HIGH RIVER, Alberta -- Danielle Smith, the premier of this rugged oil-rich province, is regarded as a maverick with a reputation for taking political risks. Now she is embarking on perhaps the biggest gamble of them all.

Smith has paved the way for a referendum on Oct. 19 that will ask if the province should stay in Canada or start the process toward a second, binding referendum on whether to leave it for good. The idea has jolted Canada, which depends on Alberta's oil-and-gas revenue and is in the midst of a trade fight with the U.S.

"I've watched the separatist movement since I got involved in politics back in the '90s, and I don't think I've ever seen the support as high as it was after the Liberals got elected last year," Smith said in an interview, referring to Prime Minister Mark Carney's party. She said 700,000 Albertans -- out of about five million -- have signed petitions either for leaving or staying.

"I think we need to have the debate and have the answer," she said.

The outcome will have far-reaching consequences for Smith's legacy, Alberta's fortunes and Canada's efforts to buttress its economy amid fraying U.S. ties. Carney, who led the Bank of England during Brexit, has called the referendum a "dangerous bluff" that could undercut Canada's international reputation as a reliable business partner.

Smith insists she wants Alberta to remain part of Canada, albeit with substantial autonomy. But she made it easier for separatists to have a vote, and critics say she fanned their grievances.

The referendum is making no one happy.

Other premiers oppose it. Businesses warn it could chill investment. Separatists want a stay-or-leave vote now, not a referendum on a referendum, and some have called for her ouster. Federalists accuse Smith of putting the country's unity on the line to placate separatists in her base -- polls show more than half of her United Conservative Party voters back separation -- and to save her job.

"She is very much aware that the people who helped bring her to power as premier are some of the most passionate separatists," said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, a pollster. "It's a tough bind."

In High River, a foothills town some 42 miles south of Calgary where Smith and her husband once owned a restaurant set in a vintage railway car, Albertans are divided on the need to hold a referendum.

"The whole thing is just ridiculous," said Julie Shoup, 69 years old, a retired foster parent who supports Alberta remaining in Canada. "It's just driving people apart."

Heidi Dominas also plans to vote for Alberta to remain in Canada but doesn't mind having a vote.

"It gives people that feeling of this is how democracy works," said Dominas, 63, who was working the till at a shop off the main drag.

Frustration with the federal government's treatment of Alberta, home to the world's fourth-largest proven oil reserves, has long ebbed and flowed here. But it deepened amid what Smith calls "10 years of bad Liberal policy" under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who championed laws that Smith said stifled the oil-and-gas sector.

In Carney, Trudeau's Liberal Party successor as prime minister, Smith has found an unlikely ally. A former United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance, Carney surprised many political observers when he pledged to turn Canada into an "energy superpower" and backed a new oil pipeline from Alberta to the west coast of British Columbia. He said Smith jokes that she sees more of him than her husband.

Smith said improved ties with Carney's government is proof Canada still works, an argument she hopes bolsters the federalist cause.

"I've been very forthright with the prime minister because he can read the polls just as well as I can," Smith said. "I said you and I have to work together on trying to address these issues in a meaningful way, and so I'm glad to see that he's taken it as seriously as I have."

Polls show a minority of Albertans support separation, but analysts say the text of the question might encourage votes for another referendum to send a message of protest to the federal government. A May Angus Reid poll found 30% of Albertans supported leaving Canada. When the question was whether to stay or have a binding vote on leaving, 35% wanted the official referendum.

Few Canadian politicians have charted as dramatic an arc as Smith, 55, a polarizing figure who has helped shape Canada's conservative movement. She came to national prominence in 2009 as leader of the fledgling, populist Wildrose Party and turned it into a challenger to the Progressive Conservatives, who had governed Alberta since 1971.

In 2014, she took a political gamble -- and lost. She defected from the party she led to the Progressive Conservatives. She thought it would unite the right, but Albertans saw it as a betrayal, and she later called it a "devastating personal failure."

Smith left politics and hosted a call-in radio show, which she still does as premier. "She told everybody what they were thinking and feeling was relevant," said Janet Brown, an Alberta-based pollster. "That seems to be her magic formula."

She isn't afraid to weigh in on cultural flashpoints. She once called unvaccinated people the "most discriminated-against group that I've ever witnessed in my lifetime." She visited President Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Her government has banned some transgender women and girls from competing in female-only sports and invoked a clause in Canada's constitution to shield the law from legal challenges.

Smith made an improbable political comeback in 2022 amid a United Conservative Party revolt that led to the ouster of then-Premier Jason Kenney over his pandemic restrictions. As premier, she has sought greater autonomy for Alberta, once threatening an "unprecedented national unity crisis" if the federal government didn't scrap laws she opposed.

Smith has smoothed the separatists' path to a referendum. She cut the number of signatures needed for a citizen petition to trigger such a vote. After a judge last year found a pro-separatist petition violated a law, Smith amended the law. When a judge dealt another blow to separatists in May, Smith appealed the ruling and called the referendum.

"She has not appeared to do anything to get in the way of this referendum," said Lisa Young, a political scientist at the University of Calgary. "A lot of people are left puzzled by the gap between her actions and the words that she says about being a federalist."

Back in High River, a town that has served as the backdrop for television shows such as HBO's "The Last of Us" and FX's "Fargo," Shae Morris plans to vote for a binding referendum.

The 56-year-old said the province gives more to the federal government than it gets back and that it would be better off on its own. She said she doesn't believe that Smith is a federalist.

"I think she is playing along to get along," Morris said.

Rick Bozak, who runs a business repairing warehouses, supports Alberta staying in Canada. He said he understands some separatist grievances, but the province won't be better off with its own pension plan or healthcare system. The 69-year-old disapproved of Smith's handling of the issue.

"She's trying to have it both ways," said Bozak.