It would be funny if Smith wasn’t serious about it

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/12/2022 (646 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is plunging ahead with her Alberta sovereignty act, rapidly rewriting it from one day to the next as critics point out absurd elements. She explained that she never gets everything right the first time.

The act, passed by the Alberta legislature in the early hours of last Thursday, pretends to authorize the provincial government and others to disregard federal laws Ms. Smith thinks are bad for Alberta.

The bill is a fierce but empty gesture. It says Alberta government departments, municipalities and school boards do not have to comply with federal laws (which include the Criminal Code, tax laws, citizenship laws, environmental protection laws and a vast array of other statutes) if the legislature declares a federal law to be against Alberta’s interests.

The validity of federal laws has never been subject to the approval of provincial legislatures. Courts of law will continue to enforce laws, unless someone goes to court and shows the laws are not valid. A simple declaration from a provincial government or its legislature that a law is no good will have no effect.

Russian President Vladimir Putin performed a similar empty gesture on Sept. 30 when he pretended to annex four provinces of Ukraine — Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — adding them to the Russian Federation. The annexation had no effect on the provinces concerned and is not recognized by the world at large, but it seemed like a grand declaration at the time.

Ms. Smith gave her gesture an odd title — the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act. This echoes a joke that circulated widely in Quebec during the separatist agitation of the 1970s. The comedian Yvon Deschamps, adopting the voice of the average Montreal working man, announced that he wanted a strong Quebec in a united Canada.

This was a mocking echo of politicians who were promising Quebec voters they could have their cake and eat it, too — all the benefits of belonging to Canada and earning Canadian-dollar wages, and all the benefits of acting like an independent country.

The joke struck home and was richly appreciated in Quebec because although the public was of two minds, everyone knew you must be either “in” or “out” — the option of being both in and out at the same time was not actually available.

Alberta’s premier has now appropriated Mr. Deschamps’ joke and made it the title of her signature legislative achievement. The joke, however, is on her.

Albertans know perfectly well, as Quebecers knew half a century ago, there is no such thing as half-in and half-out. In telling her people they can tag along with Canada when it suits them and make their own rules when they feel like it, she is telling a fairy tale that is transparently infantile.

The childlike lack of awareness becomes apparent when her backers say that once Alberta achieves sovereignty, it will be able to build all the pipelines it wants without having to win permission from tree-huggers in Ottawa. In fact, Alberta is a land-locked territory that cannot expect to build or licence any pipeline beyond its own borders.

The gag about being half-in and half-out was a knee-slapper in Quebec’s separatist years. Ms. Smith and her colleagues are now treating the idea as a serious political program, but it’s still a joke.

» Winnipeg Free Press