Danielle Smith has laid out her vision for a fiction called Canada
By Lethbridge Herald on December 16, 2022.
TREVOR W. HARRISON
In the wee hours of Dec. 8, as the UCP-dominated Alberta legislature passed the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act, Premier Smith laid out her vision of a fiction called Canada:
“It’s not like Ottawa is a national government. The way our country works is that we are a federation of sovereign, independent jurisdictions. They are one of those signatories to the constitution and the rest of us, as signatories to the constitution, have a right to exercise our sovereign powers in our own areas of jurisdiction.”
An expert on all things, health and otherwise, who can doubt the premier’s careful reading of the constitution? Our premier has ripped the scales from our eyes.
It would be churlish to suggest she is a separatist as, in her mind, there is nothing to separate from. There is no Canada; no there, there. She is an Alberta Firster because there exists no Seconder. Why hold love or fealty to a fiction?
Whether other members of her party hold the same view of Canada as a mere fiction will become clear in short order. But other individuals will surely find the premier’s declaration disturbing.
Imagine the one currently called the “Prime Minister” – prime meaning, “of first importance, the main” – waking up Thursday morning to discover he is just another premier; in fact, less as he has no actual turf over which to govern. (One can imagine pitying conversations over holiday gatherings: “Poor thing, quite delusional. Reminds one of King Zog at the end.”)
But equally shocked by Premier Smith’s declaration must be those 338 individuals currently termed Members of Parliament, members of the House of Commons. They purport to be representatives of the people as a whole, but this role only makes sense if there is a people to be represented by a national government that exists. Our premier, with exceptional clarity and wisdom, has pointed out an error that has escaped everyone – constitutional lawyers, historians, politicians, jurists – since 1867.
Of Canada’s now redundant MPs, 34 reside in Alberta, 30 of whom are Conservatives (two Liberals and two NDP). We have not yet heard from them. Perhaps the reality of their (albeit well paid) fictional role has not yet sunk in. Many, no doubt, held the fantastical belief they might one day be part of a national government. Not long ago, for 10 years in total, Conservative MPs were part of an apparently fictional government headed by Stephen Harper. But now it has been revealed as a great fraud; worse, a self-delusion.
This fraud must cease. As citizens of the now sovereign state of Alberta, we must demand the immediate resignation of all Alberta MPs from their fictitious role. (We leave it to citizens in other sovereign republics to demand similar of their MPs.)
Of course, we have to find them first. Maybe Ottawa isn’t a real place. Perhaps these make-believe MPs have been living in the Bahamas.
In any case, Alberta is free, free at last to run privatized health, pension, education, immigration, and other schemes; even an army and air force. (No need for a navy.) And, of course, we can have our currency, though I personally think we should retain the loonie. Somehow, it just seems to fit.
Trevor W. Harrison is a political sociologist at the University of Lethbridge and former director of Parkland Institute.
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Agreed….Premier Smith’s ongoing uninformed missteps are at best, embarrassing. Almost every day there is a problem. What will it be next?
Yes Trevor the Ottawa shackles are about to come off finally! No more meddling in our resource development, no more over-reach when it comes to simple firearms eradication, picking Alberta’s pockets to the tune of about 600 billion since the sixties. And it goes on and on!
Its a time to celebrate Trevor! And I will raise my glass to that!
No need for a navy? Obviously, Prof. Harrison has forgotten the Saskatchewan river pirates and the undefended shores of Lake Athabasca.
As someone has stated previously, if a grade twelve student wrote this constitutional drivel in answer to a social studies exam question, they’d receive a failing grade.
In the spring of 2023, we can Dump Danielle!