Seriously?

Seriously, Alberta. I leave the province for three lousy weeks to take a once-in-a-lifetime, bucket-list vacation, and this is the nonsense you get up to?

There’s a lot of nonsense to sort out, but let’s start with the most recent. Last night, the government indicated that it will amend its bill that rolls out a red carpet for a secession referendum. It will prevent any referendum question on separation from affecting treaty rights.

So what does this mean, exactly?

Before the federal Parliament created Alberta as a province, it negotiated a series of treaties with the Indigenous people, known as the numbered treaties. These were agreements between the Crown (i.e. the federal state) and the Indigenous communities whose traditional territories the Canadian state wanted. They were understood by both parties to be agreements in perpetuity: “as long as rivers flow.” In retrospect, there’s lots of disagreement about what the treaties meant. According to Canada, Indigenous communities were ceding territory to the Canadian state. According to Indigenous communities, they were allowing settlers to occupy the land, in exchange for protection/benefit from Canada. It was not until these treaties were signed that the federal Parliament created the prairie provinces, including Alberta.

Key points: the treaties predate Alberta, and are agreements between Indigenous people and the national Crown.

Now I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the very idea of extinguishing the authority of the government of Canada in the territory we now call Alberta by definition affects the treaties.

Separating means leaving Canada. It means extinguishing the sovereignty of the Canadian state over the territory known as Alberta. (Also, my dudes, it means giving up your Canadian passport and receiving your Canada Pension Plan as someone living in a foreign country. I can’t believe I have to explain this.)

So separation, by definition, affects the treaties. If Canada no longer exercises sovereignty in the territory known as Alberta, then the treaty has been extinguished.

In my interpretation (and again, remember, I’m not a lawyer), the inclusion of a clause indicating that a referendum question cannot affect treaty rights means that the legislation prohibits a separation referendum.

Presumably, this isn’t what the Smith government means, though. What could they be imagining?

One possibility would be that they intend to simply take over Canada’s side of the agreements. The new country of Alberta would abide by the treaties. But how could this happen without the consent of the signatories? And judging by the response of the leaders of Treaties 6, 7 & 8, they aren’t keen on the idea of being handed over to the Alberta state.

Another possibility would be that Alberta could just enjoy the benefit of the treaties (all that glorious land) while the Government of Canada continued to fulfill the obligations it took on to Indigenous people in return for the land. This is an idea that’s about as plausible as the notion that Alberta is entitled to half the holdings of the Canada Pension Plan.

What’s more, under such a plan, the new Free State of Alberta would be territorial Swiss cheese. Are the separatists really ready to take out their Alberta Passports to cross the border into Canada when they want to pick up toilet paper at the Tsuut’ina Costco south of Calgary?

The government’s eleventh hour amendment demonstrates the truly remarkable extent to which no one has thought this through clearly. And yet the Smith government is blundering into the arena, setting the province up for months of turmoil. And ruining my post-vacation chill!