He didn’t mince his words.
“I think it confirmed what all of us suspected,” says Jason Nixon, budget boss in the UCP government led by Premier Danielle Smith, of the explosive report on the costs of Alberta leaving Canada.
It is an independent probe commissioned by the Smith government through Nixon’s office.
Nixon considers the look-see to be the most credible thing he has seen “on a topic that has not been well-researched.”
“We needed experts to go and deal with the eye-glazing numbers academics can spend a lot of time on doing math.”
Eye-glazing. The final numbers in the report, the math coughed up by the calculators, are eye-popping .
Possibilities. An Alberta debt of $442 billion.
In the long term, if Alberta’s exit from Canada is difficult, annual wages for workers could be almost $12,000 below what they would have earned if Alberta had not separated.
Fewer jobs, lower incomes and a larger deficit.
“There is significant risk to Alberta leaving Confederation,” says Nixon.
“If everything goes perfect there could also be small benefits to the province, particularly to the provincial government.
“I will leave it to you and your readers to determine the likelihood of everything going perfect with something like this.
“What is really clear is the risk to everyday Albertans, people who need to pay their mortgages, people trying to put their kids through college, people who just live their lives in Alberta. It is significant.”
Related
Nixon points many times to what he sees as the considerable risks of separation.
He calls the potential risk significant, huge, tremendous.
The UCP budget boss says the report does not let the rest of Canada off the hook. Far from it.
Nixon says the risk to Canada if Alberta leaves the country is also big.
The Canadian economy would shrink in a big way.
“Canadians should take this province seriously because we are the economic powerhouse of the country. Albertans have disproportionately taken care of the country while not always receiving the credit for it.”
The man wants to make it clear he and the Smith government do not think everything is hearts and flowers with Ottawa but he stresses separation will cause pain for Albertans.
“Nobody in the Alberta government is saying there is not a problem with Confederation and our relationship with the federal government.”
Nixon says the premier is working to try to fix what’s wrong and to leave the country is not the solution. Far from it.
“To totally leave on a separation path will hurt Albertans. The path of separation will put tremendous risk on Albertans. We need to remain in Canada and fight to get a better deal for Albertans.
“We should be fighting to make sure Alberta remains in Canada but is treated with the respect it is due.”
The budget boss expects some backlash from supporters of Alberta independence.
“To those people I say: Take the time. Read the report.”
He calls on all Canadians to read the report. Nixon says he will share the report with the federal government’s budget boss.
As for separatist backlash …
“Any of that backlash in my view will be coming from people who don’t have credible numbers.”
Nixon is fine with a debate over numbers but “we need to do it with numbers and facts, not with emotions.”
He speaks of how leaving Canada is very complicated and people should pause and really reflect over the issue.
“It is easy just to say you want to do something without stopping and actually looking at all the aspects of it. Think back on what the premier has been trying to say. With separation there are such huge risks for Albertans,” says Nixon.
“This is complicated. Just dealing with the debt alone, I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced anything as complicated in my time in government.”
The Alberta debt skyrockets.
Nixon adds this debate over Alberta staying in Canada or leaving is about the impact it has on Albertans and their lives, and yes, their pocketbooks.
He mentions the current prime minister, the former prime minister and the Alberta premier.
“This isn’t about whether Mark Carney or Justin Trudeau or Danielle Smith is right. It’s not about political talking points.”
He says it’s about moms and dads, it’s about folks like his own grandmother in Calgary who saved for her retirement, it’s about all those who will face the consequences of Alberta exiting from Canada.
“This is about all of us who own homes, who are going to see property values potentially drop in the short term. Yes, maybe in 20 years we may gain something from it, but that’s a big maybe.
“We have to start thinking about Albertans. This is bigger than governments and political parties.”
]]>Would an independent Alberta see corporate head offices leave Wild Rose Country?
It’s one of many provocative issues that a new report commissioned by the provincial government delves into — conducted by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy — as part of a broad examination of the economic and fiscal implications surrounding Alberta separation.
The report, released Wednesday, looks into an array of economic aspects of the debate in the run-up to the Oct. 19 referendum, but the discussion about head offices is particularly relevant for the city and the province.
After all, Calgary and Edmonton were home to 423 company headquarters, which provided jobs to more than 40,000 Albertans in 2024, including more than 29,000 in the Stampede City.
Calgary is home base to the second most corporate headquarters in Canada, trailing only Toronto. Large oilpatch firms such as Suncor Energy, Enbridge, TC Energy, Canadian Natural Resources and Cenovus Energy, along with transportation companies such as Canadian Pacific Kansas City and WestJet, are among the biggest employers.
“The prospect of separation might mean some firms move their head offices out of Alberta. This occurred in Quebec in the run-up to the 1980 referendum and was seen again during Catalonia’s attempt to leave Spain in 2017,” states one of the report’s technical papers.
