Albertans face a daunting prospect on October 19 - not one, but 10 referendum questions that they will vote on. On the agenda are a passel of manufactured issues ranging from "control over immigration" to "appointing judges", all topped off with a whipped turd froth of a separation question.
There are good reasons to be skeptical of all of these referendum questions. Not the least of which is the complexity of them. Each one is lengthy reading on its own, and is crafted to confuse the average person reading them. My intuitive reaction is to suggest that on the basis of the wording being less than clear, that it is utterly appropriate to vote 'No' on the first 9 questions and "A" on the separation question. That is basically voting for status quo.
General Reasoning
First, I wish to emphasize that while referendums are often portrayed as "Direct Democracy", that's rather misleading. Direct Democracy presumes that the issues at hand fall well within the understanding of the average citizen. Most people would be able to effectively participate in a referendum on the placement of a park in their neighbourhood, or adding a traffic light at an intersection.
More complex topics are common in government today, and that is in part why we have a Representative Democracy where we elect (and pay) representatives to become both our voices in the legislative process as well as to be more deeply informed about the policy issues at play. Government is complex these days, and the issues we face are not easily understood (you'll see more of this in my analysis of the referendum questions). Asking the general public to opine on a subject like the appointment of the judiciary is a bit like asking a banker to do a risk analysis on a new nuclear reactor design. You'll get an opinion, but perhaps not one well enough informed to recognize that the absence of a steam pressure relief valve is a big deal.
There are plenty of valid criticisms of the current party system we have and I'm not going to argue in depth here about that.
The second major area of discussion here is the blatant duplicity of the UCP government and Danielle Smith in particular. My basic position is that voters cannot, and absolutely should not trust the current government to enact their will. Virtually nothing the Smith-led UCP has done since being elected in 2023 was talked about during the election. Smith carefully steered the party messaging to be as bland, minimal, and inoffensive as possible. If she had talked about tearing healthcare to bits and privatizing it, I doubt most people would have voted for the UCP, yet here we are. Instead, we getting government "by the party AGM", where policy motions shoved through at the AGM drive the government's legislative agenda.
Even if you were to vote in favour of one of the referendum questions, it is far from clear that what the government would enact would in fact represent what you thought you were voting for. On that basis alone, voting status quo is at least a message to the UCP to "leave well enough alone".
The Referendum Questions
I will start with the Public Policy questions first. and proceed from there through the more complex Constitutional and Separation questions. I will endeavour to explain the wording, and how it becomes problematic in the hands of a government that has already shown us that it has no compunction whatsoever about lying to us.
Public Policy Questions
a. Immigration Control
Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities?
First of all, this is really two very different questions. The first question is "Should Alberta control immigration to maintain sustainable levels?", the second question is really "Should Alberta residents be given preferential treatment in the job market?".
There's an underlying assumption here that difficulties in finding employment is directly connected to immigration levels. The problem is that there is no clear evidence that immigration to Alberta from other countries has prevented Albertans from securing employment.
Second, a lot of the migration to Alberta comes from other provinces - people moving here for work. This could very quickly become a Charter issue, as mobility rights are guaranteed under S6(2) of The Charter.
While one might look at certain immigration programs such as the Temporary Foreign Worker program with a degree of suspicion, the fact is that immigration to Canada on either a permanent or temporary basis is the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. Therefore, the correct approach to this issue is to work with the Federal Government to change the parameters of the program(s) in question.
Demanding that Alberta somehow take over control of immigration to Alberta is at best questionable, at worst involves setting up an additional level of bureaucracy that Alberta taxpayers would fund solely for the purpose of controlling the numbers and qualifications of foreign immigrants that can move here?
The idea that foreign nationals coming to Alberta are preventing Albertans from securing employment is at best a questionable assertion. The province has not provided any evidence that supports the notion beyond gross population change numbers over the last decade - which really doesn't tells us much.
There are also unintended consequences to this. First, at a time when Alberta had been begging for workers to come here (remember the "Alberta is Calling" program?), this clearly adds a new level of complexity for any new immigrant. Additional obstacles will make it harder for Alberta to meet the needs of a growing economy.
b. Access To Social Services Programs
Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law mandating that only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and individuals with an Alberta-approved immigration status will be eligible for provincially-funded programs, such as health care, education and other social services?
Again, this is duplicitous. It implies without evidence that immigrants are placing undue burdens on social programs in Alberta, and therefore we have to "fix" the problem by making it harder to access these programs. Also, what is an "Alberta-approved Immigration Status" - a term that sounds very official, but that the government has chosen not to define?
Health Care in Alberta already imposes a 3 month delay in your ability to access it as a new resident in Alberta. Other programs have their own unique criteria for accessing them.
Where education is concerned, this is simply morally wrong on its face as it punishes children for the actions of their parents. Primary to Secondary education is a necessity in today's world, and we should not be placing obstacles in the way of it.
