This is the first of a series of posts about the questions on the October 19 referendum in Alberta. While the public debate has centered exclusively on the separation question, I believe the original nine questions are even more dangerous.
About the separation question: I was a canvasser for the Forever Canadian petition. People were literally lining up to sign. Both from my personal experience, and from everything I have read and heard about it, I am certain that the remain vote will win handily, provided remain voters turn out in sufficient numbers.
The original question that Mitch Sylvestre proposed read as follows:
Do you agree that the Province of Alberta should cease to be part of Canada to become an independent state?
I am not a constitutional expert, but I doubt Canada's Constitution allows for the possibility of seceding. First Nations people certainly agree, as Canada's treaties with First Nations are recognized and affirmed in the Constitution itself, and Alberta independence would certainly go against them. So the question should be dead in the water. It has become a matter for the courts.
Where does the UCP government stand on this? They have done what they could to make it easier for the separatists to get their day in the sun. They lowered the number of signatures required for the application to be approved, they have appealed the court rulings against the question, and there is no doubt that some members of the UCP caucus are separatists. But the success of the Forever Canadian petition ultimately forced the government's hand, and they added a tenth question to the already crowded October 19 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?
I won't dwell on the detail that there is in fact no such “legal process required under the Canadian Constitution”, because, again, the Constitution does not contemplate secession. Given the question, many people's immediate reaction was: why such a convoluted way of asking whether Alberta should remain in Canada, or leave?
If you think this is convoluted, try reading the question on Quebec's 1980 referendum:
The Government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations; this agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, levy its taxes and establish relations abroad – in other words, sovereignty – and at the same time to maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency; any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will only be implemented with popular approval through another referendum; on these terms, do you give the Government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?
Say what now? This was even more convoluted, and for the same reason: If the Constitution does not allow for unilateral separation, as Mitch Sylvestre and his friends would have it, then separation can only come about as a result of negotiation with the rest of Canada. Although the UCP's question doesn't talk about negotiation, that is probably the “legal process” they talk about. In either case, the negotiated agreement would then have to be put to the people in a second referendum. Sylvestre, like Parizeau before him, would prefer a unilateral declaration of independence, but Canada's answer would be, as we used to say when we were kids, “Oh yeah? You and what army?”
Another criticism of the Alberta question was that it wasn't a yes/no question. But that's not a problem. It is still a binary question. Like the Brexit question of 2016, the options are remain or leave.
So the UCP government's tenth question is valid. And, to repeat what I wrote earlier, I am certain that the remain vote will win handily, provided remain voters turn out in sufficient numbers.
So why am I writing these posts? I believe that the UCP's real agenda lies in the other nine questions. Hardly anybody is paying attention to these, but if the UCP succeeded in getting sufficient support for them, they would justify completing a process that started years ago, and push Alberta in a very destructive and irreversible direction. In this series, I want to take a detailed look at the other nine referendum questions. But first, in the next post, I want to discuss what the UCP's long game is.