Prime Minister Mark Carney meets with Premier of Alberta Danielle Smith at his office in Ottawa on Friday.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
One of the common ripostes to the actions of separatists in Alberta has been that if they want to leave Canada, they should form a party and campaign on that idea, like they do in Quebec.
To which I say: Why start a party from scratch when you already own one?
It’s been clear for some time now that separatists are welcome in Alberta’s governing United Conservative Party. In fact, Premier Danielle Smith owes her leadership to some of those playing key roles in attempting to spur a referendum on separation. People like David Parker, founder of the separatist Centurion Project, who helped depose former UCP leader Jason Kenney, which paved the way for Ms. Smith.
Mr. Kenney, a staunch federalist, was never going to make it easy for the separatist cause to take deep root in Alberta. Ms. Smith, on the other hand, has happily provided the nourishment that the movement has needed to grow. One recent poll showed that 55 per cent of UCP supporters would vote to separate.
One UCP MLA recently urged people to sign a petition calling for a referendum on separation with nary a word of condemnation from his leader. She didn’t dare.
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Now Mitch Sylvestre, a sporting store owner from Bonnyville, Alta., who describes himself as the leader of the Alberta independence movement, has called on supporters to join the UCP en masse to take control of the party from the inside.
And there would seem to be little Ms. Smith is willing to do about it.
And so here we are with the likes of Mr. Sylvestre pushing for a development that would undoubtedly lead to Alberta’s economic decline. Yet, no one in a position of responsibility wants to denounce it. Consequently, Mr. Sylvestre goes on his separatist campaign trail spouting all sorts of nonsense and mistruths.
A Toronto Star columnist followed Mr. Sylvestre around for several days earlier this year. Among the many bizarre and bewildering statements Richard Warnica says he heard the separatist leader make was the claim King Charles is running something akin to a criminal enterprise out of Buckingham Palace and stripping Canada of millions of dollars in the process. All this, Mr. Sylvestre maintains, while the feckless federal Liberals dutifully look away.
There were other assertions that Mr. Sylvestre made in speeches that were less sensational but no less pernicious, like stating Canada has the lowest GDP in the industrialized world. This is a lie, but it sells well to separatist believers.
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All it would take to put the likes of Mr. Sylvestre in his place is a well-timed, high-profile speech by Ms. Smith in which she called him out on the falsehoods he’s propagating to assist the separatist cause – one that, it should be said, is currently hurting investment in the province far more than anything the federal government is doing. But Ms. Smith won’t say a word for fear of an internal party backlash.
Mr. Sylvestre is chair of his local UCP constituency association, for heaven’s sake. A real leader who believed in Canada would have had him expelled from that position. But not Ms. Smith.
She can go on talk shows and say she’s fighting for Canada against separatist sentiment in her province, but she knows that’s not true. She can say she believes in a “sovereign Alberta within a united Canada” until the moose come home, but it means nothing if she repeatedly allows the actions of separatists to go unchallenged.
Just consider Ms. Smith’s appalling response to the massive data breach in which the personal information of 2.9 million Albertans was released publicly, apparently by the organizers of the Centurion Project. A UCP caucus staffer was present at a meeting with Centurion organizers when use of the data contained in the list of electors was discussed – data that can now, potentially, be used by organized criminals to commit fraud.
You would think that given the seriousness of the matter, the Premier would be apoplectic about this contravention. Nope. She was more upset with the NDP for not notifying her office about what happened when they found out – they went to the RCMP instead – even though one of her own caucus staffers was aware of what was going on.
This is not a serious government. This is not a serious political leader. Ms. Smith is compromised by the influence of separatist forces inside her party. She does not want to end up like her predecessor Mr. Kenney and be out of a job.
So she goes along to get along. Even as it threatens her province and its status in Confederation.