斯在阿尔伯塔省民众中的支持率已降至2023年大选以来的最低点。但她依然坚持自己的方针。
At the same time, Smith’s popularity with Albertans has reached its lowest point since the 2023 election. But she has held her course.
在9月19日举行的一场在线会议上，距离公投日还有一个多月，史密斯在列举分离主义集会上常见的诉求时强忍泪水。
During an online conference on Sept. 19, a month out from referendum day, Smith fought back tears while running through a list of grievances often heard at separatist rallies.
“有些人开始提出那个痛苦的问题：这个国家真的想要我们吗？”她在回到2025年曾让她招致嘘声的“统一加拿大”口号之前这样问道。
"Some begin to ask the painful question: Does this country actually want us?" she asked before returning to the same united Canada mantra that earned her boos in 2025.
一周后，这位省长在石油枢纽麦克默里堡举行的新闻发布会上，与卡尼总理并肩而立，满面春风地宣布联邦政府正在加快推进一条西海岸输油管道的建设。史密斯表示，这证明了加拿大正在为阿尔伯塔省服务。
A week later, the premier was beaming beside Prime Minister Carney at a press conference in the oil hub of Fort McMurray to announce that the federal government was fast-tracking a West Coast oil pipeline. This was proof, Smith said, that Canada was working for Alberta.
随后在10月7日，在埃德蒙顿加拿大军队基地举行的新闻发布会上，当加拿大广播公司（CBC）的一名记者询问她是否通过发起10月19日的公投，助长了她曾经的政治盟友——那些分离主义领导人的行为时，史密斯表现出了挑衅的态度。
Then on Oct. 7, at a press conference at CFB Edmonton, Smith struck a defiant tone when a CBC reporter asked if she had encouraged the behaviour of separatist leaders, her one-time political allies, by calling the Oct. 19 referendum.
“好吧，没有比你提到的那些分离主义领导人更严厉的批评者了，因为我已经非常明确地表明，我的立场是投票留在加拿大。”
"Well, there is no greater critic of me than the same separatist leaders that you are talking about, because I have been making it very clear that my position is to vote to remain."