Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks at a press conference, in Edmonton, on Nov. 29.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press
Next spring’s election in Alberta is shaping up to be much more than a vote on which party forms government. Increasingly, it’s looking like a referendum on the province’s future within Canada.
There is an enormous amount at stake, not just for the country but for the citizens of Alberta.
When Premier Danielle Smith introduced the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, she set in motion a process that could lead to a provincial referendum on Alberta’s desire to remain a part of this country.
If that sounds alarmist, so be it. But the architects of the act believe in the potential for a referendum as well, and are openly cheering for an outcome that leads to separation. Just look to Barry Cooper, a University of Calgary professor and one of the authors of a paper that served as the basis for the sovereignty legislation.
Mr. Cooper has been in the news recently expounding on the terrible, inhumane treatment Alberta has endured at the hands of Ottawa – at least in his mind. In interviews and op-eds, he has talked about the “malicious pillaging” of his province, which he says has nothing more than “client state” status under Confederation.
The professor has said that the threat of leaving the country has to be real to create the necessary pressure to get the federal government to finally bow to Alberta’s demands.
Many Albertans are petrified at the potential havoc Ms. Smith could unleash. One, a retiree named Patrick Reid, wrote to Mr. Cooper asking him how he ever imagined that Ms. Smith, the leader of the United Conservative Party, was ready to lead Alberta into the future. This was Mr. Cooper’s e-mail reply: “Don’t you get it? I want out as do many of my fellow citizens. If she won’t do the job we’ll get someone who will. It ain’t rocket science.”
When Mr. Reid forwarded me Mr. Cooper’s response, I first wondered whether it was a spoof. Would Mr. Cooper express his separatist ambitions in such a naked, unguarded way? I wrote to him to ask about his reply to Mr. Reid. This is what he said, in part:
“I have explained many times (in public) that what is required is constitutional change. That just as politics is downstream from culture, constitutions are downstream from politics.” He went on to say that if Canada won’t deal with Alberta’s grievances, there is only one option – a provincial vote on separation. Whether the province gets out of an unjust Constitution, he said, or an unjust country is unclear at the moment. “It ain’t rocket science,” he added.
He made no mention of his statement to Mr. Reid that if Ms. Smith doesn’t get the job done, they’ll find someone else who will. But no one should lose sight of the threat. Certainly, the Premier herself must be aware of what’s at stake. There is a reason she made the sovereignty act her first order of business upon taking over as Premier in November. She owes her victory as leader of the UCP to the wing of the party obsessed with the mélange of historic injustices for which Ottawa is allegedly responsible.
There is, of course, a long way to go. We have yet to see the first test case that emanates from the sovereignty act and what the consequences of that action will be. But along the way Albertans need to start asking people such as their Premier some hard questions, ones that many Britons didn’t ask those advocating for Brexit before it was too late.
Ms. Smith, Mr. Cooper and others campaigning for a more sovereign status for Alberta within Canada, or outright independence itself, keep saying that it would put an end to the anti-resource-industry agenda of the federal government and allow the province to get its oil to tidewater.
But they never say how. Ever.
They never explain how an independent Alberta would, say, force British Columbia, Quebec and Indigenous groups to accept more pipelines on the province’s behalf. Ms. Smith seems to believe that if Alberta is no longer subject to the federal government’s tanker ban along the west coast, for instance, it can resurrect the Northern Gateway proposal and start building a pipeline to tidewater tomorrow.
But that is just pure fantasy. Albertans need to understand that what they are being fed is caprice – a notion that comes from magical thinking not grounded in reality.
Far from tempering expectations, however, Ms. Smith is fuelling them, likely because she knows what’s at stake. If she doesn’t get the province to this imaginary promised land, her benefactors will find someone who will.