It’s always been abundantly clear to people paying attention to internal UCP messaging, they’ve been trying to push their base in the direction of separation from the moment Smith became leader. They even used their own bad faith negotiations with Ottawa as justification to support separatist talking points. They used the Alberta Next panel to campaign “Alberta should separate and here is why”, paying themselves to go around the province selling separatism to their base. When locals tried to say anything contrary to the government message they’d be removed.
I guess we have to give people the benefit of the doubt, our system was just never built to deal with this level of corruption and dishonestly. We’re in uncharted territory.
Various-Passenger398 on
He says out pretty clearly how Smith is being disingenuous with regards to petitions and blatantly favouring the separatists.
Neat_Let923 on
> “Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?”
This is a terrible referendum question that would likely be thrown out under the Clarity Act and be deemed not clear enough by the federal government.
He’s either asking the exact same question as the original petition which has been paused by the court. Or he’s asking an opinion question without an actual requirement for something to be done, which makes it not a referendum question.
“Remain” is too ambiguous, what would not remaining mean? Secondly, Alberta is already part of Canada. No action is required to remain a part of Canada so this becomes a reverse question with an unclear objective (outside of the obvious theatrics).
No matter what, the court challenge to the original petition has already paused certification of the results. That would also apply to his own petition since it basically asks the same question in reverse (kinda, it’s a stupid question) if that was his intent. Which by the way he talks about it, it sounds like it’s not since all he seems to be asking for is the MPs to answer his question publicly… Thats not what these petitions are for or how a referendum works.
Kellervo on
To recap, in the last six months, they have tried to decertify the original Forever Canadian petition (along with several others), then tried to push legislation that would automatically invalidate any petitions that were completed before the legislation, _and_ put a block on any ‘similarly worded’ petitions from being put forward within the same legislative term. They also grandfathered petitions in progress from the new, expedited stream that they implemented with that legislation, meaning the Forever Canadian petition needs to go through multiple different Committees, while the separatist petition could immediately move to the legislature.
The first committee under Brandon Lunty and Jason Nixon _hasn’t sat once_ since the petition was certified, with Lunty and Nixon citing their ministerial duties as interfering with their committee work. The current session ends in a week, after which the legislature would need to form a new committee – assuming they sit at all before the June 7th deadline for them to return an answer to legislation.
It is, in every way, a pocket veto that allows the UCP to run out the clock. If the petition isn’t heard before September 1st, one of those pieces of legislation will automatically invalidate it (petitions can not be heard or put forward to referendum within a year of a scheduled election).
At the same time, they lowered the threshold for the separatist petition, instructed Elections Alberta to allow non-residents to sign it, and have indicated that the separatist petition – despite starting later, despite requiring 1/5th the signatures of the Forever Canadian petition – would supersede the former and go immediately to the committee.
This isn’t even just stacking the board, it’s just pretending the other side doesn’t get a turn because the UCP knows the moment they get it, the game’s over. It’s willful ignorance of the population, and negligence of their own duty as MLAs at _best_.
tutamtumikia on
It doesn’t matter. The UCP learned quickly that they can do do way more than people think and simply get away with it.
The only people who really have shown any backbone and ability to fight back are our indigenous friends here in Alberta. We could learn a lot from them (but we won’t).
Agent_Burrito on
What I don’t understand is why they (the Separatists) are even bothering. They’re not going to get anywhere near 50% voting to separate so what’s their real endgame?
6 Comments
It’s always been abundantly clear to people paying attention to internal UCP messaging, they’ve been trying to push their base in the direction of separation from the moment Smith became leader. They even used their own bad faith negotiations with Ottawa as justification to support separatist talking points. They used the Alberta Next panel to campaign “Alberta should separate and here is why”, paying themselves to go around the province selling separatism to their base. When locals tried to say anything contrary to the government message they’d be removed.
I guess we have to give people the benefit of the doubt, our system was just never built to deal with this level of corruption and dishonestly. We’re in uncharted territory.
He says out pretty clearly how Smith is being disingenuous with regards to petitions and blatantly favouring the separatists.
> “Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?”
This is a terrible referendum question that would likely be thrown out under the Clarity Act and be deemed not clear enough by the federal government.
He’s either asking the exact same question as the original petition which has been paused by the court. Or he’s asking an opinion question without an actual requirement for something to be done, which makes it not a referendum question.
“Remain” is too ambiguous, what would not remaining mean? Secondly, Alberta is already part of Canada. No action is required to remain a part of Canada so this becomes a reverse question with an unclear objective (outside of the obvious theatrics).
No matter what, the court challenge to the original petition has already paused certification of the results. That would also apply to his own petition since it basically asks the same question in reverse (kinda, it’s a stupid question) if that was his intent. Which by the way he talks about it, it sounds like it’s not since all he seems to be asking for is the MPs to answer his question publicly… Thats not what these petitions are for or how a referendum works.
To recap, in the last six months, they have tried to decertify the original Forever Canadian petition (along with several others), then tried to push legislation that would automatically invalidate any petitions that were completed before the legislation, _and_ put a block on any ‘similarly worded’ petitions from being put forward within the same legislative term. They also grandfathered petitions in progress from the new, expedited stream that they implemented with that legislation, meaning the Forever Canadian petition needs to go through multiple different Committees, while the separatist petition could immediately move to the legislature.
The first committee under Brandon Lunty and Jason Nixon _hasn’t sat once_ since the petition was certified, with Lunty and Nixon citing their ministerial duties as interfering with their committee work. The current session ends in a week, after which the legislature would need to form a new committee – assuming they sit at all before the June 7th deadline for them to return an answer to legislation.
It is, in every way, a pocket veto that allows the UCP to run out the clock. If the petition isn’t heard before September 1st, one of those pieces of legislation will automatically invalidate it (petitions can not be heard or put forward to referendum within a year of a scheduled election).
At the same time, they lowered the threshold for the separatist petition, instructed Elections Alberta to allow non-residents to sign it, and have indicated that the separatist petition – despite starting later, despite requiring 1/5th the signatures of the Forever Canadian petition – would supersede the former and go immediately to the committee.
This isn’t even just stacking the board, it’s just pretending the other side doesn’t get a turn because the UCP knows the moment they get it, the game’s over. It’s willful ignorance of the population, and negligence of their own duty as MLAs at _best_.
It doesn’t matter. The UCP learned quickly that they can do do way more than people think and simply get away with it.
The only people who really have shown any backbone and ability to fight back are our indigenous friends here in Alberta. We could learn a lot from them (but we won’t).
What I don’t understand is why they (the Separatists) are even bothering. They’re not going to get anywhere near 50% voting to separate so what’s their real endgame?