Western Standard - The Clarity Act, Ottawa’s real plan to block Alberta independence

00:00:00.500 Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Hanna Ford, a weekly politics show of the

00:00:20.180 Western Standard.

00:00:22.000 It is Thursday, June the 11th and we're coming to you today from the floor of the energy

00:00:28.560 show down here at BMO in Calgary and it is time to talk independence with me

00:00:36.240 today is retired engineer and nuclear physicist Jim Mason who with Calgary

00:00:41.160 writer George Koch has just co-authored three articles about the Clarity Act

00:00:45.780 Jim welcome to the show thanks very much for the invite you're very welcome Jim

00:00:52.440 you write about the Clarity Act but your message is that there's nothing clear

00:00:55.560 about it at all. What's the issue here? Well, to start with, Nigel, let me maybe address some

00:01:03.560 issues some people might have with who am I to talk about the Clarity Act. What does a guy with

00:01:08.440 an engineering degree and a physics degree know about Clarity Act? And I think studying physics

00:01:16.540 makes you understand you have to deal with facts. And it doesn't matter whether the facts are

00:01:21.340 pleasant or unpleasant, you have to deal with facts. Gravity is a fact, and the fact that you

00:01:26.420 stand on the scales and it shows that you need to lose some weight is neither here nor there.

00:01:32.580 And when I was working for a defense electronics company, I got to read a lot of government

00:01:40.020 contracting documents, payments of work, terms and conditions, performance specifications,

00:01:45.340 things like that, from the point of view of trying to figure out, well, what do we actually

00:01:49.220 have to do to satisfy this customer and when i read the clarity act it was like eye popping

00:01:56.660 those sort of things are sort of there like the statement of work is reasonably well defined

00:02:01.940 you have to have make a question you have to have a referendum you have to get the results and if

00:02:06.420 the results are appropriate then you have negotiations and eventually you get to having a

00:02:12.100 constitutional amendment the problem comes when you look at the specifications which are pretty

00:02:18.100 much totally absent and the terms and conditions are all up to the customer that is the federal

00:02:23.300 government they're the ones who get decide when things are satisfactory so so if i'm hearing you

00:02:29.460 right you're you're you're saying that a lot of people think separation was going to be like a

00:02:34.340 friendly divorce that you just say well it's time you sit down and divide the assets shake hands and

00:02:39.780 go your separate ways you you think that's not the case i think that's definitely not the case

00:02:45.860 I mean, in most negotiations, and maybe even in acrimonious divorces,

00:02:52.080 both parties are interested in finding a resolution.

00:02:55.760 That's not necessarily the case the way the Clarity Act was written.

00:02:59.420 The province seeking independence is clearly at a disadvantage

00:03:03.020 with the government that controls the whole process.

00:03:08.060 Well, that's...

00:03:09.580 So look, in your article, which we reprinted, by the way,

00:03:13.520 it originally appeared in C2C,

00:03:15.860 but the Western Standard reprinted it earlier this week

00:03:19.280 but you describe the Clarity Act, well you're welcome, it's an important subject

00:03:23.360 we're glad to give it some air

00:03:24.500 you describe the Clarity Act as potentially very carefully and

00:03:27.860 deliberately drafted to prevent secession

00:03:31.040 rather than to facilitate it. Drawing from its history after the 1995 Quebec

00:03:37.860 referendum

00:03:38.640 what evidence or drafter insights support this view that it's actually

00:03:43.920 not what it says it is, and more important even,

00:03:47.480 how might the fact that that original purpose is going to backfire,

00:03:51.540 is it going to backfire in today's Alberta context?

00:03:55.700 Oh, that's a big question.

00:03:58.220 Well, it's a big topic.

