Confused By The Alberta Referendum?

Last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced that the province’s already-scheduled fall referendum would add another question to its slate of issues set for consideration: Do Albertans want to stay a province of Canada, or do they want to start a legal process to advance a provincial referendum on the question?

If the question is hard to wrap your head around, that pales in comparison to thinking about the complex implications of even starting down the road of litigating independence.

Separation is not a “simple binary,” as the framing suggests, says Stewart Prest, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia.  And neither is it a “legally straightforward” process. 

“The question is playing fast and loose with Constitutional laws, suggesting that in the Canadian Constitution there is a clear legal process for leaving the country, which is not the case,” he says.  

The question could be considered by Ottawa, too. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the federal government may review it to see if it is consistent with federal law, which mandates a referendum question is clear enough—i.e. unambiguous—to be put before voters.

Here’s what you need to know about the Alberta referendum.

What would the Alberta referendum achieve?

The October 19 referendum won’t decide whether Alberta wants to leave the country. It will only determine how many Albertans want to initiate a process that could see the secession question posed in a future referendum. In other words, it’s a referendum on a referendum.

And that process is not exactly smooth sailing. The closest we’ve come to litigating the issue of secession relates to the possibility of Quebec sovereignty, and in 1998 the Supreme Court of Canada determined that unilateral secession was not legal. The court determined, however, that if a clear referendum question resulted in a majority vote for independence, then Canada would be obliged to enter into a process of negotiation. Secession would also require an amendment to the Canadian Constitution, which would need agreement among all the provinces.

Alberta’s long road to referendum

The fall referendum question is further complicated by the fact that there have already been two court rulings in the past six months that have shot down two successive Alberta secession referendum petitions on the basis that they’re unconstitutional and that Elections Alberta ignored the duty to consult First Nations when it approved the petitions.  

Prest says the province’s new referendum attempts to navigate constitutional concerns with its wording—by flicking to the need for a “legal process”—but that it fails to address the duty to consult.   

“You can’t go about breaking up the country without first consulting with Indigenous peoples who are a party to the treaty over which the land that is now Canada has been assigned in places like Alberta,” says Prest. 

A new poll sheds light on how Albertans are feeling

A new Angus Reid Poll on the fall referendum suggests the majority of Albertans would vote to stay part of Canada, with 60 percent voting to stay based on the referendum question as it stands now. (That number climbs to 67 percent voting to stay if the question is simplified to “leave or stay?”)

The poll underlines the idea that there’s significant uncertainty about the nature of the question being posed in October. According to the poll, 51 percent say they’re confused by the question being put to them by the government.

That bewilderment is to be expected, says Prest—and for good reason. Aside from constitutional and treaty concerns, the reality of a post-Canada Alberta hasn’t been fully vetted out for Albertans, he says.  

“Let’s just say Alberta got to be independent. Its life would be far more difficult,” he says. “There is, for example, no obligation for an independent Alberta to have access to the sea through British Columbia.” 

In such a position, he says, it’s more likely that Alberta would, by necessity, fall within an “American orbit and does not act in any way as an independent state but more like an energy colony.” 

The fall “referendum on a referendum” may be a question to be debated in Alberta in the coming months, but the reality is that Alberta can’t decide this alone, says Prest. Should the provincial vote see a majority check “yes” to the “legal process” box, it will only trigger more complicated questions in the future.

“It starts a conversation with the rest of the country," Prest says.