“There is also the possibility a separate Alberta might see more head offices, depending on the policy choices it makes. Lower and simplified corporate taxes, reduced regulation and lower personal taxes might all contribute to greater attraction and retention of head offices.”
Related
Much will depend on if the non-binding referendum question on separation — to hold a future binding vote — would lead to a ”smooth” transition and negotiations with the rest of Canada, or a more difficult one, according to the analysis.
The report examined two scenarios, with the smoother outlook based on the assumption Canada and other trading partners would adopt an accommodating stance and the breakup would move expeditiously.
The difficult scenario assumes the breakup process is long and “international investors are wary of the new country.”
“I think we would lose some head offices. I don’t know how many,” U of C economist Kent Fellows, a co-author of the report, said in an interview Thursday.
Fellows noted some companies relocated their corporate headquarters out of Quebec during and after the referendum debates of the late 1970s and mid-‘90s, because of the perceived risks tied to separation.
As the report pointed out, businesses with offices in Alberta are less likely to move because they would want to remain close to their assets and properties. Yet, for companies with most of their assets outside the province — such as railways or pipelines — “the question of staying or going is more complicated.”
“For pipelines, companies may wish to remain close to sources of supply of oil and gas,” the technical report states.
“However, it may become harder to recruit qualified labour if migration between Alberta and the (rest of Canada) becomes more difficult, and for those companies that have significant U.S. operations, they may look seriously at relocating south.”
Some companies may also want to remain close to the regulator, Fellows added.
The Canada Energy Regulator is based in the city.
“Head offices like to locate (to) where things are stable and where they have a lot of potential connections . . . They want easy ties to the firms that they work with, which is why they often co-locate,” Fellows said.
“But if we separate, then it’s potentially harder to move people in and out of the head office because now you’ve got to go across an international border.”
In June, a Calgary Chamber of Commerce survey of its members found 48 per cent of respondents said they’re very or somewhat likely to leave Alberta and relocate their business if the vote to start a binding separation process passes.
Chamber CEO Deborah Yedlin pointed out that smaller countries with many corporate head offices, such as Norway and Switzerland, have existing treaties and trade deals in place with other countries, something an independent Alberta would initially lack.
“Why would you confine yourself to such a small market without any assurances of trading arrangements with the rest of Canada and other markets outside Canada,” she said Thursday.
However, Alberta lawyer Keith Wilson, who is the co-leader of registered third-party advertiser Let Alberta Decide, said the report is overly pessimistic on the economic front.
He noted the province has low corporate taxes, more affordable housing than many Canadian cities and offers other benefits for businesses to stay in Alberta.
“The resources are here. The feedstock is here, the massive infrastructure many companies have spent, billions of dollars in building, is here,” said Wilson, who also co-leads the Alberta Transition Council.
“I don’t see any economic justification, any economic advantage that a head office would get from leaving.”
Business Council of Alberta president Adam Legge noted some of the Quebec companies that left the province weren’t tied to the province in a physical way — unlike energy firms that are close to natural resources.
“For those that wouldn’t be tied to a specific asset or resource base, they could very well look elsewhere, knowing that the areas of uncertainty — higher borrowing costs, difficulty with labour attraction or retention, trade agreements — it just might not be worth it,” Legge said.
“I think it’s a guarantee that some head offices would leave.”
Chris Varcoe is a Calgary Herald columnist.
FP West: Energy Insider brings you behind the closed doors of the oilpatch, with exclusive insights from insiders every Wednesday morning. Sign up now.
]]>Two senior officials at Elections Alberta were fired because they didn’t like what was happening to Corb Lund’s anti-coal petition.
Three more employees then quit for the same reason.
Lund released an explosive letter the ex-employees sent to the legislative offices committee, a UCP-dominated body that oversees Elections Alberta.
This is now a scandal that casts doubt on the integrity of the Oct. 19 vote on 10 referendum questions, including a crucial two-parter on separatism.
The officials said the rules on verifying signatures for Lund’s petition changed at the last minute.
Their letter reported: “On the day the Water Not Coal petition arrived, we were told the templates that we had been using for previous recalls and petitions were no longer going to be used.”
Chaos ensued. “Over the next couple of weeks, the process went from bad to worse.”
Changes “included the criteria used for determining whether individual signature lines were valid.”
Lund has complained for months that Elections Alberta phone calls to check signatures were deeply flawed.
Pollster Marc Henry, for one, has said the number of calls — 384 — was ridiculously inadequate for judging a huge volume of signatures.
Related
Lund says that every time somebody refused to answer a question, often fearing the call was bogus, the Water Not Coal petition was docked 550 signatures.
Elections Alberta determined that Water Not Coal needed 177,732 signatures to succeed.
