{"id":102639,"date":"2026-05-23T05:00:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T09:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=102639"},"modified":"2026-05-22T15:22:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T19:22:31","slug":"a-referendum-in-our-alberta-there-they-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2026\/05\/23\/a-referendum-in-our-alberta-there-they-go\/","title":{"rendered":"A referendum? In our<\/em> Alberta? There they go!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hope Jen Gerson<\/a> will forgive my hubristic use of “our<\/em> Alberta” in my headline, as there’s at least a possibility that at the end of this process, Alberta won’t<\/em> be “ours” any more:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So I guess we’re doing this, eh?<\/p>\n

I mean, of course Alberta is holding a secession referendum. It’s Alberta; the province that consistently exhibits the inverse of one of Paul Wells’ most-famed Rule of Politics. To wit: “1: For any given situation, Canadian politics will tend toward the least exciting possible outcome”.<\/p>\n

Okay, well. Yeehaw, I guess. Alberta hits different.<\/p>\n

I suppose I’ll be doomed to die here \u2014 everywhere else would be boring by comparison.<\/p>\n

For those who have not yet been fully read in: In a speech on Thursday that can only be described as a rhetorical onion of bad faith and gaslighting, Smith called for a secession referendum based on Forever Canadian leader Thomas Lukaszuk’s successful petition, which was intended to rally support of federalists ahead of an expected pro-secession petition. Lukaszuk’s question proceeded to the legislature, while the separatist Stay Free Alberta attempt was subsequently quashed in the courts.<\/p>\n

Smith will continue to appeal that ruling and in order to stay ahead of the judicial process will now hold a non-binding secession vote in October based on the successful federalist petition. Except the actual question won’t be based on Lukaszuk’s exact wording, but will rather be something both novel and maybe able to pass judicial review.<\/p>\n

The imminent question now to be posed to us reads: “Should Alberta remain a province of Canada or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”<\/p>\n

So we’ll have a referendum on having another binding referendum. This, as far as I can tell, will please neither federalists nor separatists. It will increase the odds that an initial vote to leave Canada will pass if voters regard it as a harmless protest exercise; this will thus ensure that secession remains a live feature of Alberta politics for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

Yes, I know this is confusing.<\/p>\n

The trick is just don’t think about it too much. If you haven’t been following since at least March, you’ll never get fully caught up now. Just feel it out. If you get the sense that you are swimming in the surreality of an episode of Veep<\/em>, you probably have it about right.<\/p>\n

I can’t even give you ordinary political analysis, anymore. We just have to imagine that we’re all trapped in an improbable soap opera we can’t shut off, hostage to terrible over-actors whose intentions and actions only make sense to those of us who have been religiously following every B-rate plot twist for years. I’m waiting for a demonic talking puppet named Timmy to roll into town on the back of a Ford F150 driven by a malevolent witch who casts love spells and curses in order to triangulate a never-ending high school drama populated by bored corporate memo takers and Calgary School dorks who decided politics was the highest and best use of their short time on this God-given earth.<\/p>\n

They could have started a soup kitchen, or taken up diamond painting from those kits they sell at Michael’s, but nah. It’s this.<\/p>\n

So here we are. Staring down the barrel of a referendum that has a higher chance of securing a thin majority than anyone seems to realize, even if it is very unlikely to lead to a legal separation of the province. Either way, simply holding the vote opens the whole country up to an unpredictable cauldron of economic and political consequences, in addition to God-knows what foreign interference. It’s so goddamn crazy, the plot would get rejected for a one-man YouTube shorts series.<\/p>\n

And all of this because Danielle Smith is beholden to an emboldened and committed political base of separatists that has threatened to blow up her leadership and her party if she doesn’t hold a secession vote. Meanwhile, the moderates in caucus are proving to be something less than profiles in moral courage. Only two, Matt Jones and Nate Horner, noted opponents of holding a vote, seem willing to speak up, and both of them resigned on Wednesday. Everyone else is either cowed, indifferent, or a separatist too lacking in integrity to say so outright in public.<\/p>\n

The UCP has become a party of snivelling, weak little thieves who operate by night. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hope Jen Gerson will forgive my hubristic use of “our Alberta” in my headline, as there’s at least a possibility that at the end of this process, Alberta won’t be “ours” any more: So I guess we’re doing this, eh? I mean, of course Alberta is holding a secession referendum. It’s Alberta; the province […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,28,53],"tags":[542,188,114],"class_list":["post-102639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-media","category-politics","tag-alberta","tag-electionwatch","tag-separatism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-qHt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102640,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102639\/revisions\/102640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}