Bruce Pardy is executive director of Rights Probe and professor of law at Queen’s University. Alberta should heed the lessons of Brexit. So suggests Ian Cooper, a senior research fellow at Dublin City University's Brexit Institute. In May, the CBC published a piece citing Cooper’s sense of déjà vu. “I think that Brexit has a lot of lessons to teach Albertans about the dangers,” he said, of an independence referendum. He’s right, but not in the way that he means.Cooper, who grew up in Alberta, was warning about how the Brexit vote in 2016 went wrong. By that, he means that the British people unexpectedly voted to leave the European Union. Presumably, he thought the UK should remain. He cited the parallels between Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and the UK's then-prime minister David Cameron, who called the Brexit vote."He was a conservative, and he was in favour of 'remain,' but he called the referendum thinking that that would put the issue to rest for a time," the CBC quotes Cooper, "But also he was trying to appease the hardliners in his own party."Cameron campaigned for “Remain.” He expected it to win. So did much of the political establishment. They were confident of victory. To their astonishment, Brits voted 52% in favour of leaving. The Conservative Party was stuck. They had little choice but to carry out the verdict. Cameron resigned.Cooper is right that there are parallels. To appease independence supporters in her own party, Smith has announced a tenth question for the referendum on October 19. She hopes the “Stay” side will win. She is campaigning on its behalf. She seems confident of victory. But she is not repeating Cameron’s mistake. The difference lies in the question. Cameron’s Brexit question was direct, clear, and straightforward. “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” Voters could pick “Remain” or “Leave.” Smith’s referendum question is not direct, clear, or straightforward. .“Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?” Imagine that instead of the Brexit question that he used, Cameron had had the foresight (and the convenient excuses) to pose a question like Smith’s. “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union, or should the Government of the United Kingdom commence a process to hold a binding referendum on whether or not the United Kingdom should leave the European Union?”Had the Conservative Party asked this question, it would have been able to dodge the result. A victory for the “vote to have a vote” would have given the shocked political establishment a warning of the danger. The future referendum could have been avoided, delayed, or manipulated. A binding vote on a clear question might never have taken place. If a second vote were ever held, it could have been delayed long enough to change the mood or the demographics. By hook or by crook, the powers-that-be would have ensured that “Leave” would not win a second time. The UK would not have left the EU. Fool me once, shame on you, goes the saying. Fool me twice, shame on me.In Alberta, a majority of rank-and-file members of the ruling UCP want to leave Canada. But with only a few exceptions, the political class does not. The premier, the cabinet, the opposition party, and the broader political elite insist that Alberta’s future lies inside Confederation. Despite their own track record, they claim that reforms can be negotiated from within. Moreover, they believe that the broader Alberta population does not support independence. If the “referendum to have a referendum” unexpectedly wins in October, they will have a warning of the danger. No clear, straightforward independence referendum will follow anytime soon..If it ever does, by then the chances of winning an independence referendum in Alberta may have faded. When Quebec’s sovereignty referendum narrowly lost in 1995, Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau blamed "money and the ethnic vote." Did immigration affect the outcome? The demographics of Alberta are changing. In its 2023 Throne Speech, the UCP aspired to double Alberta’s population from five to ten million by 2050, an aspiration Danielle Smith repeated in an interview with Shaun Newman in January 2024. Yet the reproduction rate in Alberta, like elsewhere in Canada, is below replacement. Newcomers will continue to come to Alberta from across Canada and around the world. Few are likely to arrive with the aspiration that Alberta cease to be a province of Canada.Independence supporters are campaigning for the October referendum. They seek to encourage people to vote for option 2: vote to have a future vote. That is a mistake. It steps into the trap. The question is a no-win scenario. If they win in October, they don’t win. They must earn another vote to achieve an outcome that their political leaders oppose. But if they lose in October, they lose for the foreseeable future. Possibly for good.What other strategies are there for independence? Campaign against the legitimacy of the question. Object to its double standard. Object to being played by the UCP. Object to the continued leadership of Danielle Smith. Campaign to remove the question from the October ballot. Insist upon a stand-alone, clear, and binding referendum question in 2027. Better to have no vote in October than to win a battle that loses the war.Only a clear result on a clear question will do. Only then will a reluctant political class be compelled to do what they oppose. For the independence side, that is the lesson of Brexit.Bruce Pardy is executive director of Rights Probe and professor of law at Queen’s University.
