Hard disagree that is bad. Anytime the courts uphold treaty land rights is good. This is how our country was founded.
As for whether this will fuel sympathy towards separatism… I do not know. Perhaps, but these separatists on whole do not live in our reality. If we are to take their own words and actions as an honest reflection of what is governing their intent, then their mental state does not allow for recognizing any validity in a democratic process that will result in them losing.
We’ve seen the petition campaign wracked with meetings full of every wild conspiracy involving shady control of Canada from China, promises of free housing and jobs, American driven pipelines (or even statehood).
We have seen an Albertan government nakedly “play both sides” by dotingly do every thing in its legal power to advance the agenda of these separatists:
from a slate of town hall meetings,
to knee-caping Elections Alberta’s funding and powers,
to pre-declaring a referendum date for 9 soft-separatist questions (9! wonder if they’re betting on an ultimate 10th one?).
to actively lowing the bar to petition out a referendum
to now declaring they’ll righteously appeal the court that dares puts a requirement of indigenous consultation to ask about leaving Canada
We’ve seen Smith and the UCP completely lock-out and freeze the Forever Canadian petitioners from exercising their own rights under the law.
We’ve seen someone(s?) in this Alberta Republican party leak the Provincial voter roll to a 3rd party separatist group who they then exposed the entire list of registered Albertan voters to the public internet. (As someone who was entrusted with parts of the federal/provincial voter roll to properly do my job as an election official… this is INSANE breech of public privacy!).
It’s a mistake to run any support for these people in any way, shape, or form by not accurately saying “NO. You did not dot your i’s and cross your t’s here. Indigenous treaty holders have legal rights which you did not follow.”
It’s literally just one out of MANY of bad steps that have fouled this entire process.
They are certainly able to vote for separatism. As long as they follow the existing law in getting to the time & situation where the vote takes place.
If y’all are dealing with folks who’ve decided the process of law is not for them, well, their new and separate Alberta will quickly turn into a place run by warlords a la Somalia. That exactly where the attitude: “Laws, laws? We don’ need no steenkin’ laws!” delivers them.
There already is a LEGAL and verified petition on the table. The law is clear that the legislature has to deal with this one way or the other (either vote in the Legislature or have a referendum question). The government is just ignoring the law.
Well it seems that’s what the separatist leaders want as they think that THEY will be the warlords.
You’re not the only one who is pissed off. There’s a “Stay in Canada” petition, Danielle. It has been certified, declared legal, and whatever else needs to be done to legitimize it. And you are ignoring it. Those of us who signed it are pissed that you are ignoring it.
A commentator on the news the other day suggested that Danielle Smith is a closet separatist. Well, those of us in Alberta know that it not a suggestion. It is a fact.
And now, in the latest fuck-up by the Conservatives in power in Alberta:
A bipartisan legislative committee was meeting to decide what to do with the successful “forever Canada” petition that got enough signatures late last year. The proponent wanted the legislature to vote on the proposal (Alberta to remain in Canada)
However, with the latest court smackdown of the separatist petition (which has still not been verified), the Conservatives are desperate to have a referendum on this.
So… WHILE THE COMMITTEE was still in session, and before a vote was held, a press release was sent out (complete with quotes from the chair) stating that they had voted and agreed to send the question to a referendum. An opposition member got the press release, WHILE THEY WERE STILL debating. She was not impressed.
Oh, and in perhaps not unrelated news, Alberta’s finance minister and hospitals minister have both resigned from cabinet, and have said that they will not run in the next election.
But wait! Here’s the referendum question that Smith has proposed, all by herself! Remember, you must answer “yes” or “no” to the following:
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?
Go ahead. Answer yes or no to that.
Also, try this one:
“Would you like a hot dog or a hamburger for the BBQ? Answer yes or no”
You can safely assume that when the question is super confusing then about as many people will choose yes when they mean no as will choose no when they mean yes.
When you know your side is in the significant minority, you can amplify your results by a decent percentage by producing a confusing enough question. Because there are many more people on the other side, more folks who want to vote against your proposal will goof than those who want to vote for. Bingo: instant extra 20% score on your referendum.
