Thank you, Mayor Farkas.
What a crowd. What a celebration. What a country!
Trust Calgarians – tell them they’re coming to hear a few speeches, and they turn it into a party.
A celebration of the true North, strong and free.
We have the greatest country on earth reflected in this room. Proud Calgarians, proud Albertans, proud Canadians.
We’ve heard from some of them tonight, including Mayor Jeremy Farkas.
Thomas Lukaszuk. Let me start by thanking you and all Forever Canadian volunteers. You have knocked on the doors. You have gathered the signatures. You made the calls. You are fighting for Canada.
Mayor Farkas and Deborah Yedlin. Leaders who have continually stood up for Canada and Alberta’s place at its heart.
Jon Cornish, one of 30% of this province who came to Alberta and became a champion in football and then a champion in our community.
There is a common thread that runs through their remarkable stories, through their service, through their messages tonight.
It is the power of a team, because it is the team that helps us achieve more together than we ever could alone.
That’s the Canada we are here to celebrate tonight, and to fight for, when it matters most.
The stakes are high.
This referendum comes at the worst possible time.
The world has become more dangerous and divided. Some outside our borders are working to break us so they can own us.
But we know that we can give ourselves more than anyone else can take away.
And we know that when we are united, we become even stronger, fairer, and freer as a country.
At this pivotal moment, Albertans have a choice: to build a stronger Alberta and an even greater Canada to leave for our children, or to burden them with years of deep division and great uncertainty.
What we need is a decisive result on Monday that will settle this question.
Right now, our country needs three things from you – from all Albertans.
First, mark your calendar. This Monday is referendum day, and if you can, vote now – advance polls will be open through this Saturday.
Second, show your pride. Wear the maple leaf. Wear the sweater. Tell your friends, your family, and your coworkers why you are voting for Canada.
And third, bring a friend and vote like Canada depends on it.
Because it does.
Don’t let anyone tell you this is already decided. Turnout will determine the outcome.
And don’t be fooled by the idea you can “send a message” with your vote.
This is not poker. A vote against Canada is a dangerous bluff that will lead to years of deep uncertainty and lost opportunities for Albertans and Canadians.
Our country and your futures are too precious to play games with.
This referendum is about something larger than any of us. It is about the province and country we love, and it’s about what we can build together.
Look, I know Alberta is my home. I grew up here. This province and this country have given me everything: my family, my education, my values.
My grandparents came here because Canada held a great promise – a country that’s fair, strong, compassionate, and free.
A country where hard work gets you ahead. Where the nation does its part: building the communities, the railways, the ports, the pipelines, and the broadband to access markets.
That’s strength.
They came for a country where we help each other, look out for each other, stand up for each other.
That’s compassion.
A country where you are free to be who you want to be. To speak your mind. To worship as you choose. To live your life as you wish. That’s independence. That’s real sovereignty.
In Canada, we understand one fundamental truth: unity is not uniformity.
Our differences are strengths to nurture, not risks to manage.
In Canada, our beliefs, our languages, our backgrounds, and our traditions are not concessions made to our citizenship. They are the very expression of it.
This unity is our strength.
Albertans are justifiably proud.
Proud of this great city. Proud of how a small fort on the Bow became a global energy capital and host to the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth. Yahoo!
Proud of how Calgarians constantly push out the frontier and always grow stronger in adversity.
Proud of how Calgary and Alberta welcome the best from across Canada and around the world.
Proud of how Alberta has helped shape Canada.
Our story didn’t start with my grandparents or yours.
Long before Alberta was a province, the Siksika, Kainai, and Piikani nations of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Tsuut’ina and the Stoney Nakoda nations called this land home.
Nearly 150 years ago, at Blackfoot Crossing, they made Treaty 7 with the Crown.
Honouring Canada’s history means facing the truth that these promises between nations have been broken many times.
Because when something is not right – when it is not fair – we don’t hide from it or walk away from it. We fix it, together. And because of that, we become stronger for it.
That’s Alberta. That’s Canada.
So, in 1929, fighting injustice, Alberta’s Famous Five took their case all the way to England and won recognition of women as “persons” under the law.
That ruling called our Constitution “a living tree” – a tree with deep roots in Alberta soil.
In 1982, Alberta shaped the new Canadian constitution. Premier Peter Lougheed helped secure provincial control over resources and create the amending formula for that constitution.
Throughout our history, Albertans have helped power the world, feed the world, and lead the world.
You look back, you look at the first well in Turner Valley turning into an energy superpower today.
You look back at the first homesteads, many of them around Lethbridge in the 19th century, to farming two-thirds of all irrigated land in Canada and raising its largest beef herd.
