MY PUBLIC COMMENTARY ON THE ALBERTA REFERENDUM

---

Across my public writing over the past year, I have returned to a common argument: democracy and federalism work best not when politics is reduced to winner-take-all expressions of “the people’s will,” but when institutions force leaders and citizens to live with disagreement, respect limits on power, and do the harder work of negotiation, consensus-building, and accountability.  Those concerns came together in my critique of Alberta’s turn toward far-right populism and direct democracy. 

 The broader theoretical framework appeared most explicitly in Populism, Sovereignty, and Democracy in Alberta, where I argued that contemporary Alberta separatism is qualitatively different from traditional western alienation: populism has created incentives to define a narrower “real people,” intensify hostility toward outsiders and institutions, and pursue a conception of sovereignty that elevates popular will and identity over institutional constraints and pluralist compromise. The alternative is pluralism—not the elimination of conflict, but institutions, norms and habits that make conflict governable in a diverse society.

That framework informed Governing by Referendum and its published counterpart, Why Danielle Smith’s Populist Referendums Are Dangerous to Democracy, which argued that referendums can appear maximally democratic while actually thinning democracy: governments still choose the agenda and frame the questions, complex trade-offs are compressed into binary choices, and elected leaders can avoid responsibility for making difficult decisions.  

In This Is Danielle Smith’s Referendum, I rejected the idea that the premier was a passive spectator being forced into a vote by grassroots pressure, arguing that her government repeatedly redesigned the rules and removed barriers that might otherwise have stopped it; and in Only a Public Inquiry Can Restore Trust in Alberta’s Democracy, I argued that allegations surrounding the misuse of Alberta’s voters list were serious enough that the integrity of the referendum process itself required independent investigation. 

With Ken Boessenkool, I developed the practical case in Direct Democracy Was Better in Theory Than Practice, arguing that direct democracy breaks down in the face of scale, complexity and the need for policy stability.   We followed that up with a second piece, Why Alberta Needs to Ditch Direct Democracy, which offered a democratic reform agenda.

Don’t Look Away pushed the analysis further by arguing that exclusionary and racist rhetoric appearing at some separatist events should not simply be dismissed as a series of isolated embarrassments: while explicitly rejecting the claim that all separatists are racist, I situated such rhetoric within the far-right populist tendency to distinguish the “real people” from outsiders, including immigrants, racialized people and Indigenous peoples, and asked readers to pay attention not only to separatists’ economic proposals but to the political community their rhetoric imagines. 

In An Open Letter to Albertans on Division and Dignity, I joined others in arguing that Alberta’s referendum package encouraged division rather than the mutual obligation and dignity that should characterize democratic citizenship.

Against that democratic backdrop, much of my writing has confronted Alberta separatism while trying to distinguish legitimate western grievances from the solutions separatists offer. 

My direct rebuttals to the separatist case have addressed both its substance and its rhetoric: Abuse? Really? challenged the depiction of Alberta as a battered spouse trapped in Confederation; Alberta’s Separatists Are All Hat, No Cattle argued that Alberta’s political tradition is one of confronting adversity and changing Canada rather than abandoning it; The Many Hazards of Alberta’s Option B showed that even an ostensibly preliminary vote for another referendum would impose years of uncertainty, distraction and opportunity costs; Decoding the Separatist Playbook identified the recurring rhetorical devices used to portray separation as a low-risk, high-reward proposition; and When “Leverage” Isn’t Leverage explained why a threat of separation cannot strengthen Alberta’s bargaining position when separatists simultaneously insist that a vote for another referendum does not actually signal a willingness to leave. 

As the campaign entered its final weeks, I tried to help people understand the complexity and importance of the referendum.   Skip the Line, Not the Vote shifted the focus from democratic theory to democratic access, arguing that long waits, administrative burdens and unequal ability to spend hours at a polling station could distort participation, making advance and special ballots particularly important while warning against casually undermining confidence in Elections Alberta.  Later, How to Lose a Referendum in 30 Days warned that large polling leads mean little without participation and stressed the importance of translating passive preferences into actual turnout. 

Ten Questions, One Real Decision brought the entire referendum package together, arguing that beneath ten individual ballots lay a more fundamental choice about political practice: whether Alberta would continue organizing politics around grievance, scapegoating and symbolic constitutional fights, or return attention to the difficult work of governing, intergovernmental bargaining and solving concrete policy problems.  Making Sense of Alberta’s Referendums provided a voter’s guide to the questions. 

But the larger purpose of these pieces has never been simply to defend the status quo. I have argued instead for a more confident form of Alberta federalism—one that takes western alienation seriously while replacing the false choice between submission and separation with a strategy of leading rather than leaving. 

My proposed agenda is developed most fully in Canada Is Difficult: regular First Ministers’ Conferences, stronger intergovernmental machinery, renewed rules of engagement, reform of equalization and Fiscal Stabilization, greater western representation in national institutions, and provincial coalition-building offer an achievable path to changing the federation without constitutional brinkmanship. The difficulty of Canadian federalism is therefore a feature to be managed rather than evidence that the country is irreparably broken: progress requires planning, relationships, negotiation, compromise and persistence.