Initially, the number of “valid” signatures totalled 196,088. Good news for the anti-coal people.
But the final count of “verified” signatures dropped to 172,028 after application of a “random statistical sampling method.”
Twenty-four thousand signatures were declared improper — on the strength of 384 phone calls.
That is absurd. Lund and his crew were scrupulous about following the rules.
The government did not like the anti-coal drive one bit. On the UCP side, it was unexpected and unwelcome.
Lund’s group gathered signatures on the statement: “The Government of Alberta shall prohibit through legislation all coal exploration and mining activities within the Eastern Slopes of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, other than mines that are in actual production as of Jan. 1, 2026.”
It was a popular cause that died on a dubious technicality.
Elections Alberta says the rule changes for signatures responded to new legislative requirements. They insist that the verification process was applied “consistently.”
In other words: Nothing to see here folks.
That is hard to swallow. The larger meaning is even more ominous.
One conclusion is that only separatists need apply for a referendum question in this province.
The UCP tied itself in knots to get separatism on the Oct. 19 ballot.
The courts rejected the first question. Premier Danielle Smith changed the legislation to make it easier for the separatists.
When the question still couldn’t clear the legal hurdles, Smith blamed the courts and wrote her own.
The system made it as easy as possible for the separatists, but nearly impossible for a citizen with a cause the government didn’t like.
All this was done under the Citizen Initiative Act, which was passed for the express purpose of allowing regular people to propose legislative or policy changes.
There isn’t a single citizen-driven question on the Oct. 19 ballot.
The government wrote nine questions on immigration and constitutional matters.
The dual separatism question was also concocted by the government, not Alberta petitioners.
The government has a right to pose a question, but none whatever to claim this is “direct democracy.”
The result is a vast UCP opinion poll that will cost taxpayers up to $130 million.
Country crooner Lund now asks the government to impose a moratorium on all coal development pending a judicial review of how his petition was handled .
The pause won’t happen, but Lund will have a strong case in court.
Meanwhile, the agency that can’t count straight will soon be swamped with millions of referendum votes.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald
X: @DonBraid
]]>NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi called his party’s victory in Calgary-Shaw an “earthquake.”
He was hyper-excited by the unexpected win.
Earthquake or not, the NDP sure sent a tremor through Premier Danielle Smith’s caucus.
This loss could signal deep discontent with her handling of separatism and the Oct. 19 referendum.
The race was a squeaker until the end, when the advance vote count suddenly vaulted New Democrat Kyle Campbell over UCP candidate Mike Derry .
Campbell campaigned on health care, education and affordability. Derry didn’t ignore those issues but carried a whiff of separatist support.
Ex-premier Jason Kenney, who won huge majorities both federally and provincially in that area of south Calgary, says conservatives there “hate the divisiveness of the referendum.”
By Tuesday morning, a few conservatives were blaming immigrants for the loss. That’s the side of UCP support that could get them clobbered in Calgary in next year’s general election.
The big question about the upset is whether it’s part of a trend or just mid-term government bashing.
There is evidence of deep-seated Calgary discontent with the UCP.
Related
Marc Henry’s ThinkHQ poll for private clients in July showed a 10-point lead for the NDP over the UCP — 52 per cent to 42 per cent.
Henry notes that the UCP was also well behind before the last election but managed to pull up their socks.
However, that 2023 election was no Calgary cakewalk for Smith and the UCP. They did just well enough in the city to win a workable legislature majority.
The count in the city’s 26 ridings after the Shaw upset is 15 NDP seats and 11 for the UCP.
The NDP strength is little known to many Calgarians because the UCP makes so much noise. Also, NDP media coverage has been swamped recently by criticism of Nenshi’s leadership.
He was ecstatic Tuesday night. The New Democrats thought they’d barely lost and were about to wrap up the evening when the final count landed.
But there’s a fascinating twist — the NDP probably wouldn’t have won without a boost from Peter Guthrie’s new Progressive Tory Party.
Toiling largely out of public notice, barred by UCP legal action from calling itself Progressive Conservative, the party won 978 votes.
If that support flipped from disaffected UCP supporters, we might indeed be seeing the first rumble of an earthquake.
In the 2023 election, seven Calgary ridings were won by fewer than 1,000 votes. Four of those went to the UCP, three to the NDP. Strip the UCP of 1,000 votes in all those ridings and the result is obvious: an NDP victory.
Smith and her crew have been coddling the separatists , desperately hoping to hold the party together. Their unity obsession could chase moderate conservatives to a centrist alternative.
For many veteran conservatives, abandoning the UCP doesn’t mean ditching the brand. They don’t like where the UCP is going but dread an NDP victory.
Kenney said: “This isn’t a pro-Nenshi vote FFS!”
In my view, the UCP should be very nervous about Guthrie and the Tory party gaining from this split.
