Murray Wood: The fascinating phenomenon of people's laps
Who knew one's lap was so interesting? Murray Wood wonders: Do those folks really think we don't know they're texting be...
Albertans are preparing to head to the polls Monday to decide whether the province should remain part of Canada or hold a second, binding referendum on separation.
Brian Lilley, a political columnist for the Toronto Sun, joined The Evan Bray Show this week to discuss the vote, some of the questions involved and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s position.
Listen to the full interview or read the transcript below:
Read more:
- Alberta is to vote on holding a separation referendum. A timeline on how we got here
- Separation, immigration, the Constitution: A look at Alberta’s referendum questions
- Poilievre urges Albertans not to ‘quit’ on Canada ahead of separation vote
The following questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.
EVAN BRAY: Tell us about your chat with Danielle Smith.
BRIAN LILLEY: We had a long talk about the question everyone’s talking about, which is Question 10 on the ballot, but also the other nine questions they’ve put forward.
I’ve known Premier Smith for more than 15 years now, and it’s shocking to me how many people in eastern and central Canada think she’s a separatist because I’ve never had a hint of that. It’d be like telling me Scott Moe is a separatist. I’ve never had a hint of that.
Do they understand the frustrations their respective constituents feel about the relationship with Ottawa? Absolutely.
So we had a good conversation about Question 10, why she lowered the threshold for a referendum and why she decided to add this question. We also had a long discussion about the other nine questions, which Prime Minister Mark Carney has now come out and said people should reject.
These are nine questions that revolve around immigration, how immigration is handled by provincial governments, the costs associated with it, judicial appointments and abolishing the Senate. That last one is probably a moonshot.
But I think that if Premier Smith gets a good mandate, I’d be voting yes to the nine questions if I were an Albertan, and I’d be voting for Option 1, for Alberta to stay in Canada. I’d vote yes on the other nine because I think it’s important.
If she gets a strong mandate, I think she’ll have a lot of support for some of what she’s proposing, especially things such as judicial appointments and giving the provinces a greater say. I think she’d find allies in people such as Moe, Doug Ford here in Ontario and maybe even Wab Kinew (in Manitoba) and Tim Houston in Nova Scotia.
They’d all be able to say, “Yeah, we should have more say in appointing judges to the higher-level courts.”
BRAY: Does the referendum set Smith up for failure if she can’t get those things done, even if the majority says they want to see them happen?
LILLEY: Let’s start with the immigration question, because that’s Question 1. It asks whether the province should have a greater say. Effectively, if that question passes and she takes it to the federal government, Alberta will be asking to be treated the way Quebec is treated.
Quite frankly, that’s how all provinces should be treated. Instead, in far too many instances, Quebec has a special deal that the rest of the country doesn’t get.
Ontario has always been the worst at this. Quebec asks for something special and gets it. Other provinces say they want the same thing, and Ontario has generally taken a middle-of-the-road, go-along-to-get-along approach rather than rocking the boat.
So that hasn’t been an issue for Ontario. I think Premier Ford would agree with Premier Smith and likely Premier Moe. We should have a greater say. We should look at how the people we bring in will contribute to the economy.
This has long been a debate in Canadian immigration policy. How much should be humanitarian? How much should be about family reunification? How much should be economic?
There are a couple of questions about whether people should be eligible for social services or education, or whether they should have to pay for health care if they aren’t permanent residents or don’t have official status.
What fascinated me in talking to Premier Smith was her description of how, under the Trudeau government, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and international student programs allowed people to bring their families with them. That had never happened before.
They estimated how much tax revenue was being generated by people in those programs compared with the costs, and the costs were 10 times the revenue. That’s really not fair. That’s not what the programs were designed for.
Starting in 2022 and accelerating in 2023, the Trudeau Liberals took all the guardrails off the temporary foreign worker programs. A lot of what Smith is proposing is an attempt to put those guardrails back in place.
Judicial appointments are another example. She told me that a couple of recent higher-court appointments opened up in Alberta and that the province wanted a say.
The federal government wouldn’t agree to let Alberta choose the judges, but provincial officials put forward names, and the two sides reached a consensus. That doesn’t require a constitutional amendment. It could simply become good practice.
BRAY: The problem is that this works if you have two leaders or two groups that can get along. The reason to have it enshrined in legislation is for the days when you have someone like Justin Trudeau at the helm, when you can’t get along and agree on these things.
LILLEY: Yeah, Trudeau was often unwilling to compromise. We see that in the excerpts from Chrystia Freeland’s new book that has just come out.
It’s striking how he would react to certain things, such as chastising a woman Freeland described as a very progressive cabinet minister. She used the term “crazy,” and Trudeau lost his mind, saying, “You can’t use the term crazy. You can call it bananas, but not crazy. That’s offensive to people with mental …”
I could see Trudeau saying, “No, we need a very progressive judge in Alberta.” In fact, that’s what he did when he was choosing Supreme Court justices from Western Canada. He picked people who were very much in a left-wing liberal mould, not even a classical liberal mould.
So, yeah, he would have been difficult to work with on that. But right now, there’s a government you could work with.
BRAY: What was behind some of the comments from Thomas Lukaszuk, the leader of the Forever Canada movement? The former Conservative politician has been criticizing Smith and Poilievre.
LILLEY: In my experience, Lukaszuk is all about himself, and he’s been accused of using Forever Canada simply for data mining.
He knows that Poilievre appointed Dane Lloyd, who’s from just outside Edmonton, to be the point person for starting up a new group. Unlike the Quebec referendum, there isn’t an official yes campaign and no campaign, so all these different groups have to operate independently of one another.
The federal Conservatives had to set up their own group. They did that. I interviewed Lloyd about it months ago. The video was out. The story was out.
Lukaszuk is saying, “Oh, they’re not doing anything,” because he was part of the Progressive Conservative government back when the Alberta PC Party had little to do with progressive conservatism. It was a vehicle for whoever wanted to gain power.
That’s when he was involved. He had a falling out with the Alberta PC Party long ago. He doesn’t like anyone who’s conservative, so he lashes out all the time. He makes crazy comments.
He should be trying to unify people, but no, it’s all about him.
Poilievre, of course, is out there telling people to vote for Alberta to stay in Canada. Smith, as I said, has never given me a whiff of being a separatist. She has said time and again that Alberta should remain in Canada.
BRAY: How much of an impact do you think provincial issues and elections will have on the makeup of Canada moving forward?
LILLEY: I think it’s going to be big, and I do hope Premier Smith does well on her nine questions. Will all of them pass? I don’t know, but I hope she gets a strong mandate to say there needs to be change.
You’ve got Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, the new leader of the Parti Québécois, and he was just sworn in yesterday as Quebec’s new premier.
He has a very different take on immigration, too. We’ve been sharing clips of him criticizing the Liberals for what they did to the system and how out of control it was. He also has a different view of what the relationship between Ottawa and the provinces should look like.
I think he’ll find some allies on certain issues, despite the fact that they won’t like that he’s a separatist. He’ll find common ground with Moe, Smith and occasionally even Ford.
It’s going to be an interesting time for Carney as he governs the country and says we all have to stand together because of the threat from Donald Trump and Washington. At the same time, the provinces will be saying, “Now, hold on a minute, buddy. We have a different view here.”
It’s not going to be smooth sailing.
Read more:
