Outright Annexation Checked, UCP Racism Gets A Green-Light

Carney and Smith at the Calgary Stampede -- image via X

by Gabriel Haythornthwaite, The DNA Report

With all polls but one reporting for the Danielle Smith MAGA ballot in Alberta, today’s edition of The DNA Report considers the political meaning of the somewhat mixed results and likely implications for the trend of American Annexation in Canada. Overall, this article contends two main points about the ballot outcomes:

1) The crushing loss of the separatist option is a considerable defeat for overt American Annexation forces and a damaging loss of credibility from within and without for the Smith UCP, whose party is deeply split on the matter. The loss of each constitutional proposal adds to scope of this self-inflicted political disaster.

2) The passage of five anti-immigrant prompts, on the the other hand, demonstrates an area of vile Trump-USA political influence and a dangerous green-light to both repressive governmental discrimination and fascist street violence.

As suggested in this journal’s last article, even modest majorities for the immigrant-bashing propositions represent the most significant albeit symbolic political victory for the far and extreme Right in Canada for many decades. This will inspire Nazi agitation for some time.

Separation Option Crushed

Exactly in line with consistent corporate polling, the separation option was struck down by a blow-out 3-1 margin. As seen on CTV News (https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/alberta-referendum/live-results), the vote breakdown by electoral riding shows that only two—Central-Peace Notley and Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre—voted narrowly in favour of separation with a combined vote that is less than 2% of the provincial total. This scale of defeat is far beyond that suffered by sovereigntists in the 1980 Québec referendum which was rejected by 60% of voters.

There was a soft-sell pitch for separation from the Smith UCP that winked the vote was just a decoy for leveraging special powers and more consideration for the province from Ottawa. The spurning of all four constitutional questions by 53 to 58% of voters adds to Smith’s devastating loss.

The political fall-out against overt separation-annexation has been swift. Governor Smith is now in danger of being demoted to mere Premier given her failure to deliver anything other than meagre majorities for immigrant-bashing which will be discussed below. She has not only disavowed the holding of a new ‘separation’ vote but has told the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) wing of the party to get out of the UCP.

Speaking of the annexationists, on October 22, Tanya Clemens—a board member of the APP—shared anti-social media notice about the board of directors’ September 14 decision to terminate with cause both Mitch Sylvestre as CEO and Jeff Rath as legal counsel (whose client satisfaction record was reviewed by this journal on September 24). The APP notice also indicated that the dynamic duo were removed as board directors 10 days later.

Both have continued to speak on behalf of the APP even after the referendum drubbing with Rath publicly insisting no such board meetings took place (perhaps he did not get the memo). The future of the APP is unclear—its website has no listed upcoming events but one must assume that a new legal battle is about to erupt. We may soon be treated to a Life of Brian-style far-Right sectarian grudge match between the Alberta Prosperity Project and the Project for Albertan Prosperity.

Is This What Democracy Looks Like?

On election night, a CBC radio talking head intoned that the referendum “was democracy in action”. Each ballot question had just over two million votes cast. Forever Canada—the pale ghost of Canadian nationalism which led the ‘unity’ side against the Smith MAGA ballot—hailed the scale of the victory and saluted the sage sense of the Albertan voter. Considering both the content of the referendum and its full results, we should not be too hasty to congratulate the democratic wisdom of the electorate nor the overall virtuousness of the exercise.

As The DNA Report has previously stated, the ballot’s five immigrant-scapegoating cues are the most immediately odious aspect of the regressive ballot which featured a medley of racist public service restrictions upon newcomers, mostly brought into the province through the exploitative foreign worker program or on student visas.

The revolting results were to the heavy side of this journal’s dour prediction with all five being passed with margins between 52 and 58%. The question that scored the ballot’s highest level of approval was the speciously ludicrous alarmism around imaginary non-citizen voter fraud.

The establishment is fond of presenting democracy as simply the exercise of voting. The content and premises of the options up for public approval is secondary if not tertiary to the fetish of bureaucratic process and political authority dressed up as celebrity.

A real democratic referendum would take up actual challenges of the day with community grounded proposals to advance public well-being—not blaming recent arrivals for the decades-long degradation of public services nor encouraging the flouting of federal public healthcare law. Obviously, there can be no democratic referenda under a regime eager to engage in cynical racist experiments while championing sped-up healthcare privatization without public consultation.

The Smith Gambit

Governor Smith was quick to hold up the consolation prize of public approval for the get-the-immigrant ordinance the UCP has in the policy chute. She is no doubt hoping legislative or regulatory discrimination will gain her support in next October’s election.

However, the anti-immigrant victory seems a highly pyrrhic one as the defeat of the entire constitutional platform throttles the legitimacy of Smith’s formula of ‘a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada’ which aims for special provincial powers. Also, idiotically racist as a majority of voters appear to be in Alberta, how many ballots swing on scapegoating immigrants for the rot in public services or making sure non-citizens are prevented from handing elections to the Chinese Communist Party?

Smith will also not have the advantage in the general election of opponents that fight a purely defensive battle with no possibility of options of their own as the referendum had in Forever Canada. The UCP will face Naheed Nenshi’s NDP which will be buoyed as a party of ‘national unity’ and able to attack the Smith regime for its governing record including the American-inspired Bill 11 privatization healthcare law.

Definitive End or Political Postponement?

The annexationists vow to fight on. Governor Smith sounds the anti-immigrant foghorn with her win on the scapegoating questions. Neither of those regressive stances can hide the heavy defeat that the hard-far Right alliance in Alberta was struck on October 19, a defeat made all the worse for having initiating the battle themselves.

As noted, the defeat of all four constitutional questions adds to the brutal steamrolling of the ‘separation’ option. Adding to the meltdown, with Smith’s announced purge of annexationists, the hard-far Right political alliance is ending. This will benefit far-Right splitter outfits—like the subtly-named Republican Party of Alberta, in the general election—further weakening a ruling UCP that has lost support in recent weeks and now are running close to even with the NDP. The loss of provincial power in October 2027 would be the crowning humiliation of Smith’s quisling gambit. There is also the distinct possibility that she might get turfed by her own party beforehand.The DNA Report in its first month focused on the nature of the Smith referendum in Alberta to study how this initiative could begin to operationalize the ‘51st state’ annexation promised by Trump. The welcome defeat of the country’s leading American annexationists on October 19 has considerably lowered the immediate and perhaps mid-term threat of an overt takeover.

The outcomes have down sides. Fodder for Nazism, noted earlier, is a disturbing one. Reinforcing already omnipresent complacency and denial about ongoing far-Right threats are another. This matter is not at a definitive end. The terrain now shifts to Saskatchewan where sub-Premier Scott Moe is under annexationist pressure to follow the ‘separation’ referendum path. Québec has a new PQ government eager to cheer on regressive Western ‘separatism’ as they prepare a national independence referendum in three to four years time.

Meanwhile today in BC, NDP Premier David Eby appears to be on the verge of handing power two years early to a party of corporate privateers who were literally leaderless at the triggering of the snap election on September 22. The BC Conservatives do not have a program to push for ‘separation’ or special provincial powers but the party does contain an annexationist faction. And all Con factions are dedicated to corporate-based ‘solutions’ to public problems which de facto moves the provincial state policy needle further towards anti-democratic Trump-USA politics.

Sign up to follow The DNA Report at: It Can’t Happen Here? - The DNA Report

Gabriel Haythornthwaite is a former labour-allied school board trustee in BC and currently advises First Nations around political and intergovernmental relations. He is also a leftwing writer and political organizer.