Demonstrators gather beneath a billboard promoting Alberta independence during a rally in Taber, Alta., on Sunday.Matthew Bruce/The Canadian Press
When the Alberta government announced the makeup of what was to be an impartial panel examining the economic cost of independence, a couple of the names raised eyebrows.
Ted Morton would be taking part. The former provincial finance minister was a signatory to the infamous “firewall letter” that was published in 2001 and called for greater Alberta autonomy in Canada. Meantime, the panel was to be headed by Jack Mintz, a conservatively inclined economist who wrote a 2020 book with Mr. Morton (and Tom Flanagan) called Moment of Truth: How to Think About Alberta’s Future. In it, the authors said none favoured separation as a first option, “but we also see it as a viable last resort if all else fails.”
Others include former Saskatchewan health minister Janice MacKinnon, Business Council of Alberta president Adam Legge and Cenovus board chair Alex Pourbaix. Mr. Legge has said he has concerns about the fiscal costs of independence.
Some, including Jeffrey Rath, leader of the pro-separatist Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), accused Premier Danielle Smith of putting together a panel that plays “both sides of the fence.”
Nonetheless, Mr. Rath said he believed those on the panel who were “on our side” would confirm the APP’s own fiscal projections that forecast the province would save about $70-billion by splitting from Canada – a calculation that has generally been mocked and dismissed.
Jeffrey Rath, Alberta Prosperity Project leader, in Edmonton in May.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press
While Mr. Rath may feel confident about the presence of Mr. Morton and Mr. Mintz on the panel, I would suggest their participation could end up hurting the independence movement far more than it helps.
The panel is being overseen by the Calgary School of Public Policy, whose director is former Liberal MP and one-time federal leadership candidate Martha Hall Findlay. She is the former president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation, a Calgary-based think tank. She brings enormous integrity and credibility to this initiative.
As importantly, the final report will be reviewed by the widely respected University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe, whose early forecasts of what separation would cost Alberta paint a bleak picture of the outcome.
The Calgary Chamber of Commerce recently commissioned two independent studies examining the implications of separation, one by Mr. Tombe. In it he estimates Alberta would forgo between $10-billion and $15-billion in investment in the first year of independence if business activity declined at a rate similar to the one experienced by Britain after Brexit.
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The fact is, Alberta’s economy is wholly integrated with Canadian and global markets. Roughly one in three Alberta workers are currently employed in sectors reliant on trade with other provinces and other countries. Mr. Tombe found that interprovincial exports alone support about 330,000 jobs in areas that generated $78-billion in income last year.
If separation increased trade costs at a rate similar to that experienced by Britain post-Brexit – roughly eight per cent – Alberta’s economy would shrivel by an astonishing $62-billion annually. The Alberta workforce, meantime, would be reduced by about 175,000 workers, Mr. Tombe figured.
Earlier, Lennie Kaplan, a former senior manager in the fiscal and economic policy division of Alberta’s Ministry of Treasury Board and Finance provided The Globe and Mail with a preliminary analysis he did on the cost of separation. Among his findings: in year one of independence, personal income per person in Alberta would fall by 6.2 per cent; retail sales would slide by 8.2 per cent, housing starts by 10.5 per cent and residential investment by an eye-popping 14.5 per cent.
This is all to say just about any analysis on separation that’s been done defies the rosy projections offered by the APP in the fiscal plan it released last July that predicted a surplus in the billions in the first year. The APP says Alberta would also have the hottest economy in the world within 20 years.
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Mr. Kaplan recently did an analysis provided to the Globe based on the APP’s fiscal plan and numbers. He projects the province would record a cash deficit of more than $27-billion in a hypothetical first year of independence – not the massive surplus the APP’s has forecast.
Which brings us back to Ms. Smith’s economic panel on separation. It’s inconceivable it will produce a report that portrays separation in a favourable light. Which means that unless Mr. Morton and Mr. Mintz decide to quit for reasons ideological or otherwise, they will be signatories to a document that will outline just what a catastrophe independence would be.
And even though some separatists may think the two men are on their side in the debate over Alberta’s future, the panel’s final report is likely to be another huge setback for separatist forces in the province.