The "Alberta Approved Immigration Status" concept could quickly turn into a second tier of citizenship, and who knows what the eligibility would look like for that. Given recent rumblings out of separatists about "only born-in-Alberta would be eligible for citizenship", I would be very wary of what is really intended here.
Vague and imprecise wording is being used to manufacture consent here, while carefully obscuring the government's direct intent.
c. Residency Requirement
Assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for social support programs as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring all individuals with a non-permanent legal immigration status to reside in Alberta for at least 12 months before qualifying for any provincially-funded social support programs?
As with Question b above, this is profoundly misleading. For the most part, non-permanent status residents aren't eligible for those programs already. Again, the government here wants you to believe that immigrants are the cause of the stress fractures we are seeing in our social support programs.
There is a considerable argument that deliberate mismanagement of those programs on the part of the UCP has far more to do with the problems.
d. Citizenship Requirement / Fees
Assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for public health care and education as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta charging a reasonable fee or premium to individuals with a non-permanent immigration status living in Alberta for their and their family’s use of the healthcare and education systems?
Call these "user fees", "premiums" or whatever. Regardless of immigration status, a person living and working in Alberta is paying taxes in Alberta. The notion that somehow a "temporary" resident is getting a "free ride" is simply wrong.
e. Voter ID
Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate or citizenship card, to vote in an Alberta provincial election?
This is a voter suppression strategy imported out of the United States. It obliges voters to keep proof of citizenship at hand, and often people don't have that. Birth certificates get lost, documents like passports disappear in the moving process, and so on. People already on the financial edge often cannot afford the extra $100+ to replace those documents.
Consider also that the government already maintains a voter registration database. They already have the information about who is allowed to vote in the province except for new residents.
The notion that you should have to prove your citizenship at the voting booth is ridiculous and redundant. It's a weapon intended to discourage people from voting because they can't always easily demonstrate their citizenship.
Summary of Policy Questions
The first four of these questions imply that immigration is a primary factor in an overburdened set of social support systems. When annual immigration into Alberta in 2024 was some 66,000 people - some 1.4% of total population that doesn't equate to a "huge burden on the system". If 1% of the population is breaking the entire system, then the problem is the system is being broken by government policies.
Pointing at immigration and saying "look - that's the problem" is a distraction from the other policies that the UCP is implementing.
The fifth question is borrowed from US Republicans, and is designed to make it harder to vote. It's an attack on voting rights - full stop.
None of these questions deserve your support.
Constitutional Questions
a. Appointment of Judges
Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to have provincial governments, and not the federal government, select the justices appointed to provincial King’s Bench and Appeal courts?
This one is at the top of my list of "Don't Trust Danielle Smith". She has already said out loud on numerous occasions that she wants direct political control over the courts. No politician in an elected democracy should be thinking this way. The judiciary exists as a check on legislative power (or the abuse thereof), and you should be worried the minute a politician starts talking like that (and Smith has said similar things multiple times).
Smith wants you to believe that Alberta has no "voice" in the appointment of judges to the senior courts in Alberta. This is incorrect, as the Judicial Advisory Committees have members from a number of sources, including the sitting Chief Justice in the province, the provincial Bar Association, as well as the provincial government. Smith is complaining because she wants an arrangement which would be dominated by provincial politicians.
Before you go off with "what's wrong with that?", I will point you back to Smith talking about wanting directive control over the judiciary. This opens the door to political loyalty tests and other considerations far beyond a candidate's expertise with the law.
I want to be abundantly clear here - law is complex, and the last thing that the judges should be having to pay attention to is some "political debt" or obligation that got them onto the bench in the first place. That would compromise the impartiality of the judiciary.
b. Senate Abolition
Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to abolish the unelected federal Senate?
Senate Reform is an old school Prairie Populist sawhorse. Back in the 1980s, there was a huge push for a "Triple E" Senate (Elected, Equal, Effective). That was driven very much by the same forces that are now griping and demanding Alberta separate from Canada.
Abolishing the Senate, in my opinion, would be short-sighted and foolish. The Senate has repeatedly shown its value in Canada by sending back problematic legislation to the House of Commons with amendments to resolve enormously problematic wording. Populist authoritarians like Smith hate the idea of any check on their legislative power, whether that be a Senate, or the judiciary.
Like other populist complaints about confederation, this issue is largely based on misinformation about the Senate and its role. Senate reform may be a valid topic in its own right, but abolition just sets the House of Commons up to fail even more spectacularly than it already does when over-eager politicians write vague or poorly considered laws.
The complaint often goes "If Ontario has 24 seats, and Quebec has 24 seats, why don't the other provinces?". This gets into a much more complex discussion, but ultimately boils down to the Senate being built around "regional representation" using a model which broke Canada into 4 major regions: The Atlantic Provinces, Quebec, Ontario, and The West - each with 24 seats, and a handful of seats distributed across what is now Yukon Territory, Northwest Territory, and Nunavut.
The idea at the time of setting up the Senate was this: where the population of Ontario and Quebec vastly outweighs that of the other regions of Canada, the Senate would look at things more from a regional interest perspective rather than a population / re-election perspective.
