Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Are you ready for the Moore-Butts conversation? It's coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with James Moore and Gerald Butts. We're going to talk a little bit about, well, let's see, how we want to frame this. A year ago, we asked the question on a Moore-Butts conversation about What were the lessons from 95 in terms of a referendum?
Is there a danger in waiting too long to get in the action? And in a way, that's one of the things that Jason Kenney, the former Alberta Premier, had to say in the last few days, that the Federalist side better get their act together, because the other side... You can claim it strong or not, but at least they seem to have an act of some sort and they're playing it. But is Ottawa playing it?
Or are the Federalist side playing it? Or are Canadians who are interested in this story and the possibility of a referendum in Alberta, are they interested enough to be talking about it, to get involved? So where are we on this? James, why don't you start for us on this?
I still think we're in the early innings of the match, for lack of a better analogy. We know what the nine questions are. We know what the petitioners aspire to have, but we don't have full clarity on how things are actually going to be. People are declaring victory, but we don't quite yet know. So to put...
To put your full sort of to marshal all of your resources and put them in the field for the battle is frankly a little bit early. Jason Kenney's call to action for more federalist voices to sort of stand up and make the case for Canada, I think, is apropos, though. I do think there's an important caveat, though, that it should be Alberta voices.
Albertans talking to Albertans about Alberta's future and Canada with Alberta is really important. I think a British Columbian in Nova Scotia and an Ontarian or in Quebec are telling Albertans that they need to recognize the virtues of Canada is probably not the way to go. That I really think that it needs to be Alberta voices that come and speak to this.
I also think it's important that people who are not Albertans need to recognize that a lot of this, Bob, it seems strange. A lot of this is, well, first of all, it is democratic. Premier Smith has given people who are antagonists toward the status quo the tools to do all of this.
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Chapter 2: What lessons can we learn from Alberta's past regarding referendums?
They are playing by the rules that have been put in front of them. This is not a rogue element. This is not an effort at a unilateral declaration of independence. This is not... Well, it's not helpful, and I don't like it, and I wish it weren't happening. It is happening within the rules that have been put in front of us.
There is sort of a deference and a respect to the authorities that are currently in place. But also... Tensions within confederation being expressed politically and democratically, there's nothing new about this.
When Stephen Harper was prime minister, Danny Williams, premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, said take down the flags and said that Canada doesn't work, and ABC, anybody but conservatives, and he was pretty robust and aggressive about it. Clyde Wells had his moments as well.
Chapter 3: How does Jason Kenney's call to action impact Albertans' views?
Ralph Klein wanted to tear up the Canada Health Act and tell Ottawa to go jump out of this province and get out of there on the biggest social program that exists in our country. W.A.C. Bennett had his moments with the federal government. Obviously, Quebec has had two referendums and tensions for generations. There's nothing new about this.
The form and style in which it's going to present itself from Alberta, structured as it is, It's going to feel different. It's going to look different. The language will be different. The aggressiveness will be different. The fact that it's coming from the right is maybe a little bit different.
But tensions within Confederation and people who are saying that the status quo doesn't work, there's nothing new about it. It comes, frankly, from the left and British Columbia. It comes from Indigenous voices out here. It comes from the environmental movement out here who says that
you know, the attempt by whether it's the Harper government or others to try to bulldoze through and to, and to push through existing title and, and political opinion is shows a candidate as doesn't work like there. It comes in different forms. When there was generally an informed consensus, elite opinion view that the Meech Lake accord was good.
And then Elijah Harper stood up with an Eagle feather and then Manitoba legislature and stopped at elite. Like it's, Saying no to the way that Canada works is kind of part of Canadian history and democracy. It will be uncomfortable and it is uncomfortable and it is unhelpful and it's not good to the country. But the tensions of confederation do need to be expressed from time to time.
And as much as I don't like it and I wish it wasn't happening, I think people need to recognize it's going to look and feel different because Alberta has a different culture than the rest of the country. And it'll express itself in ways that will feel abnormal and really unhealthy. But Albertans have a right to express themselves.
And they're taking this opportunity as much as I wish it wasn't happening.
Aside from everything else you said, Paul Wills is going to be really excited. You made it into your little opening on this. Jerry, what about you? Do you buy into everything that James just said here?
A lot of what James said, especially the local aspect of it. I think from a practical perspective, the way to defeat to call this what it is. It's a small group of people who want to break up the country and leave it. And history will suggest that the way to defeat those movements is with local forces that articulate very clearly the benefits of
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Chapter 4: Why is it important for Alberta voices to lead the conversation?
