Introduction
Recently the province of Alberta, where I reside, held a referendum. There were ten questions, largely concerning the place Alberta should have in Canada and a question of the powers of Provinces vs. the Central Government. The most important question though was whether Alberta should remain a province of Canada or look into holding a referendum on separating from Canada. I should clarify that this wasn’t an actual referendum on separating, just a referendum on whether or not Alberta should hold a referendum on separating. The final results have largely come in at this point with about 74% of Albertans wanting to stay in Canada (myself included) and 26% wanting to hold the referendum. One thing I should not is that Question 10 may have skewed some results on the referendum by its presence. There were both independence activists and anti-independence activists who adopted the motto of “No to the Nine,” i.e. they were just going to vote straight no on the other nine questions and wanted other people to do the same. That sort of mentality, of course, is not my way of going about things. Given that this situation doesn’t exactly come up too often, I thought I’d give my take on the questions for posterity and my answers to each.
Question 10
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 in 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
My Decision: Option 1.
Referendum Result: Option 1, Clear Majority.
As a general rule, you’ll find that most separatists across the western world, whether right-leaning (as in the case of the Albertan Separatists) or left-leaning (in the case of Catalonian separatists) usually share a starkly similar psychological profile. Namely, most, especially at the leadership level, are people consumed by the sort of angst they should have left behind when they reached age thirty. In the case of Canada, they’re most comparable to something like a Texan Separatists. Canada, of course, is no stranger to succession movements. The most well known separatists were and are the Quebec separatists. In Quebec, Canada’s best known French region, a lot of right wing and left wing politics caters to separatist attitudes with the primary alternative being the centrist Quebec Liberals. The original Quebec separation referendum was held in the 1980’s with it failing to pass by a narrow majority. After this the actual will to hold another referendum was severely diminished, but the threat was kept up by the Quebec right and left so they could get special treatment and powers from the federal government. There’s also a lot of, honestly basically illegal linguistic chauvinism that the left/right in Quebec get up to to pander to their constituents. Of course, it should be said that Quebec is not one of the better run provinces, having a turbo-high tax rate for no actual appreciable quality of life differences than the other provinces. But that’s what angsty politics ultimately achieves, pandering to angst rather than practicality.
Returning to the Alberta referendum, there are two potential outcomes. Either the separatists decide to abandon their cause or they try to hijack the conservative party in Alberta. This would then result in the right-leaning voters splitting the vote, thereby resulting in the left-leaning NDP party gaining power. Federally, until the recent election there existed this sort of split in the Center/Left in Canada where voters could drift between Liberal and the Federal NDP, thus giving the Conservatives a larger chance to be elected since the only other right-wing party, the PPC (basically think a really lame version of the Euro-rights like the AFD), simply weren’t popular. Before Trump got elected, the federal conservatives were considered the favorites to win. After his election, the Liberals basically unified the left/center/center-left behind them and ended up winning, at the cost of the Federal NDP party being obliterated (with only 7 seats it is now below the 12 seats required to be an official federal party).
As for the practicality, the argument of the separatists was basically that they felt like Ottawa takes Alberta for granted, that Alberta pays too much into federal redistribution programs and receives too little, that Alberta’s primary trading partner is the US and that’s more important than Ottawa, and of course a dislike of some Canadian left-leaning social policies. Now, the thing about angst-driven politics is that it doesn’t have a far reaching plan. Their plan, in the event of independence, was basically to get the US to give Alberta an influx of initial dollars in exchange for a fair amount of oil and even potentially some control over the oil industry. We’re already off to a bad start, as you can tell.
The reality of a place like Alberta is that, as an independent landlocked country, Alberta would be entirely dependent on its two neighbors, Canada and the United States, for transfer of goods and other trade stuffs. The situation I would compare it to is the currently geo-political predicament of Mongolia where Mongolia finds itself entirely enclosed by Russia and China. This even effects their internet since they have to run through two highly censored nodes, and is why they’ve recently embraced Starlink as a way to get around this issue.
Quebec, in east Canada, has the largest port, Montreal, and thus easy access to the Atlantic Trade without having to run goods solely through Canada and the US. Point being, while Alberta does have some of the best strategic resources in Canada, it would be approaching any sort of trade as a weak party without options except trying to play the US and Canada against one another. Of course, some think that this is what some separatists had in mind, with Alberta joining the US as another state. Whether true or not, that’s certainly a potential outcome of independence.
There’s also a few words that need to be said about Indigenous issues. There was a lot of talk about what the response of Native organizations would be to separation, given that the deal with Canadian-Indigenous relations ends up placing them outside of provincial jurisdiction and directly under Federal jurisdiction. This largely had created an unknown, although it was not something most thought they’d have to face, given the most likely result of the referendum was a no to separation. In Quebec there is a well-known idea that the Cree would ask for substantial portions of western Quebec in the event of Quebec separation.
In the end, the separatist movements across the western world are very much driven by the sort of angst that drives societies into the ground. It’s better to work with other people and learn diplomacy rather than simply walking off in a huff.
Question 9
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?
My Decision: No
Referendum Result: Slight Majority No
Basically this sort of idea opens up a wide can of worms. The reason why federal laws have to take precedence is that otherwise you get a whole lot of contradictions and disunity in the legal system. There’s also the issue of inter-provincial disputes that require a mediator, basically just a whole lot of issues.
Question 8
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?