He was the infrastructure minister who quit the portfolio last year, alleging the government chose to ignore corruption in awarding contracts.
He also blasted the UCP for its handling of private surgery clinics. This is a slumbering issue that could yet explode on Smith and her cabinet.
Guthrie’s exit became a big scandal. He was kicked out of caucus, sat as an Independent, then formed the new party.
He’s a solid conservative who gave up a minister’s pay to fight for integrity in government.
The exodus that so terrifies the UCP may finally be happening; just not from the exit they’re guarding.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald
X: @DonBraid
]]>Premier Danielle Smith’s separation referendum is important, no doubt of that. But is it legitimate?
The premier and her UCP didn’t mention such a referendum in the 2023 election.
Not a hint. Never a whiff.
The theme then was sovereignty within a united Canada, a term with its own heavy load of ambiguity.
But no separatism.
In my view, the UCP has no democratic authority to propose a vote on separation.
Yet, we face exactly that. Albertans will vote Oct. 19 on whether they want to stay in Canada or advance to a full referendum on separating.
The UCP argues that referendums are enabled by their direct democracy law.
That law now produces a vote that the vast majority of Albertans never wanted or expected.
Ironically, petitioning citizens did not produce the questions that will be on the ballot.
The separatist question fell afoul of the courts. The government had to replace it with one of its own.
Related
This citizen democracy came straight out of Smith’s cabinet.
But the original sin goes back to that 2023 UCP campaign.
Quebec’s two referendums — in 1980 and 1995 — are often cited as proof that provinces have the right to hold votes on leaving Canada.
In both cases, the Parti Quebecois campaigned and won power on pledges to hold referendums.
Rene Levesque’s victory in 1976 shocked the nation. It took him four years to get to an actual separation vote, which his side lost handily, by 59 per cent to 40 per cent.
Jacques Parizeau made the same pledge when his version of the PQ was elected in 1994. The next year, the anti-separation vote was only 50.58 per cent, a squeaker for federalism.
Today, PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon promises a referendum if he wins the provincial election Oct. 5.
A PQ victory, he vows, guarantees a third try for separatism.
He recently said no referendum would be held as long as Donald Trump is U.S. president. The vote would come sometime after Jan. 20, 2029, Trump’s exit date.
Quebec separatists have always been straight with voters. They earned their chances to hold referendums on separation.
We cannot say the same for Smith and the UCP. They blindsided the province.
The motive is purely political. The premier’s referendum, and the tolerance for separatists in her midst, are designed to keep the party from fracturing and handing the next election to the NDP.
“If there isn’t an outlet, it creates a new party,” she said last year.
There’s your motive for the referendum that only a clutch of hardline separatists wanted back in 2023.
On another level, the whole referendum drive is bogus.
The orders-in-council that enabled the separatism vote, as well as the questions on immigration and constitutional issues, make it clear that no matter how people vote, the results are not binding on the government.
This means that the UCP could ignore a vote against separation and hold one anyway.
Or, if the separatist option wins the initial vote, the UCP could stall right into the 2027 campaign.
They can do anything, or nothing at all.
The decision, like all those made so far, would depend entirely on the state of separatism in Smith’s own party.
Similarly, all the questions on immigration and dealing with Ottawa are not binding.
The bottom line is that this whole exercise is a vast public opinion poll costing about $130 million.
They could have hired a good pollster for a tiny fraction of that, and spent the rest on schools and hospitals.
We’re stuck with the separation vote now.
Federalists shouldn’t be fooled. Staying at home because it’s so ridiculous would be a dangerous mistake.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald
X: @DonBraid
]]>The mad complexity of this Oct. 19 referendum is becoming obvious. With it comes a worry for the federalist side.
What if the voting is so badly botched, so confusing to so many voters, so shambolic, that the separatists claim a federalist win is not legitimate?
“That’s a genuine possibility,” former premier Rachel Notley says in an interview.
Badly compromised voting would lead to more chaos, probably a court challenge and further months of uncertainty.
It might even end with a second-chance, single-question referendum, asking again if people want to proceed to a full constitutional vote on separation.
“Elections Alberta has asked for resources that have been turned down by the UCP majority of the legislative office committee,” says Notley.
“We’ve already seen them (Elections Alberta) being unable to properly police the disclosure of their election list to the separatists.”
In that mammoth scandal, the election data of 2.9 million voters was leaked to a separatist group and then posted online.
The shadow of this fiasco, still being investigated, looms over the Oct. 19 voting. Bad actors who scrape data could potentially obtain special mail-in ballots.
Notley has lately plunged into the debate, most recently with an opinion peace scorching the non-referendum questions as bigoted and un-Albertan.
With mistakes already coming to light, she wonders how Elections Alberta can pull off what seems to be the largest vote ever held in Canada.
