Bruce Anderson

Well, we all do, because we're all old enough to, when René Lévesque put his question on sovereignty association on the ballot, and a lot of people looked at it and said, well, it's a pretty soft question.

it's hard for people to feel like they're putting themselves at maximum risk if the proposition is that you'll have sovereignty, but you'll have association.

And it was a legitimate criticism of the question to say, well, but how could you be sure that you'll get association once you have sovereignty?

Well, Daniel Smith's questions make René Lévesque's question look like the hardest red line question ever written.

These are soft and squishy questions.

They are designed to give Albertans a chance to say,

Yes, I want Alberta to punch Ottawa in the nose a bunch more different ways.

Well, you know, for a lot of people, there's no negative consequences to saying, I want to give Alberta a little bit more power or I want Albertans to feel as though they've given more leverage to the provincial premier.

But they don't mean anything as far as I'm concerned.

They don't apply any direct pressure on policy questions.

They only apply this kind of inferential pressure for this premier at this moment in time.

And I don't think it's good public policy to run questions on that.

And I'm where Jason Kenney is.

The idea that this referendum should go away is the best idea.

It doesn't mean that people shouldn't have the right to have one and they probably will.

But it's a mess, for sure, to use your word.

Yeah, I think that the degree to which Canadians today would be interested, attentive to intra provincial rivalries is a lot lower than it was 10 years ago, a lot lower than it was 20 years ago.

doesn't mean that there aren't divisions within our society, but they tend to be a little bit more along generational lines.

The preoccupation tends to be a little bit more about broader geopolitics in the US, Canada, and the rest of the world dynamics, rather than the internal grievances between or among provinces.

I think that page has turned somewhat.