C.W. Alexander is with Alberta Renewal.On June 27, Alberta Renewal sent Premier Danielle Smith and Justice Minister Mickey Amery two draft bills. Ordinary Albertans and registered third-party advertisers live under registration, spending caps, contribution limits, and disclosure. The Government of Alberta does not. We asked the government that called the October 19 referendum to bind itself to the same rules it imposes on the public.Seventy-four days later, Amery answered. File AR 71893 dated September 9. Legislation governing Alberta’s democratic processes, including the Referendum Act, “is not being considered for review at this time.” The proposals would be noted and shared with the appropriate officials.The next day, the Premier’s office confirmed a $4 million campaign: online, television, radio, billboards, and a booklet mailed to every household. The line is “a strong and sovereign Alberta within a united Canada.” Yes on the first nine questions. On question 10, remain a province or start the legal process toward a binding vote on leaving, the government wants Albertans to stay. Smith has said she wants the issue “put to rest once and for all.”That is not public information. That is a campaign paid for by the people it is trying to outshout.The first bill would have put departments, provincial corporations, agencies, and the Executive Council under the same registration, spending, disclosure, and neutrality rules that already bind third-party advertisers. Public money belongs to Albertans. It is not a slush fund for the side of a referendum the Premier prefers..The second bill would have barred third parties from taking federal government money in an Alberta referendum, closed the disclosure holes that hide it, and used the Sovereignty Act against the kind of outside spend Ottawa ran through Option Canada in Quebec in 1995. Both drafts went over to be ready for legislative counsel. A July 4 follow-up asked for introduction before the ads were booked.A registered third-party advertiser may spend $607,000. A contributor may give $5,000. The money must come from inside Alberta and must be disclosed. Four million dollars is more than six times that ceiling, on top of the $309,000 already paid for the government’s referendum website. Citizens raise money. The Premier appropriates it and puts it in every mailbox.Elections Alberta has been clear that the rules binding third parties do not bind the government the same way. That is the defect the June 27 bills were written to close. The September 9 letter left it open. The $4 million buy uses it.Danielle Smith did not write the Alberta Sovereignty Act. Rob Anderson, Barry Cooper, and Derek From published the Free Alberta Strategy in 2021. Its centrepiece was a statute allowing Alberta to refuse enforcement of federal laws it judged unconstitutional or hostile to the province. Smith made that Act the flag of her 2022 leadership campaign. The statute that passed added three words the original strategy did not require: “within a united Canada.”.Those three words are now the slogan on the billboards. The government that sold sovereignty to the people who nominated her and voted her leader is using their taxes to tell them to stay. She called the referendum. She reserved the right to campaign against one of the options with money no citizen committee can match.That is not leadership of a free people. That is the referee buying the ads.The October 19 question is already a two-step process the Premier personally opposes. A taxpayer booklet on top of that dilution does not help Albertans understand what is at stake. It helps the sitting government survive the stake. A government that will not stand on equal footing with its own citizens in a vote it called is not defending Alberta. It is defending the chair.The bills are on the file. The letter is on the file. The ads are on the air. Albertans can read the sequence. They were warned. They were refused. They are now paying for the refusal. Equal footing is the minimum. If this government will use Alberta’s money to campaign against Alberta’s choice, UCP members are entitled to ask whether it still speaks for them.C.W. Alexander is with Alberta Renewal.
