Welcome to Fantasy Island

Smiles, everyone! Smiles!

Back when Trudeau 1.0 was Prime Minister, and there were only 12 channels (if you were lucky), Saturday night TV was the Love Boat, followed by Fantasy Island. Hervé Villechaize would shout “the plane! the plane!” and Ricardo Montalban would welcome three guests whose fantasies would be fulfilled, usually in a way that taught them an Important Lesson.

In the years when Fantasy Island was on TV (1977-1984), Albertans were as frustrated with Ottawa as they are now. Official bilingualism. Metric. The National Energy Policy. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The favored solution at the time was the Triple-E Senate: Equal representation from each province, power to be Effective, because its members would be Elected. A constitutional fantasy that, had it been realized, likely would have disappointed its proponents mightily.

Four decades later, with Trudeau 2.0 in office, Alberta alienation is grounded in frustrations about the perceived unfairness of the equalization system and a perception that the federal government does not support the oil and gas industry.

The fury and rise of separatist sentiments after Trudeau’s re-election in 2019 created both an opportunity and a challenge for Conservative politicians in the province. The opportunity was to harness the rage and build popularity by ‘standing up to Ottawa.’ The challenge lay in controlling the beast built from the rage.

This opportunity/challenge set us on a path to what I’ve called “fantasy federalism” — proposals informed by wishful thinking rather than sound constitutional analysis, designed to excite conservative supporters but with no realistic chance of achieving their intended objectives.

The first stop on this path was the Equalization Referendum held in conjunction with last fall’s municipal elections. It asked “Should section 36(2) of the Constitution Act, 1982 – Parliament and the government of Canada’s commitment to the principle of making equalization payments – be removed from the constitution?” Based on a dubious interpretation of the Supreme Court’s Quebec secession reference decision, Premier Kenney claimed that a clear result in the referendum would force Canada to the table to negotiate equalization. Almost a year later, Alberta’s still sitting alone at that table.

The next fantasy is Danielle Smith’s Sovereignty Act. Based on her campaign’s description, it seems this Act would give the Alberta legislature the authority to opt the province out of federal legislation that it thought was unconstitutional, or just contrary to Alberta’s interests. In the words of one of its inventors, the unconstitutionality is a feature, not a bug.

If Smith is able to convince a majority in the legislature to pass a Sovereignty Act that gives the Alberta legislature the powers she is promising, we will be embarking on a dark fantasy. Her supporters imagine the legislation would be a wake-up call for Ottawa, and Alberta’s demands would start being heard. In reality, the legislation would likely be struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. Alberta’s unstable provincial government would be taken less seriously by other provinces and the federal government. And disappointment would fuel the frustration among those Albertans who followed Smith down this path.

If we learned anything on Fantasy Island, it’s that fantasies are often poorly-thought out responses to difficult situations. The guests are seldom satisfied to have their fantasy realized. It’s the guests who learn the Important Lesson, not those they’re trying to impress. But like the guests on Fantasy Island, it seems Albertans are going to have to learn this Important Lesson the hard way.