Listen carefully to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s post-referendum message to the members of her United Conservative Party (UCP) and you will understand that she is not sternly drawing a line in the sand for the party’s many separatists so much as instituting a gentle policy of “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell.”
Secessionists are still welcome in the bosom of the UCP – indeed, the premier desperately wants to keep them there – they need only to agree to keep their lips zipped about their separatism for the time being, especially if they hold party office or run as candidates.
“Now that the referendum is behind us, I hope you know that I do not hold any ill will toward any of our members because of how they voted or which side they campaigned on,” Smith told the membership in the pre-recorded message posted yesterday on social media. “What matters now is that as a party we accept the results of the referendum and support and implement the clear mandate given to us by Albertans to pursue a strong Alberta within a united Canada.”
Of course, the real message of the vote in the referendum on a referendum foisted on the province by Smith and her separatist-dominated party is that the overwhelming majority of Albertans want no part at all of separatism, secession, or sovereignty within a united Canada. They are proud Canadians and they intend to stay that way. Period. Full stop.
“A strong Alberta within a united Canada is the position of our party and our government,” Smith continued, keeping the candle of sovereignty-association flickering brightly enough for the separatist faithful to see and faintly enough for the rest of us to ignore.
“Although members of our party can have whatever views they wish, candidates running under our party banner need to be committed to, and support and abide by, this position from the day they take out their nomination papers, throughout their candidacy, and for the duration of their time serving as MLAs in our caucus,” she said.
“We expect every member of our provincial board and members of the constituency association board across the province to uphold the position of our party on this issue and focus their attention and efforts on one singular objective over the next 12 months,” she went on. (Emphasis added.) “And that objective is beating the NDP in every single riding in the province.”
Premier Smith then sketched out a dystopian fantasy of woke “socialist NDP” rule, pure comedy gold in which children would change their genders without their parents’ knowledge, the carbon tax would return, and Albertans would be forced to receive vaccinations while Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi’s “boss in Ottawa, Avi Lewis, will be granted a significant amount of control over Alberta’s future.”
So begins Smith’s version of the Reconstruction Era of the UCP, the party whose unity is in tatters and whose popularity with Albertans, like the premier’s own, is sinking in the wake of a referendum nobody but hard-core separatists wanted.
There’s no way this can be interpreted as laying down the law or reading the Riot Act to the party’s separatists, as many media stories yesterday tried to suggest. It is a temporary pause in secession talk while Ms. Smith tries to manoeuvre the party’s powerful separatist faction not to give her the bum’s rush as they did to her predecessor Jason Kenney.
That was the premier’s real message, not her performative challenge to “those few who … remain intent on dividing and turning our party into a vehicle for the independence movement. I would respectfully invite them to join a different party.”
Smith repeated some of the same points to reporters yesterday during a news conference about the referendum results. “I’m asking people to do some self-reflection, and if they are able to accept the results of the mandate that Alberta gave us through a free and democratic process, then we can have a reset. And those who cannot, they have opportunities through other political parties.”
Of course, she is counting on the fact the separatist crowd really don’t have any such opportunities. Only those intent on political suicide would join the Republican Party of Alberta, tarnished as it is with its connection to the leak of the personal information of 2.9 million Alberta voters last spring. What else is there? Wexit?
And while Ms. Smith’s personal reputation has certainly suffered as a result of the referendum debacle, she believes she can talk her way out of any blunder and, in truth, she often can. This will be a test of that talent.
As referendum vote count slowly proceeds, the UCP ‘mandate’ keeps slipping
Meanwhile last night, the noxious nine sub-referenda included to scapegoat immigrants for policy failures by the UCP and give the premier an excuse to engage in endless constitutional fights with Ottawa that have no chance of success – fomenting future regional discontent – were not doing well as the count by Elections Alberta slowly continued.
With 97 per cent of the ballots counted at 10 p.m., Albertans appeared to have voted “No” to all four of the UCP’s constitutional referenda, Smith’s earlier comments about her mandate notwithstanding.
Surely this suggests Albertans have had enough of the UCP’s constant unproductive bickering with Ottawa.
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