00:04:02.620 When you read the Clarity Act, it sounds like it's describing a process

00:04:08.380 that if you kind of follow the process and do all of the things you're supposed to do,

00:04:13.540 it will naturally lead to independence but when you get right down to it and you look at there

00:04:19.940 are sort of four gates i would say that you have to get through one is you have to have a clear

00:04:24.500 question the second one is you have to get a clear majority the third one is you have to complete

00:04:30.900 negotiations about on appropriate constitutional amendment and then you have to get the constitutional

00:04:36.980 amendment passed and in three of those four gates the federal government has the peaks that decides

00:04:43.540 if the question in its mind is clear whether the majority in its mind is clear and it's in

00:04:49.780 charge of the negotiations and then it's over to the rest of the provinces and the way it's

00:04:55.380 written up it looks like to get the amendment seven out of the other ten provinces have to

00:05:00.180 approve it so it really is on the surface of it maybe a well-defined process but

00:05:06.900 in the details it's a real problem to execute successfully i see now just to clear one point

00:05:16.180 before we go any further you stephen harper had a go at drafting legislation to prevent separation

00:05:23.860 is that the is that the legislation that we're dealing with now well not really they're about

00:05:30.180 the same as night and day. Mr. Harper's version of the Clarity Act was, in fact, pretty clear.

00:05:40.520 He wanted it well understood by the people in Quebec. This was all originally targeted at

00:05:45.540 Quebec. He wanted the people to understand that they weren't voting for something which to watch

00:05:50.800 like Sovereignty Association or some kind of revised federalism. They were voting to separate.

00:05:58.160 And so his act said if they didn't provide a very clear question in that regard,

00:06:03.740 that the federal government would provide one.

00:06:05.580 And he actually had the wording in his version of the act of what that clear question would be.

00:06:11.560 Then he said that the majority that was required was simply a simple majority.

00:06:16.520 And that was also very clear.

00:06:18.540 And then he said that if that happened, the federal government would be authorized to enter negotiations.

00:06:27.460 and once the negotiations were completed the whole thing would be put to a national referendum

00:06:32.820 and if that passed then it would go through the normal constitutional amendment process

00:06:37.700 so it was all pretty well laid out still very difficult to achieve mind you but it was clear

00:06:44.340 what you had to do the current one the current one is just the opposite while it appears clear

00:06:51.780 all of the requirements to get past the gates, there are no objective criteria for deciding

00:06:58.100 whether you've met them, either the question or the majority. Well, I think that's kind of an

00:07:03.460 important thing for people in Alberta to know. So, look, you've really studied this. In addition to

00:07:10.100 the first article, there's two more coming. Let's just say that the efforts of those people who are

00:07:17.860 seeking independence for Alberta were very successful and we have an

00:07:23.440 undeniably strong vote in favor of separation walk us through a realistic

00:07:33.040 day after you just have this strong vote in Alberta one of the most likely

00:07:39.220 federal or provincial responses that could derail the process and how much

00:07:44.960 which might Aboriginal treaty rights or other provinces factor into blocking or complicating

00:07:50.780 these negotiations?

00:07:51.780 What's it going to be like?

00:07:53.780 Well, I think probably the very first thing at the provincial level is that the people

00:07:58.100 who are seeking independence, if they got a really clear majority, would be ecstatic.

00:08:04.080 There'd be parties all over the place.

00:08:06.840 How the provincial government would respond is another question.

00:08:10.080 I mean, at the present, Premier Smith is kind of walking on a tightrope a bit.

00:08:16.040 She's sort of advocating for a sovereign Alberta with the United Canada.

00:08:21.580 And so in that case, with the people voting for the independence route, she would potentially be in an awkward position.

00:08:32.940 Although, having gotten her marching orders, if you like, from the people, you probably would have a pretty clear mandate.

00:08:40.080 What the federal government would do, I suspect, is first point out that they have to consult with a large number of people, a large number of different bodies or parties, as to whether or not the result really is a tier majority.

00:09:00.060 And for kind of all sorts of nuances that might come into play in that, for example, in Quebec, before the Quebec government had its referendum, the First Nations had their own referendum and they voted in excess of 90%, I think it was like 96%, to stay as part of Canada.

