Danielle Smith’s signature issue, the Sovereignty Act [SA], may win her the premiership. If so, it will be her government’s first item of business. But if you don’t support her or the SA, the following are likely your reasons. Will they stand up to scrutiny?.1. The Sovereignty Act is unconstitutional..This sounds scary, but it misses the point completely. Right now, the SA is simply a platform idea, not a piece of legislation. But that doesn’t prevent all sorts of armchair constitutional ‘experts’ from making pronouncements usually reserved for our higher courts. The SA isn’t about destroying Canada, but rather about changing the internal politics of decision making in our federation. This has been amply explained again and again. Remember the Northern Gateway Pipeline from Alberta to the BC coast? It went through years and years of a regulatory process that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. It was finally approved by the National Energy Board. It met all the environmental requirements, was supported by First Nations and had significant economic benefits not just to Alberta, but to all of Canada..But the Liberal cabinet cancelled it. Why?.Because they could. Was that lawful? Yes. Was that constitutional? Not if you acknowledge the development of natural resources is the sole jurisdiction of the provinces. When B.C. Premier Christy Clark approved the Trans Mountain Expansion, she demanded a payment from Alberta resource producers. Was it lawful,or extortion? Lawful I guess, since the producers agreed to pay it. Was it constitutional? Not when you understand only resource owning provinces can extract royalties from production on their lands..2. It will create economic uncertainty and scare away investors who think this is separatism..It's helpful to remember billions of dollars of investments already left Alberta, but it hasn’t stopped the federal government from threatening even greater regulatory costs on our oil and gas industry and even the agricultural industry. If anything, the SA debate would provide assurances to those beleaguered industries the crippling policies might come to an end. The Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses Canada supported it. Other business groups have been silent, indicating it is not a concern. Recently, De Hevailland Canada announced it will be moving an aircraft manufacturing plant to Alberta, so for them it is a non-issue..3. Canada’s Supreme Court is the only way to deal with federal encroachment on provincial matters..This is the approach that has been used fairly ineffectively in the past. When the federal Liberals passed the “No More Pipelines” Bill C-69, it had the immediate effect of causing the proponents of the Energy East Pipeline to abandon the project. But Albertans had to wait three years for their top judge to declare what we all knew at the time “C-69 is a clear and present danger and existential threat to Canada’s Constitution and the country.” The federal Liberals appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, so we face several more years before we get an answer. Is this any way to run a country?.It's true the SA might face litigation from the federal government, but to say only the federal government can change the way the federation makes decisions by passing bad legislation is a bit short-sighted. Alberta will be forever on the defensive looking for the occasional crumb..A better approach is to pass some possibly bad legislation of our own and let the feds bring the fight back to us. At least the rest of Canada may try to understand the issues..4. It will give the next provincial election to Rachel Notley..It may be a bit too early to be predicting the issues that will dominate that contest. Look at the ascendancy of Pierre Poilievre and the possibility of an early federal election. How will the provincial NDP be perceived, given Jagmeet Singh’s support of the Trudeau Liberals? Of greater help to Notley is the constant bleating from the UCP leadership “also-rans” which is the backbone of her current campaign, painting the a “UCP fighting amongst themselves”..A bigger question is “Will the bleating end when Smith wins?”.5. It splits the UCP rather than unifies it..There will never be unity in thinking and opinion and we should be thankful for that. That doesn’t mean that the party can’t be united. Being united means putting petty differences aside for a greater good. Being united means agreeing on the important things and not undermining the whole for some insignificant piece. If Smith wins decisively, say with greater than 65% on the first ballot, then the party and the losers had better unite behind her. If it's less than a decisive mandate then perhaps she can put her SA to a free vote in the legislature. Then UCP riding associations can individually decide if their MLAs should run in the next election..Bill Marriott is a retired economist who specialized in public policy analysis of the oil and gas industry.
Danielle Smith’s signature issue, the Sovereignty Act [SA], may win her the premiership. If so, it will be her government’s first item of business. But if you don’t support her or the SA, the following are likely your reasons. Will they stand up to scrutiny?.1. The Sovereignty Act is unconstitutional..This sounds scary, but it misses the point completely. Right now, the SA is simply a platform idea, not a piece of legislation. But that doesn’t prevent all sorts of armchair constitutional ‘experts’ from making pronouncements usually reserved for our higher courts. The SA isn’t about destroying Canada, but rather about changing the internal politics of decision making in our federation. This has been amply explained again and again. Remember the Northern Gateway Pipeline from Alberta to the BC coast? It went through years and years of a regulatory process that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. It was finally approved by the National Energy Board. It met all the environmental requirements, was supported by First Nations and had significant economic benefits not just to Alberta, but to all of Canada..But the Liberal cabinet cancelled it. Why?.Because they could. Was that lawful? Yes. Was that constitutional? Not if you acknowledge the development of natural resources is the sole jurisdiction of the provinces. When B.C. Premier Christy Clark approved the Trans Mountain Expansion, she demanded a payment from Alberta resource producers. Was it lawful,or extortion? Lawful I guess, since the producers agreed to pay it. Was it constitutional? Not when you understand only resource owning provinces can extract royalties from production on their lands..2. It will create economic uncertainty and scare away investors who think this is separatism..It's helpful to remember billions of dollars of investments already left Alberta, but it hasn’t stopped the federal government from threatening even greater regulatory costs on our oil and gas industry and even the agricultural industry. If anything, the SA debate would provide assurances to those beleaguered industries the crippling policies might come to an end. The Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses Canada supported it. Other business groups have been silent, indicating it is not a concern. Recently, De Hevailland Canada announced it will be moving an aircraft manufacturing plant to Alberta, so for them it is a non-issue..3. Canada’s Supreme Court is the only way to deal with federal encroachment on provincial matters..This is the approach that has been used fairly ineffectively in the past. When the federal Liberals passed the “No More Pipelines” Bill C-69, it had the immediate effect of causing the proponents of the Energy East Pipeline to abandon the project. But Albertans had to wait three years for their top judge to declare what we all knew at the time “C-69 is a clear and present danger and existential threat to Canada’s Constitution and the country.” The federal Liberals appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, so we face several more years before we get an answer. Is this any way to run a country?.It's true the SA might face litigation from the federal government, but to say only the federal government can change the way the federation makes decisions by passing bad legislation is a bit short-sighted. Alberta will be forever on the defensive looking for the occasional crumb..A better approach is to pass some possibly bad legislation of our own and let the feds bring the fight back to us. At least the rest of Canada may try to understand the issues..4. It will give the next provincial election to Rachel Notley..It may be a bit too early to be predicting the issues that will dominate that contest. Look at the ascendancy of Pierre Poilievre and the possibility of an early federal election. How will the provincial NDP be perceived, given Jagmeet Singh’s support of the Trudeau Liberals? Of greater help to Notley is the constant bleating from the UCP leadership “also-rans” which is the backbone of her current campaign, painting the a “UCP fighting amongst themselves”..A bigger question is “Will the bleating end when Smith wins?”.5. It splits the UCP rather than unifies it..There will never be unity in thinking and opinion and we should be thankful for that. That doesn’t mean that the party can’t be united. Being united means putting petty differences aside for a greater good. Being united means agreeing on the important things and not undermining the whole for some insignificant piece. If Smith wins decisively, say with greater than 65% on the first ballot, then the party and the losers had better unite behind her. If it's less than a decisive mandate then perhaps she can put her SA to a free vote in the legislature. Then UCP riding associations can individually decide if their MLAs should run in the next election..Bill Marriott is a retired economist who specialized in public policy analysis of the oil and gas industry.