Has that model become obsolete? Perhaps it needs to be reconsidered, but as was discussed back in the 1980s, a "Triple E" Senate model comes with its own set of problems. The current Senate is quite limited in its powers, and one would suspect that in order to achieve the goals of a "Effective" Senate (a term which proponents of Triple-E never really defined) the legislative powers of the Senate would have to be expanded considerably.
All that said, simply demanding abolition seems both simplistic and problematic - it would remove a check on legislative power and ultimately could push a lot more load into our courts simply because of over-zealous legislators writing poorly thought out laws.
This isn't to say that Senate Reform isn't worth discussing, but it is far bigger than this question allows for.
c. Opt-Out Funding
Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to allow provinces to opt out of federal programs that intrude on provincial jurisdiction such as health care, education, and social services, without a province losing any of the associated federal funding for use in its social programs?
Alberta, especially since the election of the UCP in 2019 has been particularly prickly about funding from Ottawa. The attitude is "I don't want to implement the programs you are creating, but give me the money to spend anyway".
To me, this ultimately is a trust issue. Do you trust the UCP to act reasonably with funds without strings attached? If the UCP had a track record of implementing programs but in a different way than perhaps Ottawa had envisioned, then one might consider it. Instead, the UCP has a track record of refusing to implement programs at all - for example, opting out of Dental and Pharmacare entirely, while doing nothing to assist every day Albertans in those areas.
This would essentially render the Federal Government incapable of creating national level programs, and that would be corrosive to national unity, individual mobility and other aspects of legitimate Canadian government.
Trust matters, and the behaviour of the UCP and Danielle Smith simply do not engender any kind of trust. Provinces like Alberta need guardrails on their exercise of power more so, not less.
d. Changing Hierarchy of Laws
Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to better protect provincial rights from federal interference by giving a province’s laws dealing with provincial or shared areas of constitutional jurisdiction priority over federal laws when the province’s laws and federal laws conflict?
Provinces love to complain about "Overreach from Ottawa". The fact is that Ottawa is required to legislate "in the national interest", and for any number of reasons that national perspective may conflict with the priorities of individual provinces. Should the provinces be able to override the Federal Government at will? That has some serious implications.
Not only would that potentially hinder the ability of Ottawa to make agreements with other countries on any number of topics, but it could invert our entire legal system. If the provinces can place their laws above, or outside Federal legislative authority, then the possibility exists that provinces will go further and attempt to move their legislation outside of the legal framework set out in the Constitution. Alberta's "Sovereignty Act" already attempts to do this, but it has not been used in a manner that can be challenged yet (I suspect the answer is that the law itself is ultra vires - but that remains untested).
I expect that most constitutional scholars would look upon this and say "No - that's extremely dangerous" - and of course, Danielle Smith wants you to believe that she's being reasonable while she attempts to gather more power to herself.
The Separation non-Question
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?
Option 1: Alberta should remain a province of Canada.Option 2: The Government of Alberta should commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.
Many people have complained about this question, and rightly so. It is not a yes/no question, instead it is something of a Frankenstein of a question resulting from an over-eager effort to create a "separation referendum" while avoiding calling a separation referendum. It's really two contradictory questions bashed together with a club and a rusty nail.
The first question is really a yes or no question: Should Alberta remain a province of Canada?
The second question is a word salad that's trying to gather consent for holding a referendum on separation at some future point in time.
If this is confusing at first glance, it's because it is intended to be. The UCP wants you confused. They want you to think that option B isn't really about separating (because ostensibly Danielle Smith says the UCP is not a separatist party), but rather whether we should ask the question.
Nobody is happy with this farce of a question - the separatists don't like their can being kicked down the road, and the rest of us don't like being dragged into what will inevitably be a vicious, puerile squabble over disinformation.
Smith's protestations that she is a "federalist" ring hollow when her government has repeatedly moved the goalposts to make things easier for the separatists, and finally when the courts stomped all over the separatist petition, her government exercised its power to put this mess of a question on the ballot.
Again, because this question is the way it is, Smith can argue that even if a majority of people said "remain in Canada", she can still go ahead with a separation referendum anyhow - claiming that a "significant number of people asked for a debate on separation". Further, because it kicks the actual separation question down the road, she gets to claim that it's not really about separation - in spite of it being a separation question.
The only legitimate response to this is to pick "Option 1", and then yell loudly when Smith ignores that outcome in a year's time.
Closing Thoughts
These referendums are not an exercise in "direct democracy" - they are an exercise in manufacturing consent. I doubt that the majority of people who vote on these questions will have even read them in advance of arriving at the polling booth, and even fewer will have thought about the often perverse consequences of endorsing any of them.
Danielle Smith's track record as Premier has been clear: she lies far too easily, and she is far to willing to lie to further her own political objectives regardless of the harm that they might do to Albertans. On that basis alone, it is unwise to endorse any vaguely worded proposal that she might put forth.
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