Juno News - On C2C： What does the Sovereignty Act mean for Alberta’s future？

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.920 we do we cover alberta i'm not i'm an honorary albertan i've kind of been adopted by

00:00:13.360 many of the good people of alberta now some of them call me a dirty easterner but

00:00:17.020 uh most of them do it uh well i think i think favorably but i have an alberta sensibility i

00:00:22.580 love the province i love the people there true north has just an absolutely massive base of

00:00:27.020 support in alberta but more importantly alberta is doing thing is doing things that can be and in

00:00:33.320 some cases are being done by other provinces on asserting provincial jurisdiction uh provincial

00:00:40.100 sovereignty you might say we've seen alberta lead the way in this on things such as firearms being

00:00:46.500 followed by saskatchewan alberta has uh paved a way and is doing i think very important things and a

00:00:52.240 lot of it has come down not to any legal changes but a mindset a mindset that we saw from premier

00:00:58.640 danielle smith that has been cemented in law with the alberta sovereignty within a united canada act

00:01:04.860 and of course in continued rhetoric i think there's been a lot more of an effort from the alberta

00:01:09.960 government to put alberta first than we've seen from any province save quebec in quite some time

00:01:16.820 and when we talk about alberta's future in canada i think it's important to note that this is also a

00:01:22.100 story of other provinces if they want to go down this road there was a fascinating piece in c2c journal

00:01:28.640 that explores this very topic written by professor barry cooper uh not just uh one of the architects of

00:01:35.580 that sovereignty act but also a tremendously influential professor and also uh someone who i

00:01:41.140 mention in my biography of pierre polyev because he was a part of the uh great calgary school of

00:01:47.720 political science professors at the university of calgary uh which uh covered in part the time in

00:01:52.620 which polyev was a student there but that shameless plug out of the way uh always good to talk to barry

00:01:57.560 cooper barry thanks for coming on today good morning andrew good to hear you you know you have

00:02:03.080 touched on something in this piece which i think is a great launching off point here about uh why

00:02:09.300 canada isn't actually the federation we think it is and i was wondering if you could just start there

00:02:14.080 yeah it it actually goes back to um when i was first taking canadian politics as an undergraduate

00:02:22.980 uh we had to read a book by a uh a guy named livingston and he argued uh that federations were

00:02:31.760 political responses to what he called federal societies uh meaning societies that had uh say different

00:02:38.900 cultures uh certainly in canada different languages different histories uh and that the that the the

00:02:44.980 legal structure of federation was successful when it um reflected those uh pre-legal pre-political

00:02:53.860 differences um that is certainly true with the history of uh the prairie west uh also true of

00:03:01.460 british colombia um that canada's interest in uh this part of the world is not the same as the history

00:03:09.780 of the human beings who uh who lived here long before canada had any interest in um in uh in ruling us

00:03:16.980 so bring this into the modern context and why does that theme loom so large in your perspective on

00:03:25.860 what's happening in the west and in canada right now well federations change um the maritimes were

00:03:34.180 the most uh wealthy part of canada at the during the initial confederation period uh by about the

00:03:41.220 1880s uh they were pretty much dependent on canada on upper and lower canada uh or canada euston canada

00:03:47.700 west or just the old colony of canada well just to jump in there uh one of the i think it was pei

00:03:53.220 had had been very hesitant to join because they were worried that uh you know they would lose all

00:03:58.260 this stuff they had and i think anyone who's followed atlantic canada in the last 40 years would

00:04:02.260 be uh quite amused by that that atlantic canada was worried it would be putting more into

00:04:06.420 confederation than it was getting out yeah that i mean that's exactly true i mean that uh nova scotia

00:04:12.500 was uh during the american revolution were considered the neutral yankees uh and that what

00:04:18.580 ensured that they were neutral was the royal navy base at halifax so the the uh history of atlantic

00:04:27.140 canada what we now call it now atlantic canada uh is is really very complex and it is not simply

00:04:34.900 that they are loyal uh subservient uh colonies of the old colony of canada that uh is now ontario

00:04:42.180 in quebec what i've been calling for some time now laurentian canada uh that's a part of of the

