Good morning. A court hearing today could decide whether Alberta separatists are allowed to push their cause to a provincial referendum – more on that below, along with Artemis II’s historic lunar flyby and WestJet’s new fuel surcharge. But first:

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Danielle Smith has a line she likes to trot out when asked about her support for Alberta’s separatist campaign. Over and over, the Premier keeps insisting she wants “a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada.”

That framing doesn’t much impress the Opposition NDP, who’ve called it a “word salad.” But it’s also gone down poorly with a good chunk of Smith’s own United Conservative Party members. In November, when she tried to hype up her energy deal with Ottawa as a sign that Canada can work, delegates at the annual UCP convention responded with thunderous boos. Not long after, lawyer Jeffrey Rath – the most strident leader of Alberta’s separatist movement – grabbed a mic and wondered how many folks in the room backed independence. The crowd promptly leapt to its feet.

Rath co-founded the Alberta Prosperity Project, which has every intention of forcing the province’s first separation referendum this fall. Still, the plan faces a potential roadblock: A judge in the Court of King’s Bench will hear an urgent injunction later today to shut the entire campaign down. Sturgeon Lake Cree First Nation has sued the government to stop Alberta’s separatist petition drive, arguing that secession would violate Indigenous treaty rights.

“The Treaties were agreed to by First Nations and the Crown before Alberta was created,” a coalition of seven First Nations chiefs reasoned earlier this year. “Alberta is not a party to the Treaty and cannot make changes without First Nations’ consent.”

The provincial government hasn’t weighed in on Sturgeon Lake’s injunction, beyond saying it would “wait to see this process play out.” But for all of Smith’s sovereign-Alberta-in-a-united-Canada claims, her government has made it considerably easier for separatists to call a referendum. Last spring – just one day after Mark Carney’s Liberals won the federal election – Smith lowered the threshold needed to trigger a constitutional referendum. Previously, citizen initiatives required about 588,000 signatures; she brought that down to fewer than 178,000 instead.

Alberta Prosperity Project CEO Mitch Sylvestre called the legislation a “big gift,” and put in his application for an initiative asking the question: “Do you agree that the Province of Alberta should cease to be part of Canada and become an independent state?” That petition hit a snag over the summer, when Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer – concerned that the question violated Charter rights – referred it to another judge in the Court of King’s Bench. In December, Justice Colin Feasby confirmed the Chief Electoral Officer’s suspicion: Alberta’s referendum rules did not permit a separatist bid.

So Smith changed those rules, as well, ditching the safeguard that required referendum questions to comply with the Constitution. She also stripped the Chief Electoral Officer of their power to determine whether a referendum should go forward or refer the question to a judge for scrutiny. That responsibility now rests with Alberta’s Justice Minister.

The province then tossed out all court proceedings brought forward by chief electoral officers under the previous referendum rules. Forget Justice Feasby’s decision. “If those seeking independence believe that they have the support for it,” Justice Minister Mickey Amery announced, “this is their chance to prove it.”

The Alberta Prosperity Project quickly took Amery up on his offer, resubmitting its proposal for a separation referendum. Last week, Sylvestre said his campaign had already collected the 178,000 signatures needed to force a vote. The Court of King’s Bench could still rule in favour of Sturgeon Lake’s injunction this week, reinstating the law that a citizen-led petition must follow the Constitution. It’s a decent bet, though, that Alberta would just change the law again.

“As we have said, any current citizen initiative that meets the eligibility requirements and gets the requisite number of signatures will be put on the October 19th referendum ballot,” a government spokesperson told The Globe on Friday. Independence might not be wildly popular in Alberta: Somewhere between 21 and 26 per cent of residents support breaking away, according to recent polls. But it clearly has a lot of boosters among Smith’s UCP voters. And it looks like, come the fall, those separatists will have their say.

Artemis II astronauts have travelled farther away from Earth than anyone before them, slipping behind the moon and breaking Apollo 13’s distance record of 400,171 kilometres. Read more about the landmark lunar flyby here.

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