An embattled leader, facing mutiny, calls a referendum on separation and then pledges to campaign against it. Sound familiar? The ghost of Brexit is haunting the Canadian prairie province of Alberta, where a minority push for secession has produced a referendum question so convoluted it reads like a constitutional law exam designed by a sadist.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith unveiled her government's tangled query on Thursday: “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?” It's a question that manages to be both specific and meaningless - a referendum on whether to have a referendum. The phrase 'franken-question' has been deployed, and not unfairly.
The tortured syntax reflects its tortured genesis: grievance politics on the prairies, improvised constitutional theory, personal ambition, infighting, backstabbing, bitter litigation, and an unprecedented data breach. The secessionist effort has prompted warnings of potentially catastrophic damage at a time when the United States has openly mused about undermining or even annexing Canada.
“The Brexit analogy comes up over and over again - and for good reason,” said Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary. “Not only was it poorly thought out, but David Cameron put it to a ballot and then campaigned against it - which is exactly what Danielle Smith said she would do.” Bratt noted that while Brexit was complicated, “this is breaking up a country.”
Smith has tried to placate separatists and federalists within her United Conservative Party, despite polls showing a majority of Albertans aren't interested in secession. Her address was called “the most pro-Canada speech I’ve heard her give” by Bratt, but her decision to needlessly bring the vote has prompted swift derision.
Edmonton’s mayor, Andrew Knack, called the gamble “catastrophic.” Corey Hogan, a federal MP with the ruling Liberals, said Smith’s “internal political problems” had become a “national crisis.” Even the separatists hated it: one prominent leader said Smith “looked every Albertan in the eye and lied to their faces,” calling her “the most dishonest and corrupt leader in my lifetime.”
The move capped months of speculation about how Smith, facing internal revolt, would deliver on a promise to be “more democratic.” Jen Gerson, a Calgary-based political columnist, said “this all feels like an episode of Veep: that sense of surreality and disconnection from reality.” She added, “The problem is, you’ve got a political class here in Alberta that’s tactically really smart, but strategically idiotic.”
A government committee controlled by the UCP tried to bring forward a decision on a referendum question this week but was foiled after a party staffer accidentally issued a press release before the meeting ended. Meanwhile, separatists triumphantly delivered boxes with more than 300,000 signatures in favour of a referendum - only to be rocked by revelations that an allied group had illegally accessed “incredibly confidential” private elections data, prompting investigations from elections officials and police. The data breach, one of the worst in Canadian history, prompted finger-pointing between the provincial government and the elections agency.
Questions over the integrity of the 300,000 names were rendered moot when a court quashed the whole effort, ruling the provincial government had not consulted with First Nations, whose treaties with the Crown predate Alberta. Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation called the UCP “undemocratic, authoritarian, and willing to bend to the whims of a loud, angry minority.”
Gerson said the UCP’s efforts to appease secessionists were “absurd, comical - and troubling.” She warned that reducing complex issues to a primal yes-or-no question “can open up in a population very dark things.” Separatists have promised voters autonomy and immense wealth from the province’s resources, but skeptics note the United States has previously suggested it might try to influence separatist efforts.
“How much trust do people have in our current separatist class to be able to negotiate a really good deal for people in Alberta?” Gerson asked. “They seem to be driven by a fantasy conservative monoculture republic at the end of this. They don’t seem to be considering the possibility that they’re not going to be gaining anything by this - that they’re going to be giving everything away.”
Canada’s federal conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, says he will actively campaign for the province to remain in Canada, and a group of likeminded Tories and business leaders will join the effort. “The separatist people have no genuine plan for what happens on day two,” Gerson concluded. “We’ll get yet another tactically brilliant, strategically idiotic move to further this crisis even more.”