Post referendum post-mortem: Let’s keep building Canada

Prime Minister Mark Carney aptly summed up the results of the Alberta referendum: “On Oct. 19, Albertans made a clear choice. They chose unity, to build together and to take care of each other. Above all, Albertans chose Canada.”

The question before us now is: how do we move forward?

Downing tools and declaring victory are not a strategy and would be a mistake. How the federal government, the provinces and the business community handle themselves in the coming months will be critically important.

As Canadian Stephen Marche noted in the New York Times, “Even as a sop to the populist, rage-baiting half of her party, (Premier Danielle) Smith’s decision to hold the referendum has been a disaster. By trying to please everyone, she has enraged everyone.”

By putting the separation question on the referendum ballot, she gave credibility to a fringe group of MAGA-lovers, anti-vaxxers and anti-government extreme libertarians.

The credibility of the vote led others to vote yes without sharing any of these views. Indeed, data from Pollster David Coletto of Abacus suggests that only a third of those who voted yes to the separation question say independence is their aim — that’s about eight per cent of those who voted.

The rest wanted to send Ottawa a message, and their concerns are not unique to Alberta — affordability, housing, jobs and health care.

The federal government is unlikely to change the minds of avowed separatists, but it can and should show Albertans it understands their economic concerns. Indeed, the prime minister has gone to great lengths to do so by prioritizing energy and natural resource expansion, fast-tracking a pipeline to the West Coast and chopping the regulatory burden on business.

In doing so, he has made a compelling case for a strong, united Canada.

Too many voices were silent during the referendum campaign. In June, we asked if business leaders would step up. Nancy Southern did, but where were the others? The list of elected officials in Alberta, both provincial and federal, and civil society leaders who went AWOL and sat this one out was too great.

That’s abdication — not leadership.

Were they really undecided on the country, or angling for greater leverage to get their policy wish list?

While the focus has been on the separation question for obvious reasons, the other nine questions need to be addressed so they don’t become a back door for the separatists to foment more agitation, and a front door for those wanting radical further decentralization in one of the world’s most decentralized countries.

On immigration, Canada needs to go back to the points-based system that served us well for decades. Unique provincial needs can be accommodated through this system, but we must not forget the broader principle that immigrants come to Canada in the hope of becoming Canadians.

The principle behind equalization is sharing across the federation. But the details of how the equalization program operates can, and have, been adjusted a number of times to reflect new circumstances and remove anomalies, and it may be time to do so again.

Constitutional reform, on the other hand, is a Pandora’s Box, and Canada has the scars to prove it. The prime minister should refrain from holding this out as a possibility, no matter how caveated. Attempting it will only lead to failure and breed grievance.

The focus instead should be on fast-tracking major projects, turning Canada into an energy and critical minerals superpower, expanding trade diversification, eliminating internal barriers to trade among provinces, and doubling down on investments in productivity and growth.

To borrow a line from Bill Clinton strategist James Carville, “It’s the economy, stupid,” and concerns about the economy (plus U.S. President Donald Trump) are the priorities of all Canadians.

The risk of foreign interference in our elections, including referendums, is very real, as Justice Marie-Josee Hogue warned us in the Report of the Foreign Interference Commission she headed. But what are we doing about it, including campaigns of misinformation and disinformation?

As Marche notes in the Times, “American officials have understood the Alberta referendum as a useful tool for their predations from the beginning.”

In today’s deeply troubled and fragmenting world, Albertans chose Canada. But all Canadians should reflect on the words of former premier Peter Lougheed, one of the greatest Canadians who ever lived: “I’m a Canadian before an Albertan. Don’t take that comment lightly . . . Let’s keep building . . . My whole life has been a strong and united Canada.”

Lougheed understood the value and promise of Canada. As Carney stated: “Canada is so much greater than the sum of its parts. Now it is our opportunity to take all that we have been given as Canadians — and we have been given the greatest country in the world — and make our country better for all of us.”

That is work for all of us.

Kevin Lynch was clerk of the Privy Council and vice-chair of BMO Financial Group.

Paul Deegan, CEO of Deegan Public Strategies, was an executive at BMO and CN.