Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that Alberta was "essential" to the country's future, hours after the province's leader moved the oil-rich region closer toward a referendum on independence.
Carney, who spent most of his childhood in western Alberta province, said on Friday in a taped video address from Parliament Hill that, "Canada is the greatest country in the world, but it can be better," he said. "We're working with Alberta on making it better."
Alberta "is essential" to Canada's future, the prime minister added.
Separatists in the province spent months collecting signatures seeking to trigger a binding October vote on seceding from the nation.
On May 4, they delivered their petition to provincial officials, insisting they had collected more than enough names to force a vote under Alberta law.
But an Alberta judge shut down the process, saying the citizens' initiative was invalid because the separatists had failed to consult with Indigenous groups whose rights could be threatened if the province separated from Canada.
In an address late on Thursday, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith called the judge's decision "erroneous" and said she would go ahead with a referendum, structuring the question so that it does not violate the ruling.
In October, she plans to ask Albertans if they want her government "to commence the legal process necessary to hold a binding referendum" on independence.
"It's time to have a vote, understand the will of Albertans on this subject and move on," said Smith, a conservative whose political coalition includes separatists.
'Sacred agreements'
The Indigenous groups who blocked the citizens initiative in court condemned Smith on Friday, insisting the treaties they signed with the British crown before Canada's independence cannot be cast aside through "unilateral action by Alberta."
The deal ensuring their land rights "was entered into with the Crown long before Alberta became a province," Grand Chief Trevor Mercredi of the Treaty 8 First Nations said in a statement.
"These sacred agreements cannot simply be ignored or politically worked around," he added, urging Smith to pause her plan to put an independence question to the public in October.
Polls show that roughly 30 percent of Alberta's five million people support independence, a record-high figure.
The separatist camp accuses Ottawa of stifling Alberta's oil industry with excessive federal influence, while blocking investment over what they view as unreasonable concern about the environment.
Carney and Smith are working together on advancing a new oil pipeline, something resisted by Carney's predecessor Justin Trudeau.
Smith has voiced hope that increased federal support for the oil industry could help tame separatist anger.
