Danielle Smith’s dream: A post-uncertainty Alberta

“We have had separatism go down to single digits, or imperceptible. That really should be the target,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says. Photo by David Bloom/Postmedia

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Premier Danielle Smith has taken plenty of flak for putting independence on Alberta’s Oct. 19 ballot. She has no regrets. She is betting the vote will show that support for a binding separation referendum is already losing steam.

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“This is what citizens wanted,” she said in a telephone interview. “Four hundred thousand signed a petition saying they wanted a vote to remain; 300,000 signed a petition saying they wanted to vote on an option to leave. And we have legislation that obligates us, if you get the required signatures, to put it to the people. So I want to see what Albertans have to say about it on October 19th.”

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The first nine questions on the referendum are the government’s. The 10th, the remain-or-proceed question, is there because of that citizen-initiated process. More than 650,000 Albertans ordered special ballots, more than 10 times the usual provincial election volume. Smith reads that as engagement, not alarm. “People want to tell us what’s on their mind.” Those who requested mail ballots, she adds, “had more time to digest it and have a thoughtful response.”

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Current polling puts remain at about 72 per cent and the option to start a binding process to separate at 22 per cent. “I’m glad to see that number has come down,” she says. “After Carney got elected, it was as high as 45 per cent. The fact that it has come down is a demonstration that both myself and the prime minister are working on the things that matter to people.” She would like the leave number to be zero; that would mean people feel like the country’s working.

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She points to Stephen Harper’s recent Postmedia column: He wrote that separatist sentiment sat near 25 per cent after the Chrétien years, and by 2015 it was at “a big fat zero,” because Ottawa had dealt with the irritants the West actually cared about. The other spike came in 1982, when Albertans elected Gordon Kesler, a Western Canada Concept MLA; the momentum faded after Brian Mulroney arrived and the National Energy Program was dismantled.

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“We have had separatism go down to single digits, or imperceptible. That really should be the target,” Smith says. “If people are feeling confident that their country is working for them, and that they’re a valued part of the country, I think that’s possible again. We’ve got more work to do, but that’s what I’m hoping for.” Many grievances have been addressed in the last 18 months, she said, and she’s identified a few more that require attention.

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Quebec’s election makes the timing sharper. Paul St-Pierre Plamondon’s Parti Québécois won a minority on a promise of another independence referendum. Smith has not spoken to the premier-designate and expects the relationship to run formally, through the Council of the Federation and first ministers’ meetings. If she does get the call, one subject is ready: “I am greatly encouraged and enthusiastic to work with him on weaning Quebec off equalization payments. I’m very pleased to hear that he said that, because guess what, it’s a priority for Alberta.”

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She is equally interested in another result: Éric Duhaime’s Conservatives took about 21 per cent of the vote and 19 seats, enough to matter in a minority legislature. “A party that got almost as much of the popular vote” as the winner, she says, “has some constructive things we can talk about together, and hopefully be able to focus on the economy.”