The law was that the “Forever Canadian” petition effectively blocks any and all other later petitions on this question. The whole reason Thomas Lukaszuk launched it was to cut the legs of the separatists out from under them, all-the-while using the old rules (shorter collection time, more signatures).
Unfortunately this angered the UCP and Smith who changed the laws to favour the separatists. So after the Forever Canadian petition was successfully submitted they changed the laws (yet again) to allow multiple petition questions on separation. Then they froze the Forever Canadian petition in red tape, lie about its purpose (it was to force a house vote), and publicly blame Forever Canadian petitioners for forcing her own absurd referendum.
I agree, this is a total clown show of insincerity and extremism.
And THEN, they released the vote of the committee on the Forever Canadian petition, before the vote was even taken… while the committee was still in session. Complete with fake “quotes” from the chair of the committee. While he was sitting there chairing the session with his mouth hanging open.
So they did the only reasonable thing… Forced a recess, and then came back the next day to vote the way that the press release from the previous day told them they would vote.
I just want to also highlight how fundamentally weak and impotent Alberta’s centre-right wing is in the face of a complete take over from their extremist base. Years ago, the Alberta PC’s knew they no longer had the numbers to win; so when it came down to losing to the Alberta NDP they decided to burn their old party, unite with the Wild Rose, and build a new party from this. However, as it stands today, this new party is 100% driven by the most fascist nutters that Alberta has to offer.
You would think that, after scandal after weekly scandal, from Teacher strikes, to book banning, to invoking the notwithstanding clause twice (to pass anti-trans laws), to naked gerrymandering, to actively attempting to break up the country. Right wing Albertans would say “you know what, this government is way too chaotic, demagogic, lying, and extreme to govern this province.”
However no. the Alberta right-wing is largely happy with the UCP. It’s important to realize just how much the Alberta centre-right have completely abdicated all their political responsibility to the utter nutters who now drive their party. The UCP is 100% driven by the most extremist and fringe elements of the party.
The parallels to the US conventional Republicans of not so long ago are too obvious to bother enumerating.
Clearly there is something in the air, or water.
Or more likely on the internet which is fomenting this frothing Rightist extremism anywhere there’s a smidgen of nativist discontent. Something is spraying liquid oxygen on the smoldering tinder of know-nothing irritation with a complex world.
Can’t blame the water nor air; Alberta has both beautiful fresh clean glacier water and endless blue skies. Ultimately the problem is that these politicians can get away with being extremist, lying, insincere, scheming, demagogues who survive on public conflict and low level chaos is because the public allows for it. Now why the public does this… I’m not too sure.
In some cases the public, itself, thrives on divisive culture warring. This is why we see naked anti-trans or anti-immigrant or “tough-on-crime” legislation. Politicians feed these issues to the public because they are easy to understand and form an opinion on. Important questions involving real policy matters on complex subjects are often just done procedurally without fanfare.
In some cases, forces other then politicians or the public push these culture warring issues online to drive engagement or manipulation. This could be from any number of sources (from state actors, to social centred tech/ad companies, to nihilistic polemicists, to individual grifters).
Also it is important to remember that Canadians (not us, but average Canadians) mostly check out when it comes to politics outside of election time. In our representative democracy, we just assume that our representatives have it all taken care of. Alberta being, historically, a very boringly politically stable province (with regular 40 year dynasties) probably has a population that is accustomed to not caring about politics outside of election time. So all this “off-season” political activation and awareness is very new to them.
The extremists will lose a vote if it occurs and have the ability and will to punish Smith politically. If they do better than expected, Smith becomes a pathetic Brexit figure like Cameron.
Most Albertans likely do not welcome this distraction from expanding oil exports, attracting investment, dealing with tariffs and Big Sam, the economics of elections and political chaos, and above all, the utter pointlessness and volatility of these theatrics. Especially after a MOU just signed which predictably would annoy the usual suspects.
Maybe even Smith is starting to realize that once bubblers have abandoned reality (though hear enough groupthink to give it a plausible veneer, to them), they won’t welcome anything short of their grandest delusions.