00:04:48.340 country of canada for sure uh but it doesn't have a monopoly on either history or um on what north

00:04:55.300 reffray used to call the myths of what it was to be uh to be a canadian uh we all have our different

00:05:01.060 histories uh and the federation is supposed to reflect that yeah and and i think it's interesting too

00:05:08.580 that we have i mean obviously the benefit of a federation or a pseudo federation i don't want

00:05:14.500 to get into a debate with you about that at this point is that you know every province has the

00:05:18.340 ability to develop its own culture and in some ways that's happened certainly an albertan is different

00:05:23.540 from an ontarian is different from a quebecer but in recent years and i i would say it's recent you

00:05:29.460 you may think it's not it seemed like there's been less of a desire to respect that and we we've seen

00:05:36.180 more of a uh centralization of power and and i don't know if that's maybe just that i've only

00:05:42.260 been paying attention lately but it does seem like it's worsening in the last 15 20 years yeah it i

00:05:49.380 think you're right um here's the way i the context that i would i would use to to put this whole problem

00:05:55.860 in uh you can see the 1982 uh constitution act as a response by the entire country uh to major

00:06:05.860 changes uh after world war ii in one part of the country namely quebec quebec went from being a very

00:06:13.860 pious uh insular uh inward looking um and very religious society to probably the most secular uh

00:06:22.260 society on the entire continent uh and that i would argue was reflected first of all in the constitution

00:06:29.300 act um and the 1982 constitution act uh and then when when things got um well let's say when some

00:06:38.180 some canadians thought quebec were serious about um independence which does not include me i don't

00:06:43.620 think they were ever serious uh then they passed uh parliament passed the clarity act uh to try and give

00:06:49.300 some uh legal structure to how quebec can go forward um into the sunny uplands of independence if that's what

00:06:58.660 they really wanted i don't think they ever did but that's a that's another question so explain to me

00:07:06.420 whether we are looking at a cultural problem or a legal problem is this uh the issue that you see

00:07:12.740 is it one that's coming to just the attitudes that people have in alberta and in other provinces

00:07:17.060 and certainly in ottawa or or is the structure itself an issue that needs to be dealt with

00:07:22.020 what is uh it was andrew breitbart of all people who said that politics is downstream from culture

00:07:30.500 and what is downstream from politics is the law the law of the constitution so the first thing

00:07:36.980 is that um that the political uh differences between the various regions of of the country uh are

00:07:45.380 reflecting uh historical and cultural uh differences uh and eventually this gets reflect

00:07:51.860 this gets reflected as well in uh the law of the constitution uh that's what happened in 1867

00:07:58.580 that's what happened in 1982 and the sovereignty act is um the the longer range strategic purpose of

00:08:06.260 the sovereignty act is to change the de facto law of the constitution today that means pushing

00:08:15.300 pushing back against what you quite rightly describe as the let's say centralizing tendencies

00:08:21.460 of um the bureaucracy and the uh government of canada uh i don't think it's really a partisan issue

00:08:29.300 i think all governments liberal or conservative uh have this have this tendency to think that they

00:08:34.740 are as daniel smith said a national government and she said it uh on third reading of bill one that

00:08:42.820 turned into the sovereignty act uh who do they think they are a national government and the implication

00:08:48.900 being they're not they're part of a federation that's what the sovereignty act is uh aimed to uh

00:08:55.060 aimed aimed at restoring so one of the things that i i find interesting here is that there is this

00:09:02.180 profound double standard in the way certainly laurentian canada views uh provincial autonomy when you're

00:09:07.940 talking about quebec versus any other province and you know politically i'm wondering why that's been

00:09:13.860 allowed why other provinces have stood for that why has there not been more of a concerted effort uh

00:09:18.420 before now in alberta and even then i think what danielle smith is doing is pretty muted compared to what

00:09:23.620 quebec has done on this why has why have more provinces not been uncomfortable with that double standard

00:09:30.500 before now i think it's because a lot of people have swallowed the laurentian myth that canada is a

00:09:36.820 bilingual country parts of canada are bilingual but that certainly is not true uh in this part of the

