Kelly McParland: Smith covers her bets for Alberta vote

In the 18 weeks since Alberta Premier Danielle Smith set the date for her multi-part referendum on the province’s future the reaction in much of Canada has ranged from perplexion to… continued perplexion.

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As in, why is she doing this? Has she noticed that Justin Trudeau is gone and Mark Carney is a different sort of prime minister? That the supposedly Liberal regime in Ottawa has vaccuumed up Conservative policies and repackaged them as Liberal priorities?

The puzzlement doesn’t fade when it’s pointed out that the share of Albertans supporting departure has never been much above one in three and sometimes less than one in five, that the estimated price of forging a new country is somewhere between costly and ruinous, and that the result of numerous government members advocating for a “leave” vote has been a sharp boost in support for the New Democratic Party.

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If you were searching for a parallel in Canadian political history you might come across the ill-conceived attempt of Alberta’s own former prime minister Joe Clark to pass a deeply unpopular budget in 1979 despite heading a minority government that lacked the votes to push it through.

The conclusion  of that escapade was the defeat of Clark’s Tories after just nine months in office and the resurrection of Pierre Trudeau for his fourth term in office, with 126 seats in Ontario and Quebec and zero in Saskatchewn, Alberta or British Columbia. It was a bad gamble that left onlookers wondering who could possibly have thought it would turn out well.

In the current situation, the identity of the guiding culprit is no mystery. It was Smith’s decision to cobble together 10 questions for Albertans to address, including a proposal to consider a later proposal to abolish Alberta as a province and bring it back as a country.

Her reasoning for throwing the province’s place in Canada open to question is convoluted at best, and a big source of the public’s puzzlement. While professing to be a firm believer in Canadian unity she apparently feels the best means of confirming Alberta’s deep love of country is to hold a vote on whether to leave. And rather than put forward a straight up yes or no query, she’s running a referendum on whether to drag things out even longer. Come Oct. 19 the province will have a chance to decide whether to decide.

The timing of the vote looks particularly odd given that enthusiasm for separation in Quebec, the birthplace of patriotic equivocation, has been showing distinct signs of waning. It’s been 30 years since the province’s last referendum and the latest polls show opposition to departure at almost 70 per cent. A later generation of Quebecers shows little sign of the fervour that fired their parents; the fact the separatist Parti Quebecois may soon form a government has little to do with a yen for independence and much to do with an electoral system that allows for victory with just 29 per cent of support.

Younger Quebecers look south and see enormous danger outside the security of an established, prosperous country 40-million strong. Free Alberta would be a tenth that size, and lacking the significant tools Ottawa is employing to keep the damage of Washington’s hostility to a manageable minimum.

The economy of a “free” Alberta would still be largely dependent on a diminishing resource for its high standard of living, despite decades of effort to establish strong alternatives. If America’s current president thinks he can bully 40 million into bowing to his will via threats, insults and tariffs, imagine how he’d treat four million landlocked souls heavily in need of selling their oil. Even if the new nation managed to avoid being sucked into formal American statehood, it stands to find itself recast as a sort of northern Venezuela, free to make any decisions it wants as long as Washington gives the OK.

With just a few weeks to go there’s firm evidence the anti-upheaval forces understand the dynamics of the situation and are sending signals to Smith that go beyond noisy town halls. A CBC-commissioned poll found Smith’s United Conservatives and the opposition New Democrats tied in support, the NDP’s best showing in three years. The figures follow the NDP’s surprise victory in a Calgary riding previously considered safe UCP territory, the first time since 1966 it’s managed to snatch a government-held seat in a byelection.

Albertans have shown in the past they’re willing to take a risk on the socialists if they get riled enough at overconfident right-wing governments. Rachel Notley’s 2015 victory owed much to voters’ sense that Conservatives had lost the plot after too many years of easy victories from quiescent electorates. Jason Kenney’s UCP was supposed to have absorbed that lesson, yet Kenney found himself ejected before completing three years in office. Now voters find themselves with a premier bent on placating a disgruntled minority at the expense of the much larger majority, dragging them through the prolonged uncertainty of a departure vote when many would  prefer she focus on more prosaic matters. Like health care, maybe. Or the cost of living.

As the date draws near the premier continues to campaign by claiming to be one thing while projecting another. “When proud, hardworking people feel their contribution is taken for granted, and their livelihood is treated as something to be phased out, some begin to ask a painful question — does this country actually want us?” she confessed  tearfully to a recent gathering at which, according to the Canadian Press, “she was speaking on the reasons for a sovereign Alberta to stay within a united Canada.”

Odd way to project your patriotism. Anyone seen separatist leaders blubbing away at the sight of a red maple leaf flag?

Smith has positioned herself to protect her career no matter how the vote goes. If the Stay voters win she can claim she was with them. If the Leave side triumphs she can shed more tears, then mount a campaign to serve as first Alberta president. Which maybe isn’t that perplexing after all. It would hardly be the first time a politician put themselves at the top of their priority list.

National Post

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