00:09:18.800 So the federal government might want to examine how that vote was split up between polling locations that were clearly First Nations and others that weren't.

00:09:31.800 Also in the Quebec referendum, there was a very presided split between urban and rural.

00:09:39.800 The rural ridings voted overwhelmingly for independence, and several of the urban ridings, particularly the ones with large English language content, they voted overwhelmingly to be part of Canada.

00:09:57.000 And it was that vote, in fact, that vote in Los Alipos, like a handful of ridings, that that vote was enough to make the difference between independence and remaining in Canada.

00:10:09.200 I think probably the federal government will try to reserve judgment for a little while

00:10:15.280 until they've had the opportunity to examine all of the potential things that we could

00:10:20.960 use that they could take into consideration.

00:10:24.840 So now you have a vote and you have a pretty clear indication of how Albertans feel

00:10:33.680 and it was in favor of separation and the federal government because obviously it can't afford to

00:10:41.600 agree to it alberta is the powerhouse of the entire confederation we leave take our money

00:10:47.780 there's not much left uh so they have to stop this somehow um once they've run out of arguments

00:10:55.820 and they say no because no is what we think,

00:11:00.600 what responses are left in Alberta?

00:11:07.560 Not a lot.

00:11:10.740 So does this end in violence?

00:11:14.120 Well, the one thing that the Supreme Court was clear about,

00:11:18.740 and in fact this was the yes and so good question

00:11:22.640 that was referred to it with respect to protects the session,

00:11:28.380 that they were asked to rule on was whether there was any legal method,

00:11:33.800 whether the universal, sorry, unilateral declaration of indefendment was legal

00:11:40.600 either under the Canadian constitution or under international law.

00:11:46.120 And if the answers to those were yes,

00:11:49.960 then the government wanted to know which one of those would take custody.

00:11:53.860 It turned out the answer that the court delivered on both of those questions was no.

00:11:59.160 There is no legal justification for a unilateral declaration of inter-unions

00:12:03.080 under either the Canadian constitution or international law.

00:12:07.820 And therefore, that's replayed in the Clarity Act, if that is the case.

00:12:13.300 So that makes any kind of consideration of that getting a little dicey.

00:12:16.960 It's kind of ironic that we're having this discussion in the run-up to July the

00:12:25.480 4th, because in 1776 there was no consensus on the legality of the Universal Declaration

00:12:33.360 of Independence then either, so I guess it comes down as if you can make it, if you decide

00:12:39.160 to do it and you make it stick, then it becomes legal.

00:12:43.720 Yes. The Supreme Court acknowledged that in its decision. It said the other option, of course, is that legal or not legal, if the province would unilaterally declare independence, what followed next would depend on the international response.

00:13:00.580 what, if any, countries would recognize this new country

00:13:05.040 and what, if anything, those countries might do about it

00:13:09.180 in the event that the federal government wanted to institute

00:13:12.380 some sort of policing action, if you like, given that the UDI is a fee.

00:13:16.920 And they acknowledged that that was a possibility

00:13:19.100 and it would all depend on the response from the international community.

00:13:25.300 Well, of course, the only international community that really matters

00:13:28.880 is that of the united states i would agree so what we're really saying then is to summarize

00:13:38.240 the discussion thus far is the clarity act is unclear and it gives the federal government every

00:13:46.560 opportunity to weasel out of a pretty clearly voted uh declaration of of intent from alberta

00:13:57.040 and that after that if the federal government will make no concessions

00:14:04.200 then Alberta's only option is UDI and you know that problem

00:14:10.340 it's hard to say who would do what but if they had support from outside Alberta

00:14:17.300 that's what they might do

00:14:19.660 you know for those of us who have been raised as you have

00:14:24.720 and I'm old enough to have on a certain concept of Canada from sea to sea to sea,

00:14:32.520 this seems almost like an unreal situation.

00:14:37.560 Like, could this really happen?

00:14:39.660 Well, it does sort of, except we both have lived through the previous session with Quebec,

00:14:46.140 so we know it can indeed happen.

