Get down from that tree, Premier!
Scott Moe and Danielle Smith are Gen X Premiers. Born in the early 1970s, they no doubt watched Ben Kingsley in Gandhi in their high school social studies class, followed by an earnest discussion of civil disobedience. And when they were in their early twenties, busy being young Reformers, some of their contemporaries were chaining themselves to trees in Clayoquot Sound to protest clearcutting the old-growth forest.
Fast forward to 2023. Doc Martens are hip again and so - it appears - is civil disobedience. Only this time it’s conservative Premiers defying the law to protect the fragile fossil fuel industry!
Moe bested Smith by using the Sovereignty Act before she did. Smith noticed, and told reporters “I’ve joked with Scott Moe about whether he’s prepared to go to jail. He sounds like he is. I guess I’m gonna go in 2035 if it comes down to us, and I hope it doesn’t come down to that.”
All joking aside, this quip gets at the essence of what’s going on here. Two provincial premiers willing to use civil disobedience, defying federal law. Or at least directing a crown corporation to do so, or thinking of forming a crown corporation so that they can direct the crown corporation to do so.
Much of what is going on in the various spats between Saskatchewan and Alberta and the federal government are the normal business of federalism. One order of government experiments with ways to achieve its policy objectives at or near the boundary of its jurisdictional reach; the other order of government says ‘hell no!’ and takes the matter to court. In the Saskatchewan First Act and in yesterday’s motion under the Sovereignty Act, the two provinces’ governments are using their legislatures as a place to proclaim their legal stance: it’s federal overreach. Saying it in the legislature doesn’t make it so, but it does signal their determination to put up a fight in court.
What’s not normal is the idea that provincial governments will defy federal law. Moe’s declaration that Saskatchewan residents will not pay the federal carbon tax on fuel used to heat their homes actually does put his government on the wrong side of the law. Moe is chaining himself (or perhaps his Justice Minister?) to his desk in an act of civil disobedience. Smith has time to plant a tree to chain herself to. Nothing’s going to happen until 2035. (Gotta love the chutzpah in assuming she’s still premier 12 years hence!)
As a fellow Gen X-er, I watched Gandhi too. I have respect for the idea that someone is willing to go to jail for their convictions. But civil disobedience is the strategy adopted by groups that don’t have other alternatives available to them. I struggle to put provincial governments with seemingly unlimited budgets to mount legal battles and advertising campaigns in that category.
Premiers, get down from that tree!
In Fellini's Amarcord, when the crazy uncle gets up in a tree and won't come down, somebody calls Sister ______, who's a dwarf nun, to come and get him out of the tree. And she does, basically by standing at the bottom and yelling, "You come down right now!"
Not a normal function of government, but maybe it's an idea whose time has come?
This is all more Grade A Steve Bannon 'Flood the field with 'poop' tactics. Make all kinds of noise about war with the federal government, and things that won't happen because of regulations that haven't been drafted yet and people forget what you did last week. And two weeks ago may as well be last year.
You'll notice no one now is asking awkward questions about; why the organization of health care in the province is being set back almost 30 years with no independent evidence recommending that, or exactly what is happening with the public forums about the APP that Albertans were promised and now seem to be canceled, or exactly how we're going to have a zero emission power grid by 2050.
Life is so much easier when you can govern by distraction, rather than having actual accomplishments.