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The comment came a day after Alberta Premier Danielle Smith pledged to hold a referendum on provincial separation next year if citizens gather enough signatures on a petition.

“You know, united we stand, divided we fall and we have to be united, Canada together, to fight … President Trump’s tariffs and the economic uncertainty that he has created not just here but down in the U.S. as well,” continued Ford, who did not mention Smith or Alberta by name.

He suggested Smith’s dramatic move undercuts Carney at the White House meeting. 

“We have a Prime Minister down there, and he’s going to be sitting down and he’s going to give it everything he can,” Ford said shortly before the sit-down with Trump. 

In a livestream address to her province Monday, Smith said her preference is to keep Alberta in Canada but noted there is a growing contingent of Albertans who have soured on Confederation over federal Liberal policies and are pushing for an exit.

“They’re frustrated, and they have every reason to be,” she said a week after her government introduced legislation — the day after the federal election — that would lower the bar to trigger a referendum on separation.

“The vast majority of these individuals are not fringe voices to be marginalized or vilified. They are loyal Albertans.”

If passed by her majority government, the bill would change the rules for a citizen-initiated referendum to a petition signed by 10 per cent of eligible voters in a previous generation election. That is down from a previous requirement of 20 per cent of registered voters.

The time period to collect the required signatures — about 177,000 — would be increased, to 120 days, up from 90, making it easier to meet the threshold for a vote.

Smith said a decade of Liberal government in Ottawa has taken an unfair share of Alberta’s oil and gas wealth and undermined the industry, which fuels the province’s resource-dependent economy, with Canada well behind on getting many of its resources to markets across the country and on other continents. 

While saying she is encouraged by a rise in support for pipelines and other infrastructure projects, Smith maintained the country has a long ways to go. 

“We have the most abundant and accessible natural resources of any country on Earth, and yet we landlock them, sell what we do produce to a single customer to the south of us while enabling polluting dictatorships to eat our lunch,” she said.