Prime Minister Mark Carney during Question Period in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Mr. Carney says the Clarity Act will not apply to Alberta’s planned sovereignty vote.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Mark Carney says the Clarity Act, which was passed after the last Quebec independence referendum, will not apply to Alberta’s planned sovereignty vote.
The Clarity Act says that any referendum on separation must have a clear question and would require a “clear majority” to facilitate separation.
Hours after Justice Minister Sean Fraser told reporters on Tuesday that his department was looking at the relevance of the legislation, Mr. Carney said he had secured an understanding that it did not apply to Alberta’s planned vote.
“As Prime Minister, I need to respect the advice of experts. I have just heard from the council of experts on the applicability of the Clarity Act and it does not apply on the question in Alberta,” Mr. Carney said in French during Question Period.
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Afterward, Mr. Carney told journalists that the Alberta referendum is not a Clarity Act issue because the question being asked of Albertans is what he described as “a question about a question,” and not a direct query on leaving Canada.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced last week that her government will add a question on sovereignty to an already scheduled referendum on Oct. 19 dealing with various issues. That question will ask voters whether Alberta should remain in Canada, or start the legal process to hold a binding, second referendum on separation.
Mr. Carney told journalists: “It’s explicit in the question that it’s not a binding referendum.”
Following Question Period, Mr. Fraser said the situation was now clearer.
“As the Prime Minister has just indicated, we have had a chance to review the question and the applicability of the Clarity Act and believe it would not apply in the circumstances given the nature of the question,” he said.
Emergency Management Minister Eleanor Olszewski, the only member of the federal cabinet from Alberta, was cautious Tuesday in her comments on the situation in her province.
She declined to specifically respond to a question about whether the Clarity Act applies to the question being posed by Ms. Smith in the fall.
“I think what I think about it isn’t so important. Like, for me to give an off-the-cuff response to that I think isn’t very helpful,” she told journalists as she arrived for the cabinet meeting earlier in the day.
A decision to trigger the Clarity Act would have been met with outrage in Quebec, where sovereigntist leaders have made clear they want Ottawa to butt out of Alberta’s referendum process.
“Good luck with that,” Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon told reporters in Quebec City on Tuesday when asked about the possibility of the law being applied.
The Alberta referendum will play out alongside Quebec’s provincial election campaign, set for Oct. 5. Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon, whose party has been leading in the polls for more than two years, has promised to hold his own referendum on independence within a first mandate.
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The Clarity Act was passed despite staunch opposition from Quebec, which in 2000 promptly countered with its own law. Bill 99 states that Quebeckers alone will decide their political future, and that a referendum victory requires only a simple majority of 50 per cent of valid votes plus one.
“I think the principle of self-determination will govern both Alberta and Quebec,” said Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon, warning against any “abuse of power” by Ottawa.
On Tuesday in Ottawa, Bloc Québécois House leader Christine Normandin called on Mr. Carney to repeal the Clarity Act, which she called “undemocratic.”
Stéphane Dion, the former Liberal minister who tabled the Clarity Act, wrote last week in La Presse that Ms. Smith’s question does not trigger the federal legislation, as it “does not contemplate unilateral secession.” But if a second referendum on separation were held, he wrote, Parliament would need to weigh in.