One blunder with early special ballots is truly bizarre. It says people who lie about this being the only way they can vote could face a huge fine and even jail time.
“That’s been sent to nearly 300,000 people,” Notley says. “And then Elections Alberta fixed it by putting out a tweet saying, ‘Oh, cross that out.’ ”
If the whole project collapses in a blizzard of ballots, the blame won’t belong to Elections Alberta, but to the UCP government that burdened it with an overwhelming task.
Elections Alberta is trying to recruit nearly 60,000 workers . The agency says this may be “one of the largest referendum recruitment efforts ever undertaken in Canada.”
Currently, they say there are 37,000 applications and a serious shortage in some rural areas.
It’s hard to overstate the weight and challenge of this job, described as follows on the EA website: “With 10 ballot questions, Elections Alberta will print 45 million ballots, far exceeding the 1.8 million ballots cast in Alberta’s 2023 provincial general election and the 19.8 million ballots cast in Canada’s 2025 federal general election.”
Let that sink in — this task is more than twice as big as a national election. In one province.
On Oct. 19, we’ll come to the vote-counting problem.
All the votes for 10 separate questions must be tallied by hand. No evil vote-counting machines for the UCP.
In a regular election, you just pick one of a list of candidates. Very simple.
In this, case people are presented with 10 questions on 10 separate sheets, some with explanatory statements.
How all those can be counted in the current geological era is a real question.
We are promised, however, that the results will be announced within 48 hours, with the separatism tally coming the morning of Oct. 20.
Lorne Gibson, the former chief electoral officer who was fired by the UCP for investigating a leadership scandal with unacceptable rigour, estimates the whole referendum cost at $130 million, more than three times the price of the most recent provincial general election.
Nearly 300,000 special ballots have been requested, far more than in any general election.
This indicates mammoth interest — and maybe the valid fear that voting in person would include aging in place.
Somehow, Elections Alberta must pull this off. System collapse could hand the separatists reprieve from failure.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald
X: @DonBraid
Bookmark this website and support our journalism: Subscribe now so you don’t miss the Calgary news you need to know and sign up for our free newsletters.
]]>I can’t remember if I’ve ever been more proud to be a Canadian than when I heard former prime minister Jean Chrétien give his speech at the 9/11 memorial in Gander. He was the only speaker to allude to the trade war.
“We bow to no one” and “Don’t mistake our kindness for weakness” are the perfect messages to all Canadians at this time, and to all Americans, as well.
Perhaps it will remind Americans of the time during their Revolutionary War when they waved a flag that read, “Don’t tread on me.”
Maybe now they will ask themselves how they would behave if they had been threatened and insulted the way U.S. President Donald Trump has done to Canada.
Peter Mannistu, Calgary
Alberta wouldn’t fare any better than Ottawa
Before Albertans vote to leave Canada in the name of sovereignty, they should read the demands that killed Ottawa’s trade deal with Washington.
The United States sought leverage over critical minerals, energy, foreign investment, procurement, agriculture, defence spending and Canada’s freedom to trade with other countries.
Canada walked away because some deals cost more than tariffs. They cost sovereignty.
Now picture Alberta alone — a landlocked country of five million, dependent on pipelines crossing other jurisdictions and on the U.S. buying its oil, beef and grain. Alberta would enter those negotiations with far less leverage than Canada has today. Washington would not become less demanding because we raised a new flag.
Separatists promise control. But owning the resource is not the same as controlling the route to market.
Before voting to leave Canada, Albertans should ask: if these terms were unacceptable to a G7 country, why would an independent Alberta be offered anything better?
Jason Cook, Edmonton
Wednesday letters:
Prevent tree problems before they start
Re: Council committee ponders $54-million capital budget request to bolster public tree removal, replacement, Sept. 10
Here’s an idea: why not spend that money looking after city trees while they are still alive? I used to live in Calgary and still drive in at least three times a week. It makes one sad to see so many trees dead or dying.
Trees are a luxury on the Prairies. Could they not be saved by a care program?
As Ogden Nash wrote, “I think that I shall never see a billboard lovely as a tree. Indeed, unless the billboards fall, I’ll never see a tree at all.”
Nancy Marley-Clarke, Cochrane
Open up provincial trade
The International Monetary Fund has concluded that Canada’s Gross Domestic Product would increase by $210 billion over the long term if all provincial trade barriers were removed. And while we find ourselves moaning about trade issues with our former ally to the south, we still cannot trade freely within our own country.
So, until we can reach a better deal with the U.S., something that may realistically have to wait until Trump’s term in office has concluded, why are Prime Minister Mark Carney and the premiers not focusing on our domestic trade barriers?
All Canadians are going to be affected by a prolonged trade war with the U.S. But surely we can soften the blow by getting our own economic house in order.
