So, is Danielle Smith pulling the Alberta Prosperity Project’s strings, or are the pushers of the prosperity project pulling the premier’s?
Yesterday, a separatist sub-faction of the Alberta conservative movement’s extremist base announced the question it hopes to ask in the separation referendum it’s collecting signatures to demand – which, to give the group its due, cuts right to the chase.
Jeffrey Rath, a lawyer associated with the group, donned a brown cowboy hat to stage-manage the Big Reveal for media yesterday at a hotel in Calgary. The question hidden under Alberta’s uninspiring blue flag: “Do you agree that the province shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province of Canada?”
As for who’s pulling whose strings, though, it beats me. Premier Smith, who is quick but not particularly thoughtful, certainly has lots to fear from the far-right crowd embedded in her United Conservative Party base, its Legislative caucus, and perhaps even in her cabinet.
With a quick march across the floor of the Assembly reminiscent of Ms. Smith’s notorious Wildrose walk of shame on Dec. 14, 2014 – when she and eight of her Opposition Wildrose MLAs joined the Progressive Conservative government of the day – four or five of her current UCP MLAs could leave her with a minority in the House.
She also knows what happened to UCP founder and former premier Jason Kenney, deposed by essentially the same group of people, just before her current job was bestowed upon her. It was Mr. Kenney, it should be remembered, who first agreed to sup with the separatists while forgetting the folk advice to use a long spoon on such occasions.
Or maybe Ms. Smith had a big, overarching plan cooked up by someone like Chief of Staff Rob Anderson, one of the authors of the Free Alberta Project, another one of the fringy actors in Alberta’s separatist movement, that requires a pawn to play the role of an honest broker in her constitutional drama.
Seriously, it’s hard to know and for the time being we can only speculate, which brings me to some thoughts by Jean-François Lisée, journalist and former leader of the Parti Québécois, who offered an elegant explanation of Ms. Smith’s strategy in the pages of Le Devoir on Saturday, republished in his own blog.
Readers should note that it’s been many years since I’ve been called upon to translate from French into English, so they must forgive me for following the advice of my multilingual PhD daughter that DeepL is the best online translation tool. As a result, any errors in translation are, of course … DeepL’s fault.
Under the heading, “The Alberta Strategy, a Job Well Done,” Mr. Lisée rather admiringly describes Premier Smith’s strategy in seven steps, summarized in my words below:
- Declare the status quo to be intolerable. Even though, as anyone who lives here understands, it is not, unless you’re having a tantrum about how your favoured federal party just lost an election. Mr. Lisée quotes Ms. Smith’s false claim that successive Liberal governments, abetted by the NDP, have attacked the provincial economy.
- Present clear, ambitious demands. Withdrawal of all environmental legislation, access to the Arctic, the return of plastic straws, as much equalization cash as Ontario and Quebec, etc.
- Insist on a tight deadline. And prepare to present even more demands, cooked up by a tame panel.
- Plan a simultaneous referendum. It would occur just as the new list impossible demands were announced.
- Normalize the separatists. Examples include the terminology of the Sovereignty Act and the claim in Ms. Smith’s May 5 video address that petition organizers are “not fringe voices to be marginalized or vilified – they are loyal Albertans.”
- Pretend there’s hope. “Faced with this gloomy picture and the unrealistic level of Alberta’s demands,” Mr. Lisée writes, “Ms. Smith pretends there’s a chance her province might win.”
- Wash her hands of it. And when the pre-determined disappointment sets in, “she would reluctantly come to the conclusion … that there is only once choice: independence.”
I’m not sure I’m 100-per-cent persuaded by this outline – it frankly seems too sophisticated given the actors on Alberta’s separatist fringe, or in Ms. Smith’s government for that matter. Still, it’s a more thoughtful analysis than we’ve heard from any professional commentator in this province. If nothing else, it strongly suggests Quebec is better served by its punditariat than we are by ours.
Mr. Lisée wrapped up: “I remember a remark Jacques Parizeau made to me about one of Robert Bourassa’s twisted but effective strategies: ‘Now that’s a job well done!’ The same can be said of Ms. Smith’s strategic construction … but only if she wants to lead her province to independence.”
(Speaking of premier Bourassa’s strategies, University of Alberta political scientist Jared Wesley observed Sunday: “Smith stole Robert Bourassa’s ‘five conditions’ strategy in developing her ‘Alberta Accord.’ Thing is: Bourassa spent years building consensus on the much broader Meech Lake Accord, which eventually included something for everyone. And failed miserably. Smith isn’t even bothering to try.”)
Returning to Mr. Lisée, he continued: “Otherwise, the failure of negotiations with Ottawa – or the achievement of a disappointing fraction of her demands – can only fuel the frustration of Albertans who, if they can’t take revenge by punishing Canada, will find another scapegoat, closer to home.
“Danielle Smith is therefore simultaneously gambling with the future of her province, the future of Canada, and her own personal future,” he concluded.
In this regard, Mr. Lisée has nailed it.