6 Comments

It's yet another thing that doesn't even look good on paper. It sounds good in a shouty meeting, maybe, but the moment you put pen to paper with planning and specifics, the bloom will go off the rose. Also, the enthusiasm for pursuing it will drop rapidly, because those most likely to be excited about it, are least likely to stick around for implementation.

Everybody needs to sit back, tell Kenney to tour Alberta gathering suggestions and feedback for how, specifically, it will work, and let it all dissolve into apathy and disputatious meetings that wander off-topic into Covid Tyranny.

That's not ignoring it, that's just asking for specifics to discuss, nobody will help Alberta pull a proposal together. And the proposal will never arrive.

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With all due respect, this referendum question is the wrong approach at the wrong time.

If (and that's a mighty big if) the feds engage Alberta on this question, given the current power balance in Canada, Alberta actually may end up worse off than they are now.

The time to open the EQ formula file would have been when PM Harper had a majority government, an event unlikely to ever occur again in Canada.

Even then, meaningful change to the EQ formula would have (at best) a hail mary pass, as Quebec particularly would have headed off any attempt to clip the wings of their outsized power and influence in this federation.

With the current federal government, Kenney might find himself invited in to the room to 'discuss' the EQ formula, and might find himself leaving the room bloodied and bruised and forced to explain to the Alberta electorate how he 'negotiated' an even worse formula for EQ than the one we have now.

Kenney really seems to have a severe case of 'small man' syndrome / Napoleon complex, which appears to cloud his judgement on numerous files, including this one.

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Politics change quickly in Canada. Remember during Harper's time many were saying the Liberal party would never recover, then Pierre Elliot's son came along. I'd be careful about proclaiming the Cons will never have a majority again, I think it's probably even likely.

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Thank you for this. So, now the 'ball is in Jason Kenney's court.' It falls to him to trigger negotiations, not the federal government.

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The problem with solipsism is...other people.

The problem with Kenney's little gambit, if one recalls those wonderful heady days of constitutional confabs with Pierre, late night skinny dips in the Meech Lagoon and dancing delirious to the Charlottetown Accordian Players, is Kenney won't be in charge of process or outcomes.

Constitutional changes are the product of negotiations. Other folks have other agendas.

Let's clarify S35, say Indigenous Peoples, post-many apologies and court cases. Let's get nationhood into the constitution says M. Legault, post-House of Commons and National Assembly acts of recognition.

So Jason, we hear you want to talk constitutional changes. Well, Old John Eh knew well enough to fill a boat with booze before you try to take George Brown dancing...

So seriously Jason, how drunk are you?

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Not sure I agree with the "even up" rationale. Prof Knopff: where can I find Russell's original writing?

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