Bob Grundie, Calgary
PM needs to show how to buy local
At this week’s Canada Investment Summit, Prime Minister Mark Carney should demonstrate to potential investors his government’s commitment to his nation-building projects. One way to do this is to commit to buying all steel and aluminum from Ontario and Quebec, which would otherwise go to the U.S.
If he is true to his word, Canada will need all of that production and more in the next few years.
Such an action would send a strong message to investors of our commitment. It would create enormous stability for our producers of steel and aluminum, and eliminate concerns of selling to the U.S.
John Abbott, Calgary
Tuesday letters:
Tax on solar panels should be higher
I’m not sure what to think about Alberta’s new solar panel tax. It’s somewhat well-intentioned, but it’s largely useless or a fraction of what it should be.
There isn’t a solar panel out there that is easy to recycle. The processing cost outweighs the recycling value.
Does that mean the provincial government will collect the $14 per panel and the dead panels will end up in the landfill anyway?
Doug Winkler, Langdon
Separatism threatens pensions
I have a simple question regarding the upcoming referendum. I am a resident of Vancouver Island but spent 40 years as a member of the Calgary Police Service and Government of Alberta. Since most of my income comes from an Alberta-based pension system, why am I not being asked for my opinion on potential separation and the possible disruption to my income?
As I understand it, my pension is based on long-term investments. I also understand that successful and positive investment growth is generally predicated on stable political and economic environments. How would Alberta’s departure from Canada be seen as anything but a financial and political risk for these investments?
Given the huge potential for instability and harm to my income, why am I and thousands of other Albertans living outside the province not being consulted on this matter?
Len Dafoe, Nanoose Bay
Immigrants bring value to Alberta
Alberta’s referendum questions on immigration raise a number of concerns. Many employees in seniors facilities are immigrants, mainly because Alberta youth are not interested in such low-paying jobs. If not for these aides, cleaners and health-care workers, these facilities could not function.
Where is our sense of decency? Have we become so self-centred that we will now deny education and health services to the children of those immigrants working for minimum wage to take care of our valued seniors?
Let’s not disturb the equilibrium here and further exacerbate our overburdened health-care services with seniors who would lose their care home workers.
Clarence Formanek, Calgary
Monday letters:
Why can’t the cheque be in the mail?
One of life’s little mysteries is the Alberta government’s use of Canada Post. It can apparently afford the postage for hundreds of thousands of referendum voting “packages,” but it can’t afford one stamp to send me my $100 energy rebate by cheque in the mail?
Another mystery is how Premier Danielle Smith manages to preach computer-scam prevention, yet tell seniors to give their banking information to total strangers who will “help” them use the government “portal” — and there’s no other way to apply for the rebate.
I’m a senior, and I won’t get scammed because I don’t bank online, I don’t pay bills online, I don’t do e-transfers and I don’t give my banking information to anybody (not even government officials). But my sensible caution means that I also won’t be getting my $100 rebate because I can’t even apply for it.
What’s wrong with this picture in a province that just announced a big unexpected surplus?
Marilynn Stratton, Calgary
Anxiety high amid trade dispute
The roar of a low-flying jet on Labour Day Monday gave me a brief pause to wonder if we were being nuked over the latest tariff on something as trivial as toilet paper, but mercifully it was only a flyover of McMahon Stadium and the city.
Dennis J Gordica, Calgary
John A. Macdonald’s legacy lives on
Who is the greatest Canadian of all time? John Alexander Macdonald (1815-1891), in my opinion.
Without him, B.C. would be controlled by an American congress. Prime minister of Canada for 19 years, his government secured B.C. into the Dominion by pioneering a wagon trail from Vancouver to Cranbrook (Dewdney Trail), by ensuring the Barkerville gold rush of 1855 was governed by Canadians and by building the Cariboo Trail to Barkerville.
Most importantly, he oversaw the design and construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway to Vancouver by 1883. It was the most difficult project in our history.
Without his vision, we would be governed by southern interests, and access to the Asian continent would be blocked.
G. E. Milne, Calgary
]]>Mark Twain underestimated history. It doesn’t just rhyme, it can also repeat.
And that’s bad news for Premier Danielle Smith and her UCP government.
While much of the chattering classes put Monday night’s byelection result in Calgary-Shaw — where the Conservative seat was nabbed by the NDP — down to voters’ annoyance with the government’s handling of the upcoming separatism referendum, they ignored a more salient point.
And it’s one that should send shivers through Smith.
Yes, the NDP candidate won by 582 votes. That’s a handy enough margin, though given it’s a byelection in the fourth year of the government’s mandate, it wasn’t a real shocker. Such is politics.
The true bombshell was the performance of the Tory candidate, who picked up 978 votes.
Tory, you say? But wasn’t that the UCP fellow? (Most people have better things to do than fixate on the endless shenanigans of provincial politics.)
