Premier Danielle Smith spurns the federal government even as Ottawa swings toward Alberta’s viewpoint
announced a series of public consultations about her province’s place in Canada , she put her reason for doing so in well-worn terms.introducing the Alberta Next Panel, a body that will hold open hearings across the province this summer and fall, and then “identify and discuss specific policy questions that could be included in a 2026 provincial referendum.”
It’s nothing new. What is striking is that she is doubling down on it when there is a Liberal prime minister in Ottawa who is open in principle to the construction of a new pipeline to carry Albertan crude to market – a sentiment thatSo does Alberta have an Ottawa problem? Well, yes – no province is complete without one.But Ms. Smith’s Alberta Next Panel is less about Ottawa than it is about assuaging a restive base that is talking openly about separation.
The public hearings will address legitimate and widely shared provincial gripes about immigration, the equalization system, the unelected and geographically imbalanced Senate, and more. Albertans will also get to chew over issues that could be settled internally, without Ottawa’s consent, such as creating a provincial police force or a provincial tax department, or leaving the Canada Pension Plan in favour of a provincial version.
It happened to former Quebec premier Robert Bourassa. His aggressive effort in the early 1990s to counter growing separatist sentiment by demanding the constitution recognize Quebec as a distinct society was compared to holding a knife to the country’s throat. Its failure contributed to the return of the Parti Québécois to power in 1994, and to the near-death referendum experience in 1995.
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