00:09:42.900 world um at all there are french-speaking communities in alberta as there are in saskatchewan and manitoba

00:09:49.780 uh and in british columbia um but that doesn't make this part of the country bilingual so quebec can

00:09:56.980 get away with a lot uh because most canadians still swallow this myth that that we are bilingual when it's

00:10:03.620 uh the evidence for it is non-existent yeah and i think that's a very fair point and and i mean

00:10:10.900 bilingualism i mean it's ironic because you know quebec has obviously held as part of its national

00:10:16.180 story this idea of of the the so-called conquest but it's amazing how the french language has become

00:10:22.980 this uh tremendous uh tremendously limiting force for people in every other province where i mean you've got

00:10:28.900 communities in british columbia where you know a federal public servant needs to speak french when

00:10:33.460 you know french is like the fifth most spoken language of the area yeah yeah that's true i mean uh

00:10:40.660 i remember um uh as a survey that was done by um the government of canada probably about 20 years ago and

00:10:50.900 uh my my wife uh my wife has a french name so they they uh probably got we were probably included in

00:11:00.180 the survey because of her name uh and the uh person from ottawa said she she called me monsieur guichon

00:11:08.980 and i said no no i'm mr cooper uh and she said oh okay um do you speak french at home and i said oh yes

00:11:17.700 uh and she said well who do you speak it with and i said with with our daughter she's in french immersion

00:11:23.620 oh do you speak does your wife speak french i said well she can uh but she doesn't really speak uh

00:11:30.980 french with our daughter she said but you do and i said yes so she said well that's a bit odd you're not

00:11:37.860 french and i said well no but my french is better than my wife's so uh she she didn't know what to make 0.99

00:11:46.180 of that she simply didn't know what to make of it so to go back to the the structural aspect we were

00:11:52.260 talking about earlier there you make a point which is actually i think heretical among some people in

00:11:57.540 this country that uh the constitution is not set in stone that uh this is not something that can never

00:12:02.980 be reopened now i think the political practicalities make it very difficult uh to to reopen the constitution

00:12:08.660 in a way but if you could what would you do to it well uh you've already had success writing the

00:12:15.860 sovereignty act i'm letting you write the next charter

00:12:21.620 uh i would make i mean these are political decisions really rather than than constitutional

00:12:27.460 amendments that we're looking at uh and even jason kenny said uh when he was premier stay in your lane

00:12:34.260 uh when he spoke to the governor of canada and what he meant by that was what is uh determined in

00:12:42.340 section 91 of the uh old british north america act the constitution act 1867 uh the government of

00:12:48.980 canada does have some major responsibilities and sort of the provinces they're set out in section 92

00:12:57.460 everything should reaffirm that every bit of legislation should reaffirm that

00:13:01.860 especially by the government of canada and when for thing i mean there's some shared jurisdictions like

00:13:09.060 the courts have decided that the environment is um i think that was a let's say a questionably decided

00:13:15.620 decision uh but when you have a government that is um let's say ideologically persuaded by um

00:13:25.620 um environmental issues uh it means that they are inherently uh um what tempted to expand their

00:13:35.940 jurisdiction uh at the cost of the provinces and especially of this province because uh of our

00:13:42.740 hydrocarbon resources that have uh are said to have had uh these uh enormous uh environmental uh

00:13:50.420 consequences that needs to be uh disputed as well i mean so you get into sort of factual scientific

00:13:58.340 arguments as well as uh legal economic and social ones uh it's a it's a very uh complex political

00:14:04.980 process but that's where we have to go well in your uh piece in c2c journal which we can throw back up

00:14:11.780 on the screen there you call for some sobriety into laurentian consciousness which i think is a

00:14:17.220 an incredibly uh perhaps overly ambitious expectation but i think an important one nonetheless

00:14:22.020 professor barry cooper always good to talk to you barry thanks so much for your time today

00:14:26.420 thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north

00:14:31.060 andrew lawton show support the program at www.tnc.news

Juno News - May 20, 2024

On C2C： What does the Sovereignty Act mean for Alberta’s future？

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