Of all the statements made by Premier Danielle Smith over the last couple of months – maybe the last couple of years – none has been as mystifying as her assessment of what Alberta voters asked of her in the last election.
“I got a mandate to try and fix Canada,” Ms. Smith told reporters recently. “I got a mandate to make Canada work.”
This will certainly come as a shock to many. Of all the prominent political voices in this country, none has seemed more Canada-aloof, more Canada-skeptical, than Ms. Smith. And few have allowed separatist sentiment in her province to flourish and grow more than her.
A mandate to make Canada work? Hardly.
For decades, the idea of “Western separatism” was a mostly fringe obsession among rural Albertans. It began to grow into something more real after the war that erupted over the federal Liberals’ National Energy Program in the early 1980s. That destroyed any trust there was between the province and Ottawa, and that enmity has been passed down through generations.
Over that time, feelings out of Alberta toward central Canada have ebbed and flowed, largely depending on the federal government of the day. Conservatives get a pass that Liberals don’t. Consequently, federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is likely to have one less headache to deal with if he wins the April 28 election – specifically, the national unity crisis Ms. Smith has portended if things don’t go Alberta’s way after the vote.
Before Ms. Smith took to bashing Justin Trudeau, it was her predecessor, Jason Kenney, who did. If there is a Liberal government in Ottawa, it is apparently the sworn duty of the premier of Alberta to denounce it and warn of potential national disunity if certain demands aren’t met.
This has always been a war of ideology more than anything. Alberta premiers love to talk about how badly they are treated by the “Liberal elite” in Ottawa, and yet say little about similar management at the hands of Conservatives. For instance, Alberta insists the federal equalization program is unfair. That would be the same one that Conservative prime minister and former Calgary MP Stephen Harper refused to change. It wasn’t Mr. Harper who finally got the Trans Mountain pipeline extension built – it was Justin Trudeau. And it was an accomplishment for which he received zero credit in Alberta.
Ms. Smith has issued a set of nine demands she says the next federal government will have to meet within six months or face potential national Armageddon. They include the unfettered right to build pipelines across the country, apparently regardless of how other provinces might feel about such incursions. She also wants an end to the cap on greenhouse-gas emissions that the industry faces. There are, of course, more. But the gist of it is this: we either build what we want and pollute how much we want, or Canada has a problem on its hands.
What is puzzling about Alberta’s position on oil and gas development is the fact there are more than 30 approved oil sands projects that are not under construction, according to the Alberta Energy Regulator. Again, these are approved and ready to go – all that’s missing are companies willing to bring these ventures to life.
It isn’t “Laurentian elites” holding these developments back. It’s the private sector.
At the moment, there are several entities in Alberta working to undermine Canadian unity. They include groups like the Alberta Prosperity Project and the Republican Party of Alberta (formerly the Buffalo Party). The Republicans recently posted a list of all Alberta MLAs and where they stood on the idea of a referendum on independence. The group counted 11 members of the United Conservative Party government as being in support of such a vote, only one of whom has since asked to have his name removed from that list.
That gives you an idea of what the current mindset is among members of the Alberta government.
I don’t believe Ms. Smith wants this project known as Canada to fail. Despite some of her decisions and statements, I think she believes the country is stronger with Alberta in it, and vice versa. And I believe she wants to forge a better relationship with the government in Ottawa, whoever is in power.
But as they say, it takes two to tango. If she truly wants this country to work better, which she says is her mandate, then she is going to have to work much harder to make that happen. And that might mean staring down dissenters in her own party first.