How Do We Solve a Problem Like Danielle Smith?

 I compare Danielle Smith to René Lévesque.  Exceptional communicators, with a history in broadcasting before entering politics, politically savvy, and with an in-depth knowledge of their constituency and constituents in both cases.  Both have shown the capacity to talk about sovereignty in subtle, sub-textual, svelte terms that make provincial secession sound benign.  However, neither has shown concern about what happens to Canada post-secession. Neither has ever acknowledged that we already live in the best country in the world.  Despite historical and regional grudges we live largely in harmony occupying the second largest and potentially richest territory in the world.  Neither sovereigntist has been prepared to discuss the stability, unity and existence of the country they are prepared to risk in favour of whatever imagined benefits provincial independence might offer. 

Canada is a great country.  But saying so is un-Canadian.  We use the expression "Great Canadian" to be sardonic.  But who are we mocking?  Ourselves in part.  More pointedly, our American neighbours to the south, and their obsessive, self-aggrandizing declarations of greatness, especially these days.  In certain times, our humility and deference serve us poorly.  We are living through one of those times.

People gather in support of Alberta becoming the 51st state during a rally at the Legislature in Edmonton, on May 3.  [Image from the Globe and Mail]

How do we address the potential dismemberment of Canada which Danielle Smith foregrounds and forebodes?  A typical Canadian response is denial, "it will never happen," and the liberal notion that "everything will turn out fine if we do nothing."  I believe we are facing the exception to these rules.

In his interview with Tara Henley on Lean Out, Darrell Bricker, the CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs,  says,

I think that sometimes central Canadian people dismiss Western separatism as an issue of a few cranks out there in a couple of bars in rural Alberta or whatever. I don't think that that's what we're dealing with now. I think when you saw Danielle Smith's presentation yesterday, I mean, this is not nothing. Something is going on here. And by the way, I don't think the real question in Alberta is secession. I think it's more annexation [ . . .].

Polling on December 10, 2024, suggested that 66% of Albertans disagree with the province becoming a 51st US state.  More recent AngusReid polling suggests that 36% of Albertans support leaving confederation.  As someone who lived in Quebec during the election of René Lévesque's Parti Quebecois in 1976, the 1980 referendum and 1995 referendum--and witnessed the polling numbers changing dramatically in the space of two weeks in 1995--I do not find these Alberta numbers particularly reassuring.

In the 1995 referendum vote, we (Canadian federalists) managed to keep Quebec in the Canadian confederation by just over half a percentage point (50.58%).  How did we do it?  To quote Jacques Parizeau's post-referendum complaint : "l'argent."   This chapter of Canadian history should be called "How Chuck Guite saved Canada and was punished for it."  During the 1995 referendum campaign, Guité, a federal civil servant, bent the rules and funnelled money to a Quebec advertising firm to promote Canadian unity.  His cavalier awarding of contracts in 1995 and beyond led to his eventually being found guilty of fraud and sentenced to three and a half years in prison.  Prosecutors complained of Guité's lack of remorse when he argued that he had been working to save the country in what amounted to "a war."

Despite this cautionary tale of Chuck Guité, the results prove that an active campaign to keep Quebec in Canada mattered.  Tens of thousands (by some counts hundred of thousands) of Canadians paraded in Montreal in support of Quebec remaining in Canada.  Canadians nation-wide were encouraged to contact friends and relatives in Quebec rallying the vote against separation.  And, of course, there was a heartfelt and sometimes quite witty campaign inside Quebec on behalf of Canada.

Alberta separation threatens to be much more acute and challenging.  This time, as the USA eyes the Alberta prize, what Danielle Smith calls her province "the Texas of the north,"  money (legal or otherwise) will flow in from the south in quantities even the Canadian government will likely find hard to match.  Quebec separatists talked a lot about waiting for the right economic conditions for independence.  Unlike Quebec, Alberta isn't looking forward to receiving equalization payments from the federal government.  For Alberta, the economic conditions are already in place.  Keith Spicer, Canada's Commissioner of Official Languages, once quipped that Quebec couldn't separate because there was nowhere for Quebec to go.  Again, not so for Alberta, as the USA will be all too eager to suggest annexation.

It's time to start selling Canada to Albertans.  We might want to start by selling the idea of Canada to ourselves with a bit more enthusiasm and vigour.  There isn't going to be a better time than now.