You look back a century ago, J.B. Collip purifying the first insulin, to right now, Richard Sutton’s pioneering work on frontier artificial intelligence.
That’s Canada. Made in Alberta.
Standing up for each other, helping each other, is bred in the bone on the Alberta prairie.
Albertans have always lived those values so we can live them today.
From the 10th Battalion in the First World War, to the Calgary Tanks at Dieppe in the second, the Calgary Highlanders and the King’s Own Calgary Regiment in Afghanistan, Albertans have defended Canada and our allies, and always will.
When the Bow River rose, volunteers rushed to meet the moment. The Canadian Armed Forces worked alongside them. And the Stampede went ahead two weeks later under the slogan “Hell or High Water.” That’s Calgary.
When fires tore through our communities, Canada responded. In Jasper, firefighters came from Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Québec, and Ontario – across Canada.
Canadians gave $300 million through the Red Cross to help the people of Fort McMurray.
And Albertans have always given back. Just this summer when fires ravaged communities in British Columbia, hundreds of Alberta firefighters went to their aid.
And this afternoon, first responders – police and firefighters – rushed to the scene of the horrific crash near Saddletowne Station. Tonight, doctors and nurses are treating the wounded. And friends, families, and neighbours are consoling the bereaved.
Because in Canada, we take care of each other.
Here in Alberta, we have always spoken French: from the voyageurs and Métis who travelled our first routes, to the families of Saint-Albert, Bonnyville and Saint-Paul, right up to the students on the Saint-Jean campus today.
Here, we have never had to choose between being an Albertan or being a Canadian.
Next Monday, let’s choose to continue building this country, together – a country that is big enough to welcome all our differences, and strong enough to unite us.
Now, I want to say a few more words on unity.
Faced with a more dangerous world, Canadians are choosing, once again, to stand together.
Buying Alberta whisky, taking holidays in the Rockies, coming to the Stampede, and choosing Canadian suppliers.
They are acts of solidarity, repeated millions of times. The threads of our country being woven together anew.
I won’t sugarcoat it: some of those threads have needed to be repaired. The frustrations that many Albertans have felt are real.
Growing up, I remember how Ottawa made Albertans feel like our resources weren’t our own.
And then more recently, we were made to feel that our energy contributions were running against the tides of history.
What should have brought us together began to divide us. Contributing to a half century of politics that have too often pulled us apart.
Canada isn’t perfect. But we are the best and we are getting better, working again in a spirit of cooperative federalism.
Calgary is at the centre of that transformation. Canada’s Major Projects Office is headquartered here, making decisions about the projects that will build this country – new ports, mines, and energy corridors. Half a trillion dollars in new investment.
And together, we are unlocking our full potential as a global energy superpower, including with the Pacific Link pipeline.
Pacific Link will create over 140,000 jobs, reduce our dependence on the United States, and generate revenues to protect the social programs Albertans rely on every day, including health care, dental care, child care, and the National School Food Program.
This is true nation building, and it will take a nation to build it, through partnerships with First Nations, British Columbia, suppliers from across the country, and foreign importers who want to trade more with Canada, the world’s most reliable partner.
Yes, Canada is building big again, and Alberta is at the heart of it.
Half a billion dollars to build the local infrastructure for tens of thousands of affordable homes across the province.
High-speed rail to connect Calgary and Edmonton.
Eight billion dollars in defence investments in Alberta over the next decade.
New trade deals so our farmers can get more for their crops and livestock – canola and livestock up 80% this year.
Because Canada is already the most connected country in the world – with tariff-free access to 1.5 billion consumers.
And we are just getting started.
If we are distracted and divided, we will miss these opportunities.
However, if you choose Team Canada on Monday, Albertans will go on powering the world, feeding the world, and healing the world.
Nobody achieves greatness on their own.
Not a pro athlete, not one great city on a vast prairie, not a single province.
It takes a team.
Those who came before us understood that.
They came with hope and ambition. They endured the hard winters and the lean years. They built homes and farms, businesses and communities. They stood by their neighbours. And together, they built something greater than any of them could have imagined.
Now it’s our turn.
Because Canada was never merely a bargain struck between provinces.
It was never a series of transactions, of gives and gets, of gross and net.
Canada is a promise so much greater than the sum of its parts.
It is a promise that, together, we will take all that we’ve been given – and we have been given the greatest country in the world – and we will make it so much better for all of us.
That promise is for each of us to keep.
Let this generation of Albertans choose to build up, not break down.
Let Alberta lead, not leave.
To make Canada stronger, fairer, and freer.
Remember these three things:
Mark Monday, October 19,on your calendar.
Show your pride.
Bring a friend and vote like Canada depends on it.
Because it does.
This is our Canada. This is our future.
Let us build it together.