00:14:49.700 The way you've described it, yeah, that's unusual.

00:14:56.000 I'd just like to elaborate on one thing, perhaps, in terms of what the federal government might do.

00:15:08.680 One option that it has is to simply kind of go through the process,

00:15:14.420 Because the very last step in the process is the passing of the constitutional amendment by 7 out of 10 provinces.

00:15:23.840 And so they could let everything go through to that on the assumption that that's not going to happen, but it won't be their fault.

00:15:32.240 It would be the people of Canada, through their elected representatives in the other provinces, who are high-bashing the whole thing.

00:15:40.920 Well, that's another option as well, but then we're around to the same outcome.

00:15:45.640 What then for Albert?

00:15:46.640 What do they do?

00:15:48.820 So I've looked ahead, skipped ahead into your second article here,

00:15:54.000 and the one that we haven't published yet.

00:15:56.940 You suggest a possible way out of the mess.

00:16:00.680 That's your quote.

00:16:04.060 So what high-level alternatives or reforms to the Clarity Act

00:16:08.260 and the constitutional precedences or Alberta's approach

00:16:12.240 do you see as more constructive for addressing Western alienation

00:16:17.280 while preserving stability?

00:16:20.200 They don't just get the provinces to say no and cause a problem.

00:16:24.140 Is there something more positive that we can be looking at here?

00:16:28.320 Well, this is maybe going to sound like a bit of a hedge,

00:16:31.340 but it seems to me that the situation that is currently involved

00:16:35.660 offers a pretty good opportunity.

00:16:38.260 in the sense that there's an opportunity now for Albertans to send a very clear message

00:16:44.640 that changes to the federation are needed.

00:16:49.820 And there are fundamental changes that need to be made to the federation,

00:16:53.880 not only for Alberta's medical, but for everybody's medical.

00:16:58.960 But they have an opportunity now with a question that is put forward by Premier Smith

00:17:04.900 that is not going to actually lead to separation

00:17:08.220 unless that those changes cannot be put in place.

00:17:15.120 So Albertans have an opportunity to send everybody else in Canada

00:17:18.980 a very clear message that they want to see some changes

00:17:22.400 or they will have another think about whether or not

00:17:26.900 they really want to be part of the Federation.

00:17:28.760 And I think there's a very measured and incremental way to go about that.

00:17:37.680 One is you can think Albertans can propose a number of changes that the federal government is entirely in control of, such as repealing the nine bad laws.

00:17:48.600 Then they can propose a change which maybe is a little bit more awkward.

00:17:53.140 You guys had a referendum a while ago on the re-equalization program that said, we'd like to see that out of the Constitution.

00:18:02.080 Well, that's a constitutional amendment, which everybody recognizes is a little bit difficult.

00:18:06.380 But you can change the formula, which is just an agreement of most parties.

00:18:11.480 And in fact, there was an essay that I wrote for the C2C Journal some while ago that explored an alternative formula for the equalization program,

00:18:21.300 which was perfectly straightforward and would solve many of the problems that the current one has.

00:18:27.220 So that's the second step, is to do that.

00:18:29.240 And then the third step is to say, and here are a bunch of constitutional amendments

00:18:34.400 that need to be made to preserve the federation.

00:18:38.720 And those could be whatever, you know, better representation by population.

00:18:44.100 A triple E Senate, which we pursued before.

00:18:47.320 Those sorts of things.

00:18:48.160 They're getting a little bit more difficult, but you've got the first two steps as indicative

00:18:54.200 of whether or not people are actually even interested in pursuing the third one.

00:18:58.720 Well, that would be a possible vote could be taken.

00:19:02.420 So it sounds actually quite a lot what opposition leader Pierre Poilier was saying in Calgary on Monday.

00:19:08.780 I don't know whether you managed to catch that address.

