Alberta’s New Constitution Must Avoid Canada’s Biggest Mistakes ｜ Dennis Kalma
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, we have a special guest on the show to talk about Alberta's future as an independent province. We discuss the current state of the province, what it means to be an independent Alberta, and what we would like to see in a new constitution.
Transcript
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The main thing that people really, really want to see is that accountability for government
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is with the voters. That's probably the first principle. They want to make sure that there's
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no PMO, Prime Minister's office, that can just write laws by itself. They want visibility and
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transparency. And that's actually a key element. Very close to that, if not equal, is very clearly
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very comprehensive rights. So, you know, that's everything from your property rights to the
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normal ones, freedom of speech, freedom of association, so on and so forth. Without the
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caveat that is currently in Canada's constitution, which is subject to the government saying that's
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a good idea, you get your rights. And people really want to see what are called textual rights,
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which is the text defines what it is no more no less it can't be reinterpreted by a judge
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it can't be eroded over time by just reading a little different and that's the kind of things
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really people want to see the other aspect they want to see is balance and people realize there's
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interests of the majority there's also in regional interests i mean rural alberta is not the same as
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Calgary. Calgary is not the same as Lethbridge, so on and so forth. So they want to have a balance
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between essentially the majority and the region. So that's one element. The second thing is the
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judiciary. They want the judiciary to be balanced on the other two, but also that it cannot do
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anything but interpret the laws. It can't write them in like they do in Canada right now. So those
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are probably some of the major ones. Well, I think just as a comment on that before
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James asks you the next one, I think that that's been a common refrain amongst Alberta independence
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advocates that we've spoken to and we've interacted with over the last few months that
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they're very concerned that whatever constitution that an independent Alberta
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comes up with, they don't want it to just be a slightly modified, essentially copy of what we
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have now. They want significant changes and they want to, like you said, and I think is very
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reassuring, enshrine some things that the Canadian constitution for what it's worth
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simply just hasn't. Yeah, and actually there is a school of thought
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amongst the people working on the constitution that we should actually just go back to the
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Westminster system like it was prior to Pierre Trudeau. And that's something actually I got
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educated in. And Westminster system is completely separate. It's not my favorite approach, but I
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understand it a bit better. But the main thing is Trudeau, when he repatriated the Charter,
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actually changed the basis of power in Canada from being Parliament as supreme authority to
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the courts being supreme authority. And that's why you see so many times now is that part of them
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can say whatever the heck they want, but if the judges say, nope, we don't like that, or that's
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not constitutional, it's done. And that was a change Trudeau brought. So the school of thought
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is, let's go back to the pre-Trudeau ages, let's fix it up, put in property rights amongst other
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things, and put some more strength in it, but essentially keep the core of it. That is a fair
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school of thought. It's not one that I really support. And I think a lot of people in the
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movement don't support, but it is a thought worth considering. We look at a bunch of different
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options. I think the one we're going to land on is the constitutional republic, more like the
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American system than any other. And I think that's what a lot of people want. And that's likely where
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we're going to end up. And so this is a draft, this is a framework. And essentially, if Alberta
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becomes independent, then there would have to be a constitutional convention of actually
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deciding on these ideas. So the way I look at it is this would be, the document we've got now would
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be input into the constitutional conference. It would have the benefit of several years of work
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by a number of people. It would have been stress tested over the months it's been released by
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accepting comments and feedback. And then you get to the constitutional conference. And
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one of the things we also are trying to do is to start the transition planning
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for, okay, we win the vote. What happens the next morning? Well, one of the things you got
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to start doing is planning this constitutional conference. And it needs to have a combination
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of representations to make it work. So obviously, the existing provincial government would need to
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be there. So some of the UCP people, indigenous people need to be there, representation from them,
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probably some from academia, some from business, so on and so forth. So the way I'm imagining it
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is it would be six or seven different groups or contingents, including maybe a group of just
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normal citizens almost selected at random, like a jury. And no change to the constitution could
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be adopted without a majority of each of those groups agreeing to it. So imagine you put a
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sentence up on the screen, says clause 27, and people say, take a vote on it. It's got to get
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a majority of each of the groups to pass. And if not, crack it open and start debating it again.
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And that way it ends up being a broadly based constitution, hopefully largely based upon what
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we were able to give to it. And then the next step after that, of course, is now you have the
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structure of government, you have to run an election, you have to vote them into power,
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and then that's when the lawmaking really starts. So it's a fairly logical process
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we're imagining, but it's got some complexity to it.