No, the Progressive Tory Party of Alberta is a newcomer. It’s led by former UCP MLA Peter Guthrie, who, after quitting the government, launched this new outfit from the remnants of the Alberta Party.
Why should Smith be worried? Well, any party coming third the first time out by grabbing almost a thousand votes should send shock waves through the UCP hierarchy.
Remember, the only time the NDP formed a government in Alberta was when Rachel Notley’s lot took advantage of the split involving the PCs and the Wild Rose Party back in 2015. The NDP sailed merrily up the middle and surprised everyone, including themselves, by forming government.
It wasn’t the first time the Conservative movement ripped itself apart. The rise of the Reform party, more than 35 years ago, did something similar on the federal stage by decimating the PC ranks and allowing Jean Chretien’s Liberals a free hand to rule Canada for more than a decade.
On Monday, we got a foretaste of what could easily become another Conservative disaster, with two right-of-centre parties splitting the vote once more.
It’s possible the NDP candidate would have still won. Many who voted Tory might have stayed home, or even voted for the NDP. But surely a bigger number would have ticked that UCP name on the ballot — two-thirds of them would have been enough.
And if this new party can grab that many votes the first time out, how will it do come October 2027, when the next provincial election arrives? Splitting the vote could see Naheed Nenshi become the 20th premier of Alberta, despite the missteps our former mayor has made since becoming NDP leader.
What can Smith do? Well, it’s highly unlikely Guthrie will accept some olive branch, even if offered one. So, it’s all about Calgary.
Bluntly, the premier needs to stop lecturing our city and instead shower it with love and money.
Related
True, many of us get steamed about bike lanes, broken water pipes and the many in-camera meetings at city hall. But a fair number also figure that’s Calgary’s business, not the province’s.
The UCP wouldn’t welcome Ottawa poking its big nose into Alberta affairs. So, it should resist the temptation to do so in Calgary.
Next, bribe us with big bucks. OK, that’s crass, but we’re talking politics and, given where the oil price stands, Alberta could sit on a $10-billion surplus in six months. Use some to fix issues affecting Calgarians. (Or you could leave it for Nenshi to spend.)
The rural areas aren’t voting NDP, while Edmonton remains orange. Smith’s tribe needs at least a dozen Calgary seats, and with a new Tory party muddying the waters, that’s no slam dunk.
Back off and pay up. Or say hello to Premier Nenshi.
Chris Nelson is a weekly columnist.
]]>As someone who has practised and studied intergovernmental relations in Canada for more than two decades, I find the Alberta separatists’ latest ad campaign mystifying.
“You don’t necessarily have to want to leave Canada,” they tell us. “You can vote for Option 2 (to hold a second referendum) simply to give Alberta more leverage in its dealings with Ottawa. ”The message has some merit, in theory.
The knife-to-the-throat approach can be effective as a last resort. But it depends on a credible threat, which is undermined by the separatists’ own messaging. A gambit as big as separation only creates leverage if the other side believes you are prepared and able to follow through. The moment you tell the rest of Canada that support for Option 2 isn’t a true metric for independence support, you have killed the credibility of the threat.
You don’t have to be a master negotiator to sense the folly. Anyone who’s played cards knows that a bluff only works because the other players think you’ve got the goods. You don’t push all your chips into the middle of the table while whispering, “Don’t worry, I’ve got nothing.”
Yet, that’s the latest move from a separatist movement struggling to find support in the final weeks of the campaign. We’ve seen this move fail before.
Former premier Jason Kenney made the same argument when convening Alberta’s 2021 equalization referendum. He admitted the vote would never really lead to constitutional change, but that it was only intended to generate “leverage” with Ottawa — bargaining power he could use to force the rest of the country to make other changes to the federation.
The problem? Everyone knew the strategy. Ottawa heard Kenney confirm it as an empty threat, and so did other provincial governments.
If turnout is any indication, Albertans saw through it, too.
If anything, the episode set back Alberta’s credibility on the intergovernmental stage. That experience should have been a warning, particularly for a group whose reason for existence seems to do the opposite of what Kenney does.
At the same time, Alberta separatists often cite Quebec as a role model, pointing to the province’s success in extracting concessions from Ottawa and the rest of Canada. The thing is, most of Quebec’s gains have come through conventional, consensus-building intergovernmental relations after the threats of secession had subsided and the provincial government put down the knife.
Consider former Quebec premier Robert Bourassa’s famous five demands, which formed the basis of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords — recognition as a distinct society, an effective veto over constitutional amendments, limits on federal spending power, increased input into federal appointments and more provincial control over immigration.
The constitutional packages ultimately failed, but much of what Bourassa sought was subsequently achieved in practice without reopening the Constitution. Quebec made many of these durable gains only by turning demands into workable agreements, cultivating relationships across Canada, putting MPs in the government caucus and building support that crossed regional and party lines.
