It is a truth universally acknowledged that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is a separatist.
Well, not quite universally acknowledged, as we shall see. And only recently. But still, this recognition was not always so widespread.
The compulsion in a long-stable democracy to explain away actions of a popularly elected leader who goes over the edge or ignores the traditional limits of democratic rule is very strong.
For supporters of Ms. Smith’s MAGA project, of course, the effort to whitewash their leader’s true objectives is a worthwhile inoculation against an attentive and aroused electorate – possibly the only kind of inoculation that most of them believe in.
For the rest of us, it’s easy and comforting to ignore the evidence of our lyin’ eyes. This is true even when the reassurances come from the mouth of the leader herself, who has always insisted that all she wants is a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada.
Given the way Ms. Smith and her so-called United Conservative Party define sovereignty, of course, this is impossible.
This is no doubt exactly as the promoters of the “Free Alberta Strategy” who have so heavily influenced Ms. Smith surely understand. Indeed, as University of Calgary professor Barry Cooper, one of the authors of the FAS, has said, one of the goals of the project is to create a constitutional crisis.
Ms. Smith’s Sovereignty (Within a United Canada) Act is unconstitutional on purpose, Dr. Cooper wrote in the National Post, the Canadian right’s answer to Pravda, back in 2022. Yeah, it’s unconstitutional, he agreed with the critics of the legislation. “That’s the whole point.”
They understand that if Ms. Smith’s MAGA government can function as a kind of super Parliament – able to ignore federal law by Sovereignty Act fiat and enjoy sovereignty over the territory and laws of other provinces, which appears to be the UCP’s minimum constitutional demand – then Canada is not a country anyway.
That, it is said here, was always the goal. International capital doesn’t like strong national governments that can make laws that interfere with profit for a public good. If you want an example, just look at how the Trump regime has now moved to impose economic sanctions against a regulatory official of the European Union for, heaven forfend, trying to require tech bro billionaires behave with a modicum of social responsibility!
Add to this Ms. Smith’s willingness to use her UCP majority to pass laws that benefit separatists and then swiftly cancel those procedures for other citizens who do not support secession, and it can no longer be denied that Ms. Smith is a separatist, and her UCP Cabinet and Caucuses are secessionists as well.
Widespread acknowledgement of this realty has been very slow to dawn, but dawn it has. Almost no one acts as if the UCP is just another ordinary English Canadian provincial party any more but for members of the government caucus and cabinet in the Legislature and a few political columnists from a still-influential U.S.-owned newspaper chain, the angry old men of Alberta politics.
Consider the lengths one Postmedia columnist went to try to explain away what Ms. Smith is transparently up to: “To be clear, I do not believe Smith and her people want an independence vote to carry,” wrote The Calgary Herald’s Don Braid. “They hope it fails and that the question is pushed off the table for years. Under that scenario, the threat will have done its work by goading Ottawa and holding the UCP together. But if the separatist question does win this vote, what does the sovereignty premier do then? Does the UCP take up the independence cause?”
Does anyone here seriously think that needed to be posed as a question?
Arguably, the Opposition NDP has enabled this kind of denial by treating the separatist posturing of the premier and her government as if they are just another species of bad Conservative policies, sub-optimal, but well within the Canadian Conservative tradition. They are not.
As for the federal Government and Canadians outside Alberta, they don’t seem to be paying much attention to what’s happening in Alberta. To some degree this is because Canada’s small-c conservative prime minister, Mark Carney, appears to share many of Ms. Smith’s objections to environmental controls on the fossil fuel industry, but if he thinks he can come to a lasting agreement with the UCP, even with the promise of a new pipeline to B.C.’s North Coast, he is mistaken.
Thomas Lukaszuk, he of the successful Forever Canadian petition that the UCP has sidestepped and ignored by changing its own legislation, has stated: “Danielle Smith joined the separatists and is now clearing all legal obstacles to Alberta separating from Canada.” If you judge the premier by her actions, not her words, there is no other possible conclusion.
Perhaps Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi has been fearful of not being taken seriously if he acknowledged the evidence too forcefully. If so, it’s time for that to change, or he risks not being taken seriously for failing to do so.
There are signs that might be happening. A recent NDP fund-raising pitch aimed at supporters was a little bolder. “Danielle Smith is a separatist,” it said. “She wants Alberta to leave Canada. She won’t stand up for our country, because she simply doesn’t believe in what Canada means to most Albertans …”
Moreover, the ad continued, she “aggressively pushes a radical separatist agenda. … She only works to tear us – and our country – apart.”
Well, this is progress. It is reassuring in the final hours of this difficult year to see more and more Albertans coming around to the same realization. It is time for all of us, surely, to wake up and smell the coffee, and start acting appropriately.
Still, it would seem we Albertans are increasingly likely to have to put up with an early election, called by Ms. Smith with the claim that her government needs to new mandate to deal with economic uncertainty and a new government in Ottawa. The reality, of course, is that she is likely to want to strike before too many voters realize how radical is the experiment she is proposing, and before the Opposition starts to act like its job is to oppose.
The UCP could very well win that election and, if they do, we are really in for it! Not only will there be a separatist referendum, but the UCP will put its thumb on the scale to influence the outcome.
As is now widely acknowledged, if the UCP wins we will have to suffer through a separation referendum, with predictable damage to Alberta’s and Canada’s economies no matter what the outcome, and deep divisions in our society as a result.
And the UCP may very well win and, if they do, put its thumb heavily on the scale to influence the outcome in favour of secession.
In the event of the referendum, Albertans will be subjected to a massive foreign interference, voter manipulation, and disinformation campaign like the Brexit campaign of 2016, with a potentially even more disastrous result.
Enjoy your New Year celebration. We’re all going to have our work cut out for us after that.