OK, Stephen Harper didn’t sign the separation petition, but he needs to say and do more

Also, federal Justice minister to Alberta premier: Canada’s judicial selection process is just fine, thank you very much

Former prime ministers Jean Chretien, 92, and Stephen Harper, 66, at their fireside chat in Ottawa Monday with the Canadian Geographical Society (Photo: Charlie Woolf, Royal Canadian Geographical Society).

It’s all very well that Stephen Harper has assured Canadians he didn’t sign Alberta’s separation referendum petition, but that’s not good enough.

It was, as the CBC’s online wordsmith put it, merely a quip. Nevertheless, if you listened carefully, the former Conservative prime minister could be heard to say at a collegial televised fireside chat with former Liberal PM Jean Chrétien put on by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society Monday that “I didn’t sign the petition.”

Mr. Chrétien responded, “Any Tories did?” Mr. Harper answered, “I’m told not.”

The Ottawa audience at the geographical society get-together politely chuckled and, to be fair, while Mr. Harper is a still-youthful 66, Mr. Chrétien is 92, so this was pretty sharp repartee, considering.

Both former PMs were invited by the society to celebrate Mr. Harper being given a gold medal for his career in public service. Mr. Chrétien received the same honour in 2022.

Mr. Harper stuck around another day for the unveiling of his official prime ministerial portrait, which if you ask me is pretty cartoonish, but, hey, everyone’s an art critic!

Quip though Mr. Harper’s remark may have been, I suppose we can take him at his word that he really didn’t sign – despite his relationship with the United Conservative Party Government in Alberta as the board chair of its pension management corporation.

But as for his mumbled suggestion that no Conservatives had signed, that seems pretty unlikely. Presumably he meant Conservative MPs from Alberta, although the entire exchange only took a few seconds so who he had in mind is not totally clear. If I were a betting man, though, my money would be on the proposition that quite a few Conservative Party of Canada MPs in Alberta have indeed signed the Alberta Prosperity Project separation petition, or soon will.

Regardless, it’s a sad commentary on the state of the federal Conservative Party that The Canadian Press reporter, quite properly, would make that transitory exchange the lead for his story. In fact, it would not be a particular shock if any Alberta Conservative politician, federal or provincial, in office or retired, fessed up to signing the petition.

Indeed, it could be argued that Mr. Harper and his five fellow signers of the infamous Firewall Letter in 2001 got the ball rolling on the current version of “Alberta sovereignty within a united Canada,” as the title of a certain piece of unconstitutional UCP legislation risibly puts it.

This was before Mr. Harper was prime minister, of course, but the manifesto was the inspiration for a number of policies at the heart of the so-called Free Alberta Strategy, which as Calgary Herald political columnist Don Braid has pointed out, is the United Conservative Party’s strategy. It may lead, Mr. Braid argued, to actual separation if the government of Danielle Smith fails in its efforts to bully the federal government into weakening Confederation to Alberta’s advantage.

Among the policies advocated by the Firewall manifesto were pulling out of the Canada Health Act to allow the adoption of U.S.-style health care in Alberta, dumping the RCMP for a provincial police force, undermining the creation of national standards and programs, stopping the Canada Revenue Agency from collecting provincial taxes, and, of course, withdrawal from the Canada Pension Plan and establishment of the Alberta pension Mr. Harper has now been hired to oversee.

All this in the name of “policy flexibility” – although the subsequent quarter century of rampaging neoliberalism throughout the countries of the so-called First World, including Canada, have delivered pretty much all the destructive policy flexibility anyone can tolerate.

So, no, Mr. Harper’s statement, while mildly reassuring, is not good enough.

For starters, he needs to make it crystal clear he is opposed the Alberta’s departure from Canada, and why. A barely audible quip won’t do.

Well, he did say that if “the federal government manages this country right, puts the stress on unity and not on ideological tangents, there’s no reason why we can’t pull the country together at this point.” And he tweeted he hoped there would be a lot more Canadian prime ministers. But neither is the unequivocal endorsement of a truly united Canada that is needed. So let’s hear one!

Mr. Harper should also mention the Firewall Letter. He should say – perhaps even if it isn’t strictly true – that it was never the intention of its authors, all of whom are still in the land of the living, to inspire a separatist movement in Western Canada.

Or if that was in fact the intention of some of his co-authors – at least half of whom, one suspects, are also citizens of other countries – maybe he should apologize for having had anything to do with the drafting of that screed. Ralph Klein, then Alberta’s premier, sensibly tossed it into the recycler.

Mr. Harper was only 41 at the time. He could plead youthful stupidity and say he regrets having anything to do with it. He could say, “I’m sorry.”

Federal Justice minister to Danielle Smith: Canada’s judicial selection process is just fine, thank you very much

It didn’t take long for federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser to respond to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s childish threat, noted in this space yesterday, not to pay to keep the lights and heat on in any new superior court judge’s office if the feds won’t let the UCP pick the judges.

Mr. Fraser replied like a grownup, explaining politely that “I’m planning to maintain the process that we have in place that has independence, that has rigour, that has led to stellar candidates being appointed, including recently in Alberta.”

He didn’t say … I dare you to act like a child and make King’s Bench justices hot desk out of spite, but I wouldn’t be surprised people in his office were rolling their eyes and thinking such thoughts when they saw Ms. Smith’s sophomoric letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Well, such foolishness happened before in Alberta. Premier William Aberhart, readers with long memories will recall, got his revenge on Lieutenant Governor John Campbell Bowen for refusing to grant Royal Assent to three unconstitutional bills.

Premier Aberhart gave the order to close Government House in March 1938. Lieutenant Governor Bowen and his family were forced to decamp to a hotel. The historic building sat unused until 1942, when the furniture was auctioned off. By 1943, Bible Bill was dead and went down in history as a petty, spiteful man.

Smith to history: Hold my beer!