My Decision: No
Referendum Result: Majority No
This is, once again, maybe more of an issue of opening up too many cans of worms. Specifically what this is talking about are equalization payments, which is to say that each province gives the federal government money to fund certain services, with Alberta putting in more on average and getting less. It isn’t a great system and does need reform, but once again that’s reform and this sort of opt-out language isn’t getting at the actual problem. Now speaking of not getting to the actual problem…
Question 7
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?
My Decision: No
Referendum Result: Small Majority No
So let’s detail the issue with the Canadian Senate currently. It’s basically designed to be more of an apolitical body compared to most other parts of government, which is fine. This is accomplished by having senators sit for life in the senate, until the mandatory retirement age of 75 or when they resign. Senators are appointed by the current government as vacancies arise. While the Canadian Senate has a similar function to the US Senate, in terms of being able to deny bills or issue requests for alterations, obviously there are some issues with the way this all works. Senators end up reflecting not the current trends, but the past trends of previous governing bodies. Then there’s the issue that ultimately the federal government, by appointing senators, is essentially moderating itself with its own appointees.
My general take is that the Senate composition would be better off reflecting the will of the Provinces. So the ruling parties in provinces and also I think the Native Associations should be the ones to appoint senators which sit until that ruling party is replaced, however long that may be.
But note that the discussion here is on reforming the senate, not abolishing it. There is a role for a senate to play in society, which is moderating some of the potential issues that crop up in bills presented by the House of Commons. The question should have been about reforming the Canadian Senate, not abolishing the institution (unlike the Monarchy, which should most definitely be abolished).
Question 6
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?
My Decision: Yes
Referendum Result: Majority No
And here we mark the first disagreement. So granted, there’s two ways you can look at this question. You can say that having federally appointed judges is consistent with the precedence of federal law over provincial law. On the other hand, you can say that it would be better for judges to be more representative of the areas they’re supposed to have authority over. I fall into the latter category. This comes down to there being a lot of lingering elements of monarchical control in Canada, which have been superseded, but some elements still remain in how the Federal Government does things.
Question 5
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?
My Decision: Yes
Referendum Result: Majority Yes
Besides the No to separation, this was the clearest result in the Referendum. Speaking admittedly as someone whose birth certificate is quite literally held together by tape right now, it would probably be for the best if there was just some sort of voter ID system. Of course, I’m also in favor of more advanced voter ideas like digital democracy that should already have been put in place, but that’s a discussion for another time.
Question 4
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 health care and education systems?
My Decision: No
Referendum Result: Slight Majority Yes
I differ again from the popular vote. So basically I think this just ends up complicating things again. So the primary people who would be effected by this are temporary workers, and most of them are already employed in fairly low wage jobs. I think rather than going to lengths like this, it’s just better to go with ensuring that temp workers are brought in and employed for necessity at reasonable levels rather than what can often feel like the new coolie system. * The Coolie system refers to the British habit of importing Indian labourers around the world for low-paid labour. You’ll I think understand the reference.
Question 3
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?
My Decision: Yes
Referendum Result: Majority Yes
The difference between this and question 4 is that question 4 is regarding what I consider to be vital services. Question 3 is about social support, specifically provincially funded social support. The 12 month qualification is largely about preventing fraudulent use of programs and instead focuses on supporting workers.
Question 2
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?
My Decision: Yes
Referendum Result: Majority Yes
This is mostly connected to the response to Question 1 which will follow. It’s basically a moot question if there isn’t more provincial control over immigration, and largely is one of the reasons why you would have more provincial control. The primary objection here could be that there’s once again complexities in how the system is implemented. For example, if you’re a temporary worker in another province and come to Alberta for a tourism trip and end up in the hospital, what happens? Maybe something like emergency care would be exempted from payment.
Question 1
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?
My Decision: Yes
Referendum Result: Majority Yes
The big issue is that there’s at present an imbalance with how the economy is set up. There’s been far too much of a push towards cost-cutting and penny-pinching amongst businesses, which has ultimately resulted in this push towards temporary labour, outsourcing, etc. This differs from historic immigration (for context, half my grandparents and a number of my great grandparents were immigrants) because it emphasizes temporary gains over long-term relationships. Now of course, what I dislike about a lot of the discussion about this at the moment is that it’s the temp labourers that are themselves being blamed when it’s not like they’re doing anything wrong. It’s just that the companies are wrong to be setting up this neo-coolie system and then pretending like it’s fine or normal. It’s pretty telling that they got the idea for the system from the Middle East which is notorious for important temp labour, underpaying and abusing them, and then using them to do most of the hard work in their societies (they also rarely or never grant them citizenship in the societies they worked so hard to build). Citizens not Coolies could be a pretty good motto to oppose this mentality.
The place this all comes from is a certain point in civilization where things become about numbers and abstracts rather than relationships. For businesses that run hundreds or thousands of stores, they’re often so far detached from the actual people they’re around that they make these sort of economic choices. The priorities have led to a lot of social dissatisfaction and the problem is that the Federal Government itself tends to operate at some detachment, more focused on ideas like perpetual economic growth and line go up than anything else. So ultimately the better solution is to bring things like this to a more local level.
The reality is that neither federal control over immigration nor more local control over immigration is going to solve existing economic issues. Simply put, the system of economics that relies on debt and control of debt is strongly outdated (it never really was in date, it just easier to pretend it was in the past). Everything that flow from that is also strongly linked to social demoralization, or which I consider some of these results reflective of. Until the political will is found to address those issues, whether at Federal or Provincial level, we’re left sticking bandaids on wounds.
Results and the questions can be viewed here:
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