＂Alberta's Path to Independence is a Game of Chess＂ w⧸John Carpay of the JCCF
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the quebec secession referendum, the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling in 1998, and the process that led to the declaration of Quebec's independence as a sovereign country. We discuss the process, the challenges, and what we can learn from it.
Transcript
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so the quebec secession reference came out uh that ruling came out in 1998 and uh it's written
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in such a way that even though as per the title it's you know can quebec separate but the principles
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in there are pretty clear that they apply to every province and so the court mentions certain
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fundamental principles of federalism we have a federal system um we have the charter we have
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individual rights we have democracy um it's kind of an interesting read if you want to get a an
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introduction to constitutional law it goes through some of these principles of what they mean and by
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way of background the 1980 quebec referendum uh then premier renee levesque had put forward a
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proposal for sovereignty association and it was a bit murky it was definitely not that quebec would
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become an independent country you know in the same way that that you know mexico is independent from
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canada for example um and then in 1995 we had a very tight it was almost 50 50 50 50 but it too was
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pretty vague there's a lot of people voting yes for quebec independence but they assumed that they would
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still kind of be part of canada and they get their canada pension check and you know it was just very
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murky and and it was scary too because what if there was a yes vote but then you know it wasn't
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really clear what what was being voted on so the supreme court said that uh a province does have a right
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to leave canada which is really good because if the supreme court ruled the other way
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if there's not a legal way to leave it kind of makes it that the only alternative is violence and
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military conflict and that the quebec or alberta would have to take up arms to forcibly liberate
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themselves through military strength so thankfully the the court said no yeah if you have a clear majority
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on a clear question so the clear question would be something like what now has been put forward in
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alberta yeah so unfortunately the uh um chief electoral officer in um in alberta who is independent
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right is is appointed but is not under the control of the premier's office so it's an independent
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position he has taken it upon himself to uh go to court to ask for whether that's whether that
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question is clear enough well it's ridiculous because the supreme court said that a province
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has a right to leave and this question is is pretty clear and uh anyway it's it's kind of a delay tactic
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i i i would venture a guess that the chief electoral officer of alberta is staunchly against independence
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and so he is trying to do this to slow things down but the court was clear a province can leave
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and then the clarity act is sets out certain uh uh terms about how the federal government would respond
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if a province chose to leave uh it's related to the supreme court decision but it's also different it
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it gets very specific into what the federal government would do and how the federal government would behave
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so we've seen a little bit of the like we've seen comments and i've seen people kind of bring up
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like what about this what about that we're trying to think down the line of like what would happen
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if alberta actually went through this and it seems like first of all a citizen-led referendum
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is that's our way of well it's a petition for a referendum but even if that fails if there's enough
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support behind it the alberta provincial government ucp could just put in legislation for a referendum
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anyways so what this really speaks to is that ultimately it just requires enough will like a very
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obvious majority a loud enough signal that cannot be ignored and then there's multiple avenues let it be
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citizen-led petition for a referendum or just enough pressure that a referendum happens and if
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that's strong enough and a referendum goes through now both alberta and canada are duty bound to negotiate
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in good faith uh i believe the supreme court decision says well alberta can't unilaterally leave without
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good faith negotiations but canada can't prevent alberta from leaving but what is good faith
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negotiation that kind of well that depends so let's say canada plays hardball and says you owe us two
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trillion dollars for us granting you everything alberta could argue well you're not negotiating in good
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faith and if negotiations break down or if they say well we need to update the constitution we're going
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to try to prevent you to leave then it's into alberta's hands to just say well okay we went through
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the proper channels we are going to declare our independence and now it's out of the kind of the
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federal and now it's into the international recognition so it seems like it's almost a game
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of chess you have to go through each of these steps you need a clear democratic will to be expressed and
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the referendum proves that uh and then the rest is kind of unknown until you fully go down that path
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a chess game is a really good analogy actually because it's like you know and for the for the
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viewers and listeners that that know chess and presumably most do i mean it's like you you know you
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you put your pawn forward two spaces and the other you know player might do the same thing or might do
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something different you take out your knight you take out your bishop your it's just it's it's very
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back and forth back and forth so there have to be these negotiations because in indeed uh it's not open
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to alberta to unilaterally leave and just get whatever it wants no questions asked but nor can the
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federal government say well we're going to for we're going to prevent you from from leaving it's like no
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if if there was a clear question to separate if that had uh you know 50 of the vote plus one uh i
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mean hopefully there would be more clarity you know you could see a lot of uh um negotiations
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wouldn't be as smooth if it was really a 50 50 split but if you had a 50.5 percent 51 percent uh more
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than 51 percent you know it's uh it's a majority vote and uh it's it's a far stronger mandate that