It's a trap
The Sovereignty Act has been out for 16 hours now, and there’s some excellent analysis that has been written: one by Eric Adams and another by Jason Markusoff. A line worth repeating from Markusoff: “for all the advance debate about what it meant in Smith's head for the province to have sovereign powers, nobody expected that Smith fancied giving herself the powers of a sovereign.” The madness of Queen Danielle.
Assuming that some version of the bill is passed, with or without the extraordinary powers granted to Cabinet, it appears designed to set a trap for the NDP.
Smith’s plan is to hold votes in the legislature in the spring session on a series of items that represent ‘federal overreach.’ This will put the NDP in the position of having to vote against these motions. And when they do so, it will give substance to one of Smith’s favorite lines: ‘the Trudeau-Notley coalition.’
The challenge for the NDP is to inoculate themselves against this charge by making it clear now (and repeatedly over the next several months) that they won’t ever vote for anything under this illegitimate and unconstitutional Act.
In this respect, Smith set a trap for herself by adding the extraordinary emergency powers. She didn’t need them if the purpose was to set a trap for the NDP and by including them, she has helped Notley make the case that the Act is undemocratic, unconstitutional overreach.
Admiral Ackbar out.
Yep. It's also a trap for the Federal Liberals and NDP. Anything they say about the Act, no matter how it's couched or prefaced will be raw meat for Smith and the 'Ottawa is ganging up on us' crowd. I wish I felt better about voters in AB seeing through this nonsense. The smartest thing the Liberals can do about this Act is say nothing and let Smith fall face first into her own trap.
Couldn't the NDP simply abstain from all these votes and say that they do not recognise them as legitimate? That way they can’t be said to have voted against them, and by abstaining they’re underscoring the illegitimacy of them.