Jen Gerson: Sure, put all of the questions on the ballot. Why not? What could go wrong?
Danielle Smith's planned referendum isn't just dumb, it's incredibly risky.
By: Jen Gerson
I will admit to one overwhelming reaction when I sat down and read through the nine new referendum questions to be posed to Albertans in the Fall: “Whoo boy, is this ever dumb.”
Look, I understand Albertans hate to be condescended to by Eastern pricks, and that’s fair. But I was born in Calgary, live here, bore my children here, and am as qualified to be considered “Albertan” as anyone else for the purposes of this exercise, so I’m going to take my turn around the room here for a minute.
For those of you who have not been paying attention to Alberta — and, my God, who can blame you at this point — Premier Danielle Smith appeared before the province last week to warn of a pending budget deficit brought on by low oil prices, and to present a list of questions to the polity on a range of constitutional and non-constitutional issues ranging from senate abolition to spending less public money on immigrants.
We dealt with the problematic nature of the premier of the province shifting blame for her own financial mismanagement onto the very immigrants she was encouraging to relocate here five minutes ago in this week’s dispatch. This leaves us free to really unpack the referendum questions themselves, and what, exactly, this province seems to be playing at.
Firstly, Smith et al. don’t require any special vote to do any of the things she’s proposing to do in this stacked ballot. If the UCP genuinely believes that the roughly 10,000 additional international immigrants we took on in 2023 (and dropping since) is throwing a $70-odd billion budget into the red, well, then she doesn’t need to wait seven months to do something about that. The party has a majority in the legislature. It already has the power to move forward on any policy agenda that is within its constitutional authority to pursue — and there is no referendum that can unilaterally override constitutionally appointed powers, so what the actual hell are we doing?
Even if we acknowledge that this ballot is a democratic stunt intended to deflect from a likely secession vote come fall, these questions are not even effective on those terms. Neither separatists nor federalists are going to be appeased by this gambit. Both will see a stacked vote as a stunt to distract from the existential matter of whether or not we should stay in Canada.
And even if Albertans turned out en masse to support Smith’s not-quite independence agenda, nine overwhelming “yes” votes don’t grant leverage to do much of anything. That’s because many of these questions — such as who selects justices or whether to abolish the senate — require constitutional amendments. They would need buy in from other provinces. That would require Alberta to collaborate constructively.
And, hey, know what really tends to blow apart the kind of political capital with other provincial leaders that is needed to make big structural reforms? Um, well, stuff like threatening to snatch half the Canadian Pension Plan, playing it down the middle on a vote to break up the country, and making your personal political brand so toxic to the rest of Canada that other political leaders can’t be seen to be working with you.
Stop and think about this for just a minute. After dragging the country to hell and back through an ugly secession referendum, who is going to be the first premier to stand up on a stage with Danielle Smith, shake hands, smile, and go all gung ho on ... senate abolition? Step right up, Wab Kinew, Doug Ford, and David Eby. Once that 70/30 vote lands, that’ll put the fear of God into them. Sure, sure. The line is going to bend right around the block, just wait.
While we’re here, please forgive a momentary aside: Senate abolition? Seriously?
Look, I understand perfectly well that the unequal terms of our senate has been an obsession for a certain generation of the Albertan Conservative intelligentsia. But as someone under the age of 300: senate reform is to Albertan Conservatives what electoral reform was to urban Toronto NDP and Liberal proggies back in 2015.
And by that, I mean — gently — nobody cares about these issues outside self-involved political rage salons, you absolute losers. The Senate, for the most part, confines itself to refining laws. The senate is not Alberta’s primary problem in Confederation.
As someone who has had the privilege of testifying before the House and the Senate, I would like to point out that the chamber of Sober Second Thought was the radically more useful of the two exercises.
Good lord, I am halfway through this column and I haven’t even started to point out how stupid these questions are.
“Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to allow provinces to opt out of federal programs that intrude on provincial jurisdiction such as health care, education, and social services, without a province losing any of the associated federal funding for use in its social programs?”
Could the author of that question feel his left arm when he wrote that? Was he having trouble seeing out of one or both eyes? Do we need to get someone at the premier’s office a chair?
Let’s not even get into the insanity of trying to unilaterally demand the federal government continue to pay for programs the province chooses to opt out of — or something. Instead, I’m going to confine myself to noting that as someone who writes words for a living, these turgid, run-on sentences offend me. Viscerally. Personally. These are poorly written questions.
The only thing that saves any of this is the sheer irony. I’m quite sure that the abuse of the English language about to be perpetuated on the fine people of Alberta via stacked referenda was not committed by an immigrant who struggles with English as a second language.
No, no, I can just tell that this is the top-tier handiwork of a True Albertan. The kind of Albertan who would be given “first priority of new employment opportunities,” no doubt, should the province choose to grant this government “increased control over immigration for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration.”
Quiet hissing noises.
This is the end, here, folks. This is what you get when Conservative Debate Club Syndrome reaches its inevitable state of terminal decay.
Look, I have often quipped in private that if you want to get a Liberal to talk, you flatter them; if you want to get a Conservative to spill, you fight with them. And to be honest, I rather love this about Conservatives — they love a good tussle. But what we’re seeing right here is the shadow side of that character trait; the tendency to treat actual governance like an endless college dorm room bull session. Debate night is great. Power requires responsibility. You can’t foist a boundless stream of thought experiments and notional debates and political stunts on a population without risking real consequences.
Because a bar brawl that goes badly is just good fun, but there are real risks to poor governance.
In 2021, Alberta held a referendum on equalization that — surprise, surprise — successfully demonstrated that Albertans did not like the existing equalization formula. The plan at the time was to try to use a referendum to jerry rig the Clarity Act. With a successful majority vote, it was argued, the rest of Canada would have to sit down in good faith to renegotiate.
Except, of course, the Act forced them to do nothing of the kind, and so the federal government simply ... didn’t.
When pushed on this point, the Conservatives who put forward the idea knew that it wasn’t going to do anything except channel populist grievances against a structurally unfair program. Under pressure, they would admit that, yeah, sure, it was just a stunt, but maybe a stunt is better than nothing. No loss. No foul. No consequences.
Except, of course, there were consequences to the equalization referendum. The vote set up expectations for a change in the system that said vote could not actually affect. And every time you do that, you give the polity a message — not that the tactics you are using are ineffective, but rather that the system is so inherently flawed that it can’t be reformed. In other words, this bullshit trains the electorate to nihilism, and to the belief that the only solutions lie in ever-more-radical positions.
That’s exactly what engaged voters took away from the equalization referendum. Here we are now, only five years later, and rather than learn the lesson, the logic has simply compounded. The equalization referendum was such a success, they’re going to do it again nine times harder and hope the question of secession is buried by it. Somehow. For reasons.
I mean, sure. Why not? What could go wrong?
Brilliant.
Bravo.
Incredible strategy, guys. Top shelf.
It was Margaret Thatcher who argued against referendums as political tools in a parliamentary system, noting that when used for political expediency, they would simply threaten minorities by majoritarian fiat.
“Perhaps the late Lord Attlee was right,” she once observed, “when he said that the referendum was a device of dictators and demagogues.”
Well, Alberta’s right on target, I guess.
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COULD WE JUST BALANCE THE GODDAMN BUDGET, PLEASE?! JG
As with Brexit, what could go wrong indeed? Let's continue to support Albertans regardless. Lived in Calgary as a kid, many weeks in Suffield and Wainwright in the Army. Family members still live there. How many more years of Smith?