You never once saw a serious Quebec separatist begging for federalists to lend them their votes for “leverage” against Ottawa to accomplish their agenda.
There are plenty of things Alberta should be pushing for to improve the federation. I’ve written about many of them, and mine is by no means an exhaustive list. We should be asserting a stronger voice in national decision-making. We should be building alliances with provinces that share our concerns.
Separatists will tell us that we’ve tried this collaborative approach before. True. And it has yielded gains for Alberta. More than once. And we can do it again.
In the meantime, we should stop pretending that threatening to leave — while publicly explaining that we don’t really mean it — is a productive negotiating strategy.
We should lead, not leave.
Jared Wesley is a political science professor at the University of Alberta and is a member of the Lead Not Leave initiative.
The report hits the streets and explodes.
It’s the look-see the Alberta government asked the University of Calgary to do.
The good, the bad and the ugly of Alberta leaving Canada and the number crunchers are not picking sides.
It is not for the faint of heart. The mathematics of an independent Alberta is eye-opening.
The deep thinkers roll out two scenarios.
One is Alberta’s smooth exit from Canada.
The other is a very difficult good-bye.
They look at what could happen in the short run and the long run if Alberta goes it alone.
In the smooth exit everything goes … well … smoothly with the rest of Canada and others.
In the short term, less than five years after separation, the GDP, the overall economy, would be about 2.2 per cent lower than it would have been otherwise.
Over the long term, in 20 years or so, the GDP would actually be 3.4 per cent higher than it would have otherwise been.
Wages? They knew you would ask.
In the short term, workers could see a dip in their earnings of more than $1,200 a year on average.
In the long term, take-home pay could rise by more than $1,800 a year.
Alberta’s debt would go up in a big way to a whopping $324 billion, an increase of $209 billion, as Alberta takes its share of Canada’s debt.
In the long run of the smooth exit “Alberta can pursue its own policies to build a stronger economy that could lead to more jobs, tax revenues and incomes.”
“There is certainly a scenario where Alberta’s economy could be better after separation, once a transition period is over.”
Even in favourable circumstances the transition to Alberta independence might take several years or longer.
Now the bad news.
In the case of a difficult break from Canada, Alberta is “significantly worse off with fewer jobs, lower income and a larger deficit.”
“There is a scenario where Alberta’s economy could be weaker and its finances much worse, not just immediately but for many years to come.”
WARNING. These numbers are real ugly.
Up to five years after separation the GDP, the overall economy, would be down by about 10 per cent compared to no separation.
In the short term, a typical worker would earn almost $5,500 a year less than if Alberta had not separated.
The government deficit could be … gulp … almost $26 billion in a year.
In the long term of the difficult scenario for separation, the annual wages for a typical worker could be almost $12,000 below what they would have earned if Alberta had not separated.
In this scenario the deficit in the long term could go to … gulp … $31 billion in a year and getting to a balanced budget could mean raising taxes or cutting spending by almost $6,600 per Albertan.
Actual outcomes would depend very much on the up and down oil price.
Alberta’s debt.
Hold on to your hats for this one.
Alberta’s debt would increase by $327 billion for a total debt of … the calculator is working overtime … $442 billion.
Ka-boom.
A blue-chip advisory panel goes over this report with a fine-tooth comb.
“One might suggest alternative assumptions and data but, in our view, the overall conclusion would remain — short-term costs and uncertain long-term gains at best, if at all.”
“The panel also stresses that major factors which will determine whether the outcome of separation is either positive or negative in the long run, particularly the risk of negotiating competitive and fair trade relationships, are not fully controllable by Alberta.”
They add this piece of advice.
“Every Albertan should understand this fact given these significant uncertainties.”
In the report, the impact on the oilpatch is mentioned.
A separate Alberta would not have to jump through any Canadian government hoops on the carbon tax or carbon capture and storage.
But unless Canada was still interested in a pipeline to the west coast, Alberta would need to go through the U.S.
The report states it is unlikely the west coast American states would support it.
The U.S. might also feel they could drive a hard bargain with a landlocked Alberta.
Sobering stuff.
Both the report and the panel looking over the report stress how Alberta’s departure from Canada would hurt Canada.
Investment would go down. Ottawa would have to hike taxes, cut spending or run a bigger deficit.
The Canada Pension Plan could demand higher contributions for Canadians or offer lower benefits.
“It is important for the rest of Canada to understand they will be better off if Alberta remains,” says the panel in a letter to the Alberta government.
“Hopefully this realization will result in more effective and accommodating responses to reforms Alberta has requested over the past four decades.”
So there is just a highlight reel on the cost of Alberta independence.
Over to you, Albertans.
]]>