James Moore

Stephen Harper, knowing that this is a losing issue with the broad swath of the Canadian public, said, well, we need to address this issue because we said we would.

So what are we going to do?

Well, we eventually arrived at the position that if I become prime minister, we will ask Canadians whether or not they want to revisit the issue.

That was what was proposed.

And so we put a free vote to Parliament not to open the issue of same-sex marriage, but to ask Parliament if we want to ask Canadians if we want to reopen the issue.

And Parliament, in a minority Parliament, it's very convenient, minority Parliament, all the opposition parties stood up and said, no, we don't want to do that.

A lot of Conservatives, I was among them, who said, we don't want to do that.

A lot of Conservatives who were against gay marriage said, this issue is now closed and it's time to move on.

Said, like Michael Chong,

who voted against same-sex marriage, but by 2006 and 2007 said, this issue is closed and it's time to move on.

So we moved on.

So to me, it seems the formula that Daniel Smith has arrived at is actually borrowed from Stephen Harper on same-sex marriage, which is, let's ask if we should ask.

And it worked for Stephen Harper.

He was able to get out of it.

Daniel Smith will probably get out of it as well.

Well, the question will go forward.

Do you want to have a referendum?

And I think as a result of all this and the dust storm that's been sort of blown up, people will say, you know what, this is not worth it.

And there's no actual path to separation that is going to be better for Alberta.

This doesn't make a lot of sense.