Indigenous leaders warn that Alberta separation would violate treaty rights [Video]

A First Nations chief in Alberta says he will push for a referendum to have Premier Danielle Smith kicked out of office if she doesn’t agree to meet with him and other Indigenous leaders across the West amid the separatist talk they say violates treaty rights.

In a letter dated May 2, Chief Clifford Poucette of Goodstoney First Nation requested a formal meeting with Ms. Smith to discuss mounting concerns over what he says are government efforts to “loosen referendum rules and entertain conversations that embolden Alberta’s separatist movement.”

Mr. Poucette and Indigenous leaders across the Western provinces have sounded the alarm about some right-wing Albertans fuelling the sovereigntist movement with proposals that they say violate international law and treaties.

“Your recent political maneuvering dismisses the foundational legal and moral agreements that make Alberta’s existence possible,” Mr. Poucette says in the letter, which was copied to Prime Minister Mark Carney and Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree.

“These Treaties do not expire …