The Smith MAGA Ballot, Part II
A Rightwing March On The Constitution
Danielle Smith in August -- image via Danielle Smith on X
By Gabriel Haythornthwaite, The DNA Report
With only 14 days to go before the Smith MAGA ballot, The DNA Report resumes its review of the regressive referendum with a rundown of the four constitutional questions being peddled to electors. These innocent queries are an addition to the five ‘get-the-immigrant’ questions taken up by this journal on September 25th as well as the ‘separation’ set-up on question 10; all mandated by Governor Smith cabinet decrees this past March and May.
Readers will recall the mendacious method at play with the first four questions which scapegoat recent arrivals for the decrepit state of public services throttled for decades by the very politicians putting these vile proposals up for the vote. This charming line of attack is capped off with question 5 which suggests that newcomers are a source of the total non-issue of voting fraud.
Ballot questions 8 and 9 transcend the ambitions of racist anti-public policy to the advancement of the longstanding American-inspired crusade for maximum provincial autonomy sold here as ‘sovereignty’. However, the constitutional measures start with two decoy queries—one for judge selection, the other on the Senate.
Ballot Question 6: Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to have provincial governments, and not the federal government, select the justices appointed to provincial King’s Bench and Appeal courts?
Ballot Question 7: Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to abolish the unelected federal Senate?
At face value, these two questions are not objectionable: question six is neutral in its advocacy of a provincial selection of hoity-toity judges; while seven poses abolishing the worthless Senate—a good idea, if they meant it. The government’s own ham-fisted referendum website admits that Senate abolition has the constitutional requirement of being self-endorsed which means it is effectively a non-starter. That demonstrates the Smith government will not work hard on this one.
This posture represents, instead, a pretense of democratic reform to burnish a cynical regressive political crusade. This is where questions eight and nine come in.
Ballot Question 8: Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to allow provinces to opt out of federal programs that intrude on provincial jurisdiction such as health care, education and social services, without a province losing any of the associated federal funding for use in its social programs?
This question perfectly sums up the UCP regime’s orientation towards federalism and public services. This kind of constitutional change would effectively end federalism in public service. Provinces would be entirely free to evade any and all national standards and obligations while getting the material benefits for such innovations as juiced-up privatized healthcare takeovers. CEO Carney is already providing cover for Governor Smith’s healthcare privatization law (Bill 11), according to dissidents within the federal Liberal caucus, and that collaboration encourages exactly this kind of anti-democratic operation.
Ballot Question 9: Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to better protect provincial rights from federal interference by giving a province’s laws dealing with provincial or shared areas of constitutional jurisdiction priority over federal laws when the province’s laws and federal laws conflict?
This question seeks a mandate to overturn existing legal ‘paramountcy’ in favour of federal law switching to discretion at the provincial level. The Canada Health Act, to the dubious extent it has any operative force whatsoever, would officially be bypassed to allow American-style privatized systems to be funded by the working class taxpayer across the country. Federal environmental standards would likewise be chucked into the trash-bin of Confederation.
The citation of ‘shared areas of constitutional jurisdiction’ raises the further critical matter of section 35 (2) which recognizes, in the barest of terms, the existence of treaty and Aboriginal rights with respect to land and governmental powers. Provinces have long asserted that they have at least a shared jurisdiction with federal authorities in the matter of First Nations rights, a point of view rejected by First Nations but something one could argue is in fact reinforced by many colonial governance accords. The Smith-Carney Pacific Link pipeline drive is aimed squarely against section 35 and this question 9 provision would enshrine that reactionary goal into Alberta’s political ambitions and open the door to other provincial governments doing the same.
CEO Carney’s serial appeasement of Governor Smith most directly reinforces questions 8 and 9 by lending both political sanction and billions in economic support to the largest pipeline in Canadian history—at a time when corporate-sponsored climate catastrophe is picking up speed. This makes the Carney Liberals complicit with this hard-Right march on the constitution to expand the powers of Alberta at the expense of federal jurisdiction and First Nation governments. All while Trump’s cabal unleashes a trade war as preparation for making Canada the 51st state.
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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.
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