Alberta politics is weird. Hell, Alberta is weird. Quebec likes to think of itself as a "distinct society" (or at least that was the phrase they were using some years ago, they've probably moved on by now), but much of the stuff that happens in Alberta leaves the rest of Canada open-mouthed in disbelief. And, in recent years, most of the weirdness (call it "distinctness", if you prefer) has swirled around Premier Daniella Smith, who is no stranger to this blog.
The latest news column-filling antic from Ms. Smith is her insistence on adding a separation question to the existing nine (yes, nine!) referendum questions to be put before the Albertan voting public in October. But, wait, you say, didn't an Alberta judge just rule that a referendum on Alberta separating from Canada against the wishes of its Indigenous population would be unconstitutional and illegal? Well, yes, technically. But that was just "a legal mistake by a single judge", according to Smith, which would "silence the voices of hundreds of thousands of Albertans".
So, Ms. Smith - give her credit for her ingenuity as well as her disingenuity - came up with a referendum question under the Referendum Act, rather than the Citizen Initiative Act, which has no such requirement to consult Indigenous groups. Technically legal, this does nevertheless violate the spirit of the court ruling, and is "an attempt to evade" consultation with Indigenous groups according to First Nations.
The other thing thing is that the proposed referendum question does not directly broach separatism. Rather, it is a kind of meta-question, a "referendum on a referendum":
"Should Alberta remain a province of Canada or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?"
So, even if the referendum, by some freak accident, passes, Alberta is no further forward along the path towards separation, as any future referendum would still be blocked by the legal ruling, and even if some way round that were discovered, the path is still strewn with many obstacles.
Hmm. Pretty obscure, but arguably clever. Presumably, Smith thought that this would placate the separatist wing of her UCP party, on which she is reliant, despite her own (suspect) protests that she is strongly pro-federalist.
Well, no chance of that. One key sepatarist leader says he feels "duped", and that his movement will "react strongly. Another warned Smith that, "if she abandons her base or betrays her base, there will likely be political consequences", following up with "We need to work to remove her as leader in the same way that we worked to get rid of Kenney". "She's got to go!", said Jeffrey Rath. Ouch, that doesn't sound very conciliatory.
Indeed, she is facing criticism from all sides, not least for the way she plays fast and loose with her words. For one thing, she is trying to blame the national unity crisis over which she is presiding on everyone else but herself, including the 14 Liberal MPs who have publicly objected to Mark Carney's attempts at rapprochement with Smith, whom she calls "cowards", and of course people like NDP leader Avi Lewis and BC Premier David Eby "who continue to try to put barriers in the way of us getting our product to market". How rude of them!
Smith has also repeatedly claimed that 700,000 Albertans are calling for a referendum on separation, not just the 300,000 who actually signed a petition to that end. The other 400,000? Ah, they are the people who signed a pro-unity petition designed to block the separatism petition. Because they really want a separatism referendum too, don't they? At one point, she even claimed that "as many as a million or more" wanted a referendum on separating (God only knows where that other 300,000 came from). Ah, Michelle, you're turning into Donald Trump!
It's easy to call Michelle Smith disingenuous and sneaky. So many of her words and actions militate towards that conclusion. But it's really quite hard to figure out what she really wants from all this (other than to stay in power - that much is clear). She says she is proudly pro-federalist and pro-Canadian, and yet she goes out of her way to facilitate Alberta separation. She could have closed the whole thing down after the courts ruled a referendum question illegal ("we tried, but we failed"), but instead she pushed through a pseudo-separation question anyway, thereby igniting the current firestorm on all sides.
She's nothing if not quixotic. Oh, wait, that's how they describe Donald Trump...
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