Alberta Premier Danielle Smith makes a health care announcement in Calgary, in July.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Jeremy Appel is an Edmonton-based freelance journalist who writes The Orchard newsletter on Substack. He’s the author of the forthcoming Dark Phoenix: The Rise, Fall, and Re-emergence of Danielle Smith.
There’s an old Seinfeld episode in which Elaine speculates to Jerry that perhaps there’s more to his archnemesis Newman “than meets the eye.”
“No,” responds Jerry, “there’s less.”
I’m reminded of this exchange as Alberta barrels toward a series of referendums on Oct. 19, including the question of whether the province should hold a future referendum on secession from Canada.
Alberta separation could cost up to $170-billion over first five years, report estimates
It’s undeniable that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has done more to advance the cause of Alberta separatism than any premier in the province’s history. While she’s publicly stated her intention to vote to remain in Canada, don’t expect her to actively campaign for that outcome.
Many of Ms. Smith’s critics have argued that her permissive approach toward the separatist movement is evidence of a thinly veiled separatist agenda. But what if there’s less to her than meets the eye?
Ms. Smith has changed laws twice to remove barriers to separatist campaigners collecting signatures for an independence referendum while initiating nine referendum questions of her own that align with separatist grievances about immigration and the structure of Canadian federalism.
After the Court of King’s Bench nullified the independence petition because the government failed to consult First Nations before approving it, Ms. Smith circumvented the ruling by scheduling a referendum on whether to remain in Canada or prepare for a future binding independence referendum.
In attempting to explain Ms. Smith’s behaviour, Alberta’s NDP Opposition has stated flatly that “Danielle Smith is a separatist” who “wants Alberta to leave Canada.” So too has Canada’s National Observer columnist Max Fawcett and Mount Royal University political scientist Keith Brownsey.
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Ms. Smith has given these critics ample justification for this suspicion, but I suspect her true motivation is equal measures more banal and more troubling than what her opponents allege.
Rather than the committed ideologue Ms. Smith’s critics often portray her as, a close look at her career in media and politics reveals that she is little more than a political opportunist whose primary ambition is wielding state power to reward her allies and discipline her enemies.
As far back as 2005, Ms. Smith argued in the Calgary Herald that the province should hold an independence referendum if Ottawa doesn’t agree to adopt a U.S.-style Triple-E Senate, weaken the power of unelected judges and phase out transfer payments to provinces. “Either way, Alberta would get the federal system it wants,” she wrote ominously.
Even 20 years ago, before Ms. Smith was on anybody’s radar as a potential provincial politician, she advocated instrumentalizing the threat of an independence referendum to fundamentally restructure Canada.
It’s one thing to make this case as a newspaper columnist for provocation’s sake, but the separatist threat is now being wielded by Ms. Smith to advance public subsidies for a new bitumen pipeline to the B.C. coast and a carbon capture project favoured by Canada’s biggest oil companies. She’s found a willing partner in Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has overseen a simultaneous gutting of Canadian climate policy to advance industry’s prerogatives.
Advancing separatist ambitions is a means to an end; the end is simply power. But it’s not Ms. Smith who’s actually in charge. She’s just the friendly conduit for the forces that brought her into the position she’s in.
A significant portion of Ms. Smith’s voters, if not outright majority, would vote to separate from Canada. Ms. Smith has all but admitted that in order to remain Premier, she needs to give these voters an outlet so that they feel respected, lest they migrate to an avowedly separatist party.
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But she wouldn’t be secure in her role if she only appealed to her rural reactionary base that supports separatism.
The secret of her thus-far enduring electoral success is advancing her base’s grievances and using her considerable communicative talents, honed through her years as a radio and TV host, to translate them into terms that are palatable to less ideologically strident voters in suburban Calgary.
This is why she’s done everything she can to ensure that there’s some sort of referendum on independence while maintaining a politically healthy detachment from its outcome.
If Ms. Smith sensed that becoming an outright separatist would help her maintain power, she would espouse that position in a heartbeat, selling it as a compromise between two imaginary extremes.
That doesn’t make her a committed separatist. It makes her a committed self-preservationist. This distinction is crucial in understanding the threat she poses not just to Alberta but Canada.