Danielle Smith promotes delusional history of U.S. and Canadian constitutions to push separation referendum

Hey! This is Alberta! If the facts don’t support your argument, just make up new ones

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith during her address to the province yesterday evening (Photo: Screenshot of Alberta Government video).

In Danielle Smith’s Alberta, if the facts don’t support your argument, you can make up new facts.

Alberta’s premier demonstrated this capacity yesterday evening in her delusional 15-minute televised address to the province wherein she set out to explain the differences between the Canadian and United States constitutions in order to justify holding a referendum on Alberta separation.

Claiming Canada was founded on the principle of strong provinces, Ms. Smith continued: “Canada is very different from the United States and many other Western democracies. For example, the U.S. centralizes the majority of power and decision-making in its federal government. In Canada, we chose a decentralized federation composed of very unique and diverse provinces left to govern themselves in almost all matters with the main exceptions of national defence and international affairs.”

This is the polar opposite of the facts. She either missed the lecture on the constitution during her years at the University of Calgary or someone was guilty of educational malpractice!

The Fathers of Confederation created a federation in which the federal government had a clear preponderance of power. Even a quick read of the Constitution Act 1867* makes this obvious.

By contrast, the Founding Fathers of the United States did the opposite, creating a federation that vested more power in the governments of its states. The founders of Canada in took a different road in 1867 because they’d just had a ringside seat to the Civil War that wracked the neighbours from 1861 to 1865.

Ms. Smith continued, still mistakenly, “Over time, our federal government has sought to move towards a more centralized American-style system with Ottawa attempting to take over many provincial areas of jurisdiction using all manner of legislative, judicial and financial leverage.”

In fact, over time, while the United States has moved toward a more powerful central government, Canada has moved toward a less centralized model.

It’s important to note this nonsense because so many of the other consequential problems with Ms. Smith’s effort to push Alberta into a dangerous, divisive and economically harmful separation referendum campaign stem from her delusional view of the constitution.

The fact she is ignorant of both the U.S. and Canadian constitutions would be amusing were she not a premier promoting a campaign for constitutional change in Canada with the provincial treasury for a slush fund and the assistance – solicited or otherwise – of foreign actors in possession of the stolen personal data of three million of us who do not have our interests at heart.

This is extremely dangerous, and shockingly no one in her own party has tried to rein her in. Well, perhaps that’s what got Matt Jones and Nate Horner, two of her more sensible cabinet ministers, sent packing this week, leading to yesterday morning’s otherwise insignificant cabinet shuffle.

It was mildly amusing three years ago when Ms. Smith thought she had the powers of an American president to pardon convicted criminals. It is more troubling now as she uses the not inconsiderable powers of the province to assist a group of bad actors, foreign and domestic, in a campaign to break up our country.

“The misinformation is so profound that there is no redemption for such ignorance,” retired Mount Royal University political science professor Keith Brownsey commented in a conversation about the address last night.

Consider the wording the referendum question itself that she proposes to use, the courts having blocked the clear yes-or-no question that was cooked up by her allies in the so-called Alberta Prosperity Project for its Stay Free Alberta separation campaign. Voters, Ms. Smith said, will now be asked: “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?”

This is wordy, ambiguous, and possibly intentionally confusing. How will the answer be composed? We were not told. It cannot be a simple yes or no.

Why do this? According to Ms. Smith it’s “because this proposed referendum question does not directly trigger separation, but if successful would ask Alberta’s government to commence the legal process necessary to hold a binding referendum on the matter, the recent court ruling would not be applicable, and the referendum question I outlined, could proceed.”

In other words, her daily protests to the contrary notwithstanding, including in last night’s address, she is a separatist!

Alas for Ms. Smith, this is unlikely to mollify the separatists who now dominate her party and have threatened to eject her as leader if she doesn’t use their question, which faces hurdles put in place by a series of court judgments.

“Smith doesn’t understand that there is no such thing as a binding ‘referendum’ in a Westminster parliamentary system,” Dr. Brownsey observed. “You can’t tell Parliament or the Legislature in our case what to do.”

“I recommend that she read section 91 of the Constitution Act 1867,” he added. “As well, someone should remind Ms. Smith that Justin Trudeau is no longer prime minister!”

Well, yes, an awful lot of what Ms. Smith had to say last night was a tired recitation of the sort of talking points associated with the convoy protests that mutated into Maple MAGA that infested the United Conservative Party under Jason Kenney and eventually morphed into the Alberta separation campaign.

There was a predictable attack on the decisions of various Alberta judges that have stymied the march of the Stay Free Alberta question to a ballot, which the premier boldly asserted were erroneous, fundamental misinterpretations of the law, and so on.

Well, that could be. That’s why we have appeal courts. But I’d bet that a superior court judge in Alberta is more likely to interpret the law correctly than a premier who sounds as if she’s never read Canada’s constitution.

There was an unhealthy dose of irrelevant Trudeau bashing. Ms. Smith also recycled old talking points attacking the “Trudeau-Singh government in Ottawa” and “the leave-it-in-the-ground NDP.” I guess we can expect to hear that again in the next provincial election campaign.

There was a lot of whining about the rights of “law-abiding gun owners” to own unrestricted weaponry, which makes sense when you remember the proponent of the Stay Free Alberta petition owns a gun store.

Earlier yesterday afternoon, the premier’s loyal minions on the UCP-dominated Select Special Citizen Initiative Proposal Review Committee finally managed to push through the motion that was derailed the day before to use the question from the Forever Canadian petition promoted by former Progressive Conservative deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk.

Soon thereafter the premier then said she doesn’t plan to, exactly. Still, if the separation referendum turns out to be as unpopular as I suspect it’ll be, I guess that will let the UCP try to pin the blame on Mr. Lukaszuk.

It was mildly amusing to watch UCP and NDP members of the special committee fighting against positions that not long ago they held, but probably not all that relevant by the time Ms. Smith had read her speech.

*Formerly known as the British North America Act.