00:19:10.800 but the idea was somehow that we need to make alliances on matters of specific interest with

00:19:21.280 other provinces which sounds great but you know we've been this route before with the reform party

00:19:29.360 the west wants in we were sincere about that the rest of the country thought it apparently a little

00:19:37.320 laughable because it never actually took east of the Ontario border with

00:19:42.380 Manitoba. So I guess people in Alberta are very skeptical about anything to do

00:19:51.000 with the federal government and their intentions and how they would use the

00:19:56.700 Clarity Act against us. So you know I'm gonna give you the last word because

00:20:01.680 we're almost out of time but can you send us off on any kind of an

00:20:06.660 optimistic footing here that alberta can find some kind of stability within confederation

00:20:14.980 or are we really going to have to look abroad to see who our friends are well i'd like to think

00:20:21.860 that if the approach that i just discussed that sort of three-step approach was perceived you'd

00:20:28.260 get a pretty quick indication as to whether or not the rest of the federation is interested in

00:20:34.660 making some accommodations and I'd like to think they would be. I sort of disagree with Pierre that

00:20:41.780 you need to make alliances with provinces on individual things. The issue is not so much

00:20:48.580 policies and to my mind it's not so much policies and legislation because you can get those changed

00:20:55.140 but if there's not some fundamental changes made they can all be reinstituted again with some

00:20:59.700 future government. What, in my mind, would be much better is some fundamental change to the

00:21:04.980 structure of our governors, although those things aren't possible in the crystals.

00:21:11.380 Well, I think, Jim, we all want fundamental changes in the structure of government,

00:21:16.180 except people who live outside Alberta. That's the problem, isn't it? 1.00

00:21:20.100 That would be me and I want it.

00:21:22.980 Good. Do you think there are many people like you back there in Ontario?

00:21:26.840 That's a very good question.

00:21:28.480 All my family.

00:21:31.520 Okay, I hope it's a big one because we're going to need their votes.

00:21:34.980 So, Jim, let me ask you one more thing.

00:21:36.740 Here in Alberta, we have a referendum on whether to have a referendum coming up.

00:21:42.080 Obviously, this is a pretty big deal.

00:21:46.020 If that referendum on whether to have a referendum fails, does that settle the issue?

00:21:54.760 i think what it settles is that alberta is now that they're happy with or albertans have now

00:22:04.780 said they're happy with the status quo so in the future if they have any complaints about

00:22:10.520 the situation in canada such as the equalization program or things like that the uh the powers

00:22:17.480 that be will simply point to that uh referendum and say look you already voted that you're happy

00:22:23.060 with the situation in Canada.

00:22:25.020 So let's be quiet and get on with that.

00:22:27.700 And I think that's a real risk, exactly,

00:22:31.380 of the coming referendum not being resoundingly voted in favor.

00:22:38.220 So speak now or forever hold thy peace?

00:22:41.320 Pretty much, pretty much.

00:22:43.380 So that's actually an important consideration

00:22:45.980 when trying to explain the actions of the Premier

00:22:50.780 as she as she pushes this forward if she gets a no vote then her actions are more or less endorsed

00:22:59.260 she gets a strong yes vote i'm sure she'll take that into account is that how you see it well yes

00:23:04.940 i think i think a no vote is we just carry on carrying on and a yes vote is maybe maybe there

00:23:11.260 could be some changes made you know and and here are the changes we'd like to see made and let's

00:23:15.180 Let's see if we can make this work.

00:23:17.400 All right.

00:23:18.420 Look, Jim Mason, nuclear scientist and engineer,

00:23:23.220 bringing the logic of science to the intensely emotional matter of Alberta independence

00:23:30.660 and the rest of Canada's attitude to it.

00:23:33.240 Thank you so much for joining us, Jim.

00:23:34.780 We'll be running the second article as soon as we have it.

00:23:38.520 And with that, I'm Nigel Hannaford for the Western Standard.

00:23:45.180 Thank you.

Western Standard - June 12, 2026

The Clarity Act, Ottawa’s real plan to block Alberta independence

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