I do not think that the forces looking to pull apart the country are entirely within the country.
Well, see, this is why I'm a little bit confused in terms of both your kind of the way you opened up on this question. Because it sounded for a moment there like what you were suggesting was that Jason Kenney was like crying wolf. But you both ended up your comments making it sound like there's a reason to cry wolf right now.
It's partly internal, it's partly external, but it's having an impact or could have an impact.
Yeah, I think sending up a flare into the night sky in the early part of the political battle and say, just so you know, those of you on the horizon, we might need you to join the battle. Like, just so you know, just so you know.
And, you know, and frankly, the energy sector and corporate Canada and some of whom are kind of quietly liking the destructive nature of this because it sort of rattles the undrawn sword, as they say, about sovereignty or sovereignty association. You better do this. You better build a pipeline. Yeah. That sort of footsie with this stuff, you need to, frankly, cut that shit out. This matters.
There are people who are sitting back and grinning like Cheshire Cats, kind of thinking, this is going to be good. This will be helpful to our No, for a whole bunch of reasons. Not only because if you fly too close to the sun, you can actually end up in the sun. Be careful, number one.
Number two is, and I've used this analogy before, and I use it from time to time because I think it's appropriate. You know how you break a paperclip, right? You take it and you bend it, and then you bend it back, and you bend it, and you bend it back, and then eventually it pops and it cracks, and you can't get it back together, right?
What was once a paperclip is now two pieces of metal that will never serve the purpose that it was before. And every time that you have a fracture of trust, a lie, a pipeline that doesn't get built, an environmental process that gets abandoned, sort of a slur against the... Every time you bend that paperclip, you bend it and bend it, and eventually it will crack. And it's gone.
And this is a massive bend. Because when you have a referendum campaign for the next three to six months, people are going to say some things. Ugliness is going to be said. Stuff that can't be unsaid will be said. Ugly things will be said about this country. Stuff online that people take to heart. Stuff will be posted. Memes will get made. To Jerry's point, outside actors, all this sort of stuff.
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Chapter 5: What historical tensions within Canada are relevant to this discussion?
And I do think that the most apt example, which is sort of the democratic event, that small d democratic event that kicked off our era, was the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom. And what you saw there was once the...
Once the hockey game started, the refs left the ice and everybody was swinging their sticks as hard as they could at each other's heads with no regard for whether you could recover for the next game or whether the rules would ever be enforced on you. And I think the lesson that...
malevolent actors toward democracies learn from the Brexit referendum is that once one of these national rending of garments starts, then anything goes. And they're hard to police, they're huge emotions on all sides and anything can happen. And that's what worries me about it. Do I think that there's a majority of Albertans who want to separate from Canada? Absolutely not.
Can I envision a circumstance in which the referendum campaign takes on the eloquently concerned about. Absolutely. And does the yes side to whatever question is any strategy, can that deliver results somewhere in the mid-30s? Yeah, absolutely. And once that happens, that changes the facts of life in Canadian politics.
And the country as a whole is permanently weaker than, at least permanently for the purposes of our lifetimes, weaker because it's a fact on the ground. It's a new fact on the ground that has to be accommodated in just about every provinces, Alberta and all of the provinces in Alberta and the federal government. So I worry about it a lot.
I think that I appreciate Premier Kenny doing, former Premier Kenny doing what he's doing. I would also say, and James probably doesn't want to say this, though I suspect he would agree with it, there are a lot of people on the yes side who'd be cheering on Jason Kenny's involvement in this referendum campaign because he is, at least in their view, part of the problem.
It's not quite as if Justin Trudeau were leading the no side. But, you know, it's probably a quarter turn there. And their style of politics is to demonize people, make them like their public enemy number one and then ride the negativity of that brand to build excitement for their own cause. And Jason, unfortunately, is an avatar of that on the ground in Alberta.
So I really hope that people who are a little bit farther removed from daily politics who command respect in all walks of life,
former politicians I named former Prime Minister Harper because he's he still enjoys such great standing amongst a broad swath of Albertans and I suspect he'd be one of the few Canadians who could be persuasive to the Albertans who are on the fence about this and and every vote matters if in the low 20s, then that's one fact on the ground.
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Chapter 6: How do external influences affect Alberta's political landscape?
They're going pretty good, I've got to admit. But that'll do it for today. We'll talk again tomorrow right here on The Bridge.