Jason Kenney’s referendum to nowhere

In a province that routinely holds Senate elections and has plebiscites on whether there should be fluoride in the drinking water, finding the dumbest thing on the ballot in an Alberta municipal election can be a challenge. But that’s much easier this year, given the Kenney government has decided to ask Albertans whether they want to scrap the federal equalization program and “send a message” to Ottawa.

After all, there is no universe in which Alberta can actually do what the ballot question suggests. As the University of Calgary’s Trevor Tombe wrote in a recent op-ed, “A referendum vote provides no power to Alberta, legal or otherwise, that we don’t already have.”

Fairness Alberta executive director Bill Bewick, a self-described “scientist of politics” whose organization is one of the biggest proponents of the equalization referendum, admitted as much in a recent Edmonton Sun op-ed. “It’s true the wording for the referendum question asks if you support removing the principle of equalization from the Constitution. Can Alberta unilaterally amend the Constitution? Obviously not. Does anyone expect seven provinces to agree to delete this? Obviously not.”

So why, exactly, are Albertans being asked to vote on something that can’t possibly happen? Because it gives a wildly unpopular premier one last chance to play his favourite strategic card — and risk losing more of Alberta’s chips at the political poker table. In a recent Facebook Live appearance, Jason Kenney admitted the referendum “will not end equalization,” and that it was about “gaining leverage like Quebec did.”

But as Warren Buffett wrote in his 1987 letter to shareholders, “If you’ve been playing poker for half an hour and you still don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy.” Quebec’s leverage was a result of two things that don’t exist in Alberta: a real independence movement that had significant public support and a track record of voting strategically in federal elections.

If Kenney shows up to the next Council of the Federation demanding changes to the Constitution, he’s going to get laughed out of the room by the other premiers — if he even survives that long as premier.

That’s where the real problems start. A winning vote for the “yes” side on Monday is a near certainty, given how long certain Conservatives have been brainwashing Albertans about the alleged injustice of equalization payments. As a recent Viewpoint Alberta poll showed, the reality of how equalization actually works — and what it means to, and for, Alberta — is a mystery to most people here. Less than half of their 602 respondents got more than half of their eight questions right, and nobody — that’s right, nobody — answered all eight correctly.

But what happens once Albertans vote in favour of ending equalization and it doesn’t happen? As University of Calgary political scientist Paul Fairie tweeted, “The equalization referendum in Alberta feels like it has the same two potential outcomes as the Brexit vote: either continued anger for many that the vote was no, or continued anger for most that what results from a yes vote is not what was promised.”

Constitutional scholar Eric Adams was even more pointed in his own analysis of the referendum, writing that “those who try and ride a tiger often end up in its belly. Stoking constitutional resentment and misunderstanding for the imagined partisan advantage of an unpopular government does no one any good.”

At some point, Conservatives will need to stop lying to Albertans about their role and place in the federation. Equalization is not some nefarious plot to transfer wealth from Albertans to Quebecers, and eliminating it — if that were even possible — wouldn’t change how much tax Albertans pay or what they receive in programs. And if Conservatives like Ted Morton are so concerned about the fact that Alberta continues to run deficits, they should be advocating for the same mix of taxes (one that includes a sales tax) that people pay in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

This long-standing campaign to demonize equalization and paint Quebec as a province of freeloaders has very little to do with actually improving public policy. Instead, it’s about enhancing the political influence of the people behind it and distracting Albertans from the more pressing realities at hand, like the province’s massively incompetent handling of COVID’s fourth wave. Never mind that they’re actually stoking the fires of alienation and anger they pretend to want to extinguish.

As we saw with Brexit, and continue to see with the spread of Trumpism in the United States, the ends of power will always justify the means of populist fear-mongering. The question that will remain after Monday’s referendum is how much it will cost the rest of us.