• With Ken Boessenkool, The “Love” of Federalism Must Grow Both Ways argued that Confederation should not be understood as a ledger in which each province demands precisely what it paid in, but as a system of reciprocal obligation in which Alberta can build alliances and exercise leadership. 
• Canada Needs a New Social Union Deal proposed reviving and modernizing the Social Union Framework Agreement so provinces themselves can establish clearer limits on federal spending power and rebuild collaborative federalism.
• With Trevor Tombe and Peggy Garritty, Equalization Has Its Problems, but It Also Has Its Benefits—even for Alberta argued that equalization should be reformed rather than caricatured or abolished because it helps sustain both provincial autonomy and a federation in which every region has a stake in the prosperity of the others. 
• With Don Padget, Pandering to Pandora warned that Smith’s constitutional referendum questions promise simple fixes to problems that would in reality require extraordinarily difficult multilateral constitutional negotiations—and that many of the underlying grievances can be addressed more effectively without opening the Constitution at all. 
• With Boessenkool, Why It’s Time to Move Past the Canada Health Act pushed that decentralist logic further, arguing that defending universal health care need not mean defending federal micromanagement, and that clearer provincial responsibility could strengthen both accountability and autonomy.
  

With Adam Galovan, How to Engage Alberta, the Jilted Lover of Confederation tried to connect the institutional and emotional sides of this argument: western alienation cannot be fact-checked out of existence because beneath disputes over equalization, pipelines and federal jurisdiction is often a deeper desire for recognition, belonging, security and agency. The answer is neither to dismiss those feelings nor to weaponize them into a permanent politics of victimhood, but to combine recognition with reform—to give Albertans meaningful ways to exercise autonomy, build alliances, change national policy and see themselves once again as leaders in a country that is worth improving rather than abandoning.

My closing argument on why Albertans should vote to remain in Canada appeared in Alberta Views.  

The day before the close of voting, I offered a prospective look at the potential political outcomes of the referendum. The day after, I offered analysis of the results and a post-mortem of the campaigns.

Taken together, these writings make a case for pluralism over populism, governing over grievance, reform over radicalism, and leadership over leaving: Alberta’s frustrations with Confederation can be real without separatism being the answer; democratic participation can be expanded without treating every majority preference as unconstrained popular sovereignty; and the province can pursue greater autonomy, influence and recognition most effectively by building institutions and alliances capable of turning disagreement into durable political change.

As separatism moved to the centre of Alberta politics, former finance minister Travis Toews and I appeared on CBC’s The Current for “Alberta Conservatives Push Back Against Separatists”, explaining the grievances underlying western alienation and the case for Alberta attempting to lead and reform Canada rather than leave it. 

I also devoted substantial attention to how citizens themselves can navigate these divisions, including CBC Edmonton’s “Why Is It So Hard to Talk About Separatism?” and CBC Calgary’s “How to Talk About Alberta Separatism”, which focused on practical ways of talking across political differences. In October, I joined former Ontario cabinet minister John Milloy for the season premiere of Disagreeing Well, “What Is Going on in Alberta?”, a wide-ranging hour-long discussion of Common Ground research, false perceptions of polarization, western alienation, separatism and how dialogue across differences can strengthen democracy. 

 The referendum campaign generated a series of longer conversations about the movement itself: I appeared before a live Edmonton audience on  “The Breakdown Live in Edmonton”; joined Jen Gerson and Ken Boessenkool on On the Line for “Is Alberta Hurtling Toward the Edge?”, discussing separatism, turnout, Alberta–Ottawa relations and the future of the conservative coalition; and joined Stephen Carter and Avnish Nanda on Alberta Unbound for “Saying No to the Nine”, examining the broader package of referendum questions.  

In the Separation Anxiety series, “Maple-Dipped MAGA” helped situate contemporary Alberta separatism in a wider international wave of far-right populism, emphasizing its affinities with MAGA and Brexit rather than treating it simply as another iteration of traditional western alienation, while the Centre for Constitutional Studies’ 7/50 Podcast, “Mapping the History of Alberta-Ottawa Relations”, provided a longer historical perspective on western alienation, the 2021 equalization referendum, provincial autonomy and the Alberta Sovereignty Act. In an episode titled, Alberta Should Lead Canada, Not Leave It, I sat down with Markham Hislop for an extended interview on federalism, separatism and institutional reform. 

In the closing week,I was the featured expert on The Conversation Weekly, produced by The Conversation’s UK team, for “In Alberta, Far-Right Populism Drives Bid to Leave Canada”, which brought these strands together for an international audience by examining how a relatively small separatist movement acquired outsized political influence, the role of populism and conspiracy thinking, the movement’s relationship to Donald Trump and the United States, and what our Common Ground research and community conversations reveal about the much more complex political attitudes of Albertans themselves. 

I went on CBC's This is Calgary to provide a post-mortem of the referendum campaign and outcomes.

Over the past year, my research and public commentary on Alberta politics, separatism, populism, federalism and the referendum campaign attracted substantial national and international media attention. I was interviewed and quoted extensively by journalists across Canada, including in The Globe and Mail, Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, and other national and regional outlets, while also appearing on all three major Canadian television news networks—CBC, CTV News and Global News, where I provided analysis of separatism, democratic institutions, public opinion and the implications of the referendum. International interest was particularly intense as the Alberta separation vote approached: I was interviewed by France’s Le Monde, Britain’s The Times, the Wall Street Journal, TIME, NPR, CNN, and the New York Times, including its examination of the relationship between MAGA politics and Alberta separatism, as well as Al Jazeera, which drew directly on my Common Ground research into “strategic” separatists and the desire to “send Ottawa a message.” My analysis also reached audiences through news organizations in the Netherlands and Belgium, reflecting how what began as a provincial debate over Alberta’s place in Confederation became an international story about populism, national unity, democratic institutions and the influence of Trump-era politics beyond the United States.