Chantal Hebert

And at the same time, it's a pretty messy situation.

So if Mr. Kenney means that the government of Alberta has not been up to the job of defending federalism, he is probably right.

But you cannot supersede the government of a province and say, well, we're going to take over this situation.

I know we will get back to that.

What I found really interesting this week was the prime minister saying F and when there is such a referendum.

It will have to be held within the bounds of the Clarity Act.

That's the act that was passed by the federal government after the Quebec referendum.

There seems to be a misguided perception out there that this is a Quebec-focused law.

It actually applies to all provinces who want to hold referendums on this.

on separation.

And before anybody says, well, this is great, it means the federal government is going to be doing something about this.

I'll just point out, and we will come back to that, that if this is where it's going, it's going to be a very fragile period for the federal government to be leading the argument on the Clarity Act against the backdrop of a Quebec election campaign next fall.

No criminal interference.

That is what the RCMP looks for.

And I'm not doubting that they didn't find it, but the line for discovery for the RCMP is a bit different than the line for discovering manipulation and disinformation.

It's very hard to take anything that happened in the lead up to 95 in Quebec and apply it to what's going on in Alberta at this point.

The 95 referendum was totally driven by a collective sense of grievance after the Meech Lake failure.

and the refusal from a large section of the rest of Canada to recognize what is obvious to most Quebecers, i.e.

that Quebec is different by language, by culture, and that that is a good thing that should be recognized in the Constitution.

So we are somewhere else altogether.