Leong: The Alberta referendum is a highly cynical exercise. Voters need to take part anyway

Albertans are being played by their own government.

As expected, the political discourse has been dominated in recent weeks by a series of looming referendum questions on Alberta separation, immigration-related issues, and constitutional matters.

Everything else — acute matters relating to health, education, international and interprovincial trade, provincial overreach into municipal affairs — is being swept aside.

The referendum questions themselves are questionable at best. To answer them, electors are essentially forced to agree with how the queries are framed by the Alberta government.

If someone rejects the premise of the questions and disagrees with the UCP’s assessment of how the country works, or where to lay the blame for Alberta’s struggles to support its stretched health and education systems, there is no obvious way for a voter to point this out with a simple, binary response.

On top of this, there’s no telling what comes after the vote, no matter how the results turn out.

The fine print on Elections Alberta’s website reminds us the questions on separation and immigration are non-binding. Meanwhile, the constitutional questions are ultimately governed by long-established, complicated rules for amending Canada’s basic national law. And besides, the Alberta government is already empowered to engage with its counterparts to discuss such matters.

So no matter how we vote between now and Oct. 19, there exists a possibility the government will not do what voters tells it to.

We are being asked to take part in an expensive political gamble the vast majority of Albertans didn’t want, without knowing with any certainty of the practical implications resulting from the vote outcomes. What will have been the point, apart from trying to keep a portion of United Conservative Party membership happy?

Not only are we being played, we’re being asked to collectively foot the multimillion-dollar bill for it.

Spare a thought for the folks being tasked with the thankless job of making this all work. Elections Alberta has been busily recruiting employees to run this mammoth operation but as recently as last week, the agency reported struggles with hiring in some remote parts of the province.

Media-reported cost estimates range from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars, depending on which expert was consulted.

As cynical as the electorate is being made to feel with this potentially pointless exercise, there is nothing more cynical than the government asking us to take part in this charade in the first place.

And as much as the whole thing might turn some people off, we should participate anyway.

Voters can tell the Alberta government they’ve had enough of the abuse of the democratic process and the expensive diversionary tactic to distract us from issues that really matter.

The people have the power to deny the UCP the satisfaction of public backing for their immigration and constitutional questions. We can choose to rebuke them for consorting with separatists by voting to keep Canada strong and united.

But most important, regardless of what choices each of us makes on each of the 10 ballots, we should vote to tell our elected officials we care about our electoral rights and privileges, even if the referendum itself is 1,000 per cent bogus.

Worse than any potential referendum outcome would be a lack of voter turnout to support it.

Public ballots really are the only way we’ll be heard in a manner that truly matters.

Democracy is only as strong as citizens make it, so let’s make this vote count — together.

Advance voting for the Alberta referendum takes place Oct. 13 to 17, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Cast a ballot at any polling station in your electoral district.

Referendum day is Oct. 19, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Vote at the polling station indicated on the information card mailed to you by Elections Alberta.