Mark Carney was asked Monday about his role in the forthcoming Alberta referendum campaign and the response was reassuring.<\/p>\n
The prime minister wasn\u2019t exactly Henry V at Agincourt on St. Crispin\u2019s Day, rallying his outnumbered troops in a call to arms.<\/p>\n
But he is a veteran of these campaigns from his time in the United Kingdom during the Brexit and Scottish independence referendums. He knows that when emotions run high, a positive appeal is needed to offset gloomy portents about the certain costs, and uncertain gains, of independence.<\/p>\n
He also appeared to appreciate that, even as a native Albertan, the \u201cremain\u201d campaign must be led from inside the province.
Carney was asked what he plans to do to campaign for Canadian unity.<\/p>\n
He said the federal government\u2019s first response requires it to look at the question to see if it is consistent with the Clarity Act, adopted after the 1995 Quebec referendum.<\/p>\n
The author of that legislation, former minister St\u00e9phane Dion, wrote last week that in his opinion Alberta is committed to respecting the Canadian constitutional framework and does not envisage unilateral secession. As such,\u00a0he said nothing is required for the government of Canada<\/a>.<\/p>\n Only if a second referendum is held because of strong support for the second part of the question \u2014 on proceeding with a binding vote on separation \u2014\u00a0would the House of Commons be required to judge the clarity of the question and the required majority, Dion wrote.<\/p>\n The prime minister was clear in his press conference in Ottawa that a referendum on the prospect of independence is not helpful. \u201cThe premier (Danielle Smith) doesn\u2019t always take my advice,\u201d he said, when asked whether he had counselled against putting the question to Albertans<\/a>. \u201cIs this the democratic will of Albertans? Did they vote for this in the last provincial election? No, they didn\u2019t \u2026 it wasn\u2019t in the platforms of the governing party or the official Opposition. (But) it is what it is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He said the danger is that people take the claims made by the separatists on faith.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an observation from experience in these separation issues. It is often advanced that: \u2018vote for this and it\u2019s a free option\u2019; \u2018vote for this and we will strengthen your hand in future negotiations\u2019. That is a very dangerous bluff. I saw this firsthand from what happened in the U.K. when the view was: \u2018vote for this, it\u2019ll be soft and then we\u2019ll negotiate\u2019. They\u2019re still, 10 years later (post-Brexit), trying to undo what people didn\u2019t think they were voting for but what they ended up having,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In both the Scottish and Brexit referendums, Carney was a vocal critic of independence\/leave campaigns, raising inconvenient questions about pensions, currency and trade bloc memberships that the other side didn\u2019t want to talk about.<\/p>\n Former Conservative minister, Monte Solberg pointed out similar shortcomings in the current Alberta separatist movement over the weekend. \u201cWhere is the costed and detailed plan for the new Alberta?\u201d he wondered. Would parts of Alberta that don\u2019t want to separate be allowed to separate from Alberta? Would the new entity devote five per cent of GDP to defence to meet NATO targets? Would it seek to join NATO? What about seniors\u2019 benefits, employment insurance, foreign affairs and Indigenous relations?<\/p>\n These are all pointed questions that have no answers now and are unlikely to have in the future.<\/p>\n They are the reason why the effort to cleave Alberta from the rest of Canada is likely to fail. Albertans may want to give Ottawa a kick in the groin, but anxious and uncertain voters will soon realize, if they don\u2019t already, that this is not about the next four years, it is about the next century.<\/p>\n Academic research shows that in the final day or so of a referendum, support for reform falls around two-thirds of the time, as voters decide to stick with the devil they know.<\/p>\n A new Angus Reid Institute poll suggests three in five (61 per cent) will vote to stay in Canada in October, based on the question Danielle Smith revealed last week.<\/p>\n But Carney has seen the shortcomings of gloomy, uninspiring campaigns for the status quo that lost during the Brexit vote in 2016 and nearly lost the Scottish referendum in 2014 (the Yes side was ahead in the closing polls, having started 20 points behind).<\/p>\n Simply issuing a scare story a day sends a message of dependency and worthlessness that risks alienating swing voters.<\/p>\n Canadians have their own experience of how a charismatic leader can overturn relentless negative campaigns. For most of the 1995 Quebec vote, the No side held a comfortable lead until the Yes side pivoted and made the Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois\u2019 Lucien Bouchard, their chief negotiator. Sovereigntist support gained momentum, and in the days before the vote, the Yes side was ahead by six points in the polls, before losing by just 54,288 votes.<\/p>\n Carney acknowledged the need to reassure by pointing out that there is \u201ca very strong, positive case for Canada, a strong Alberta in a united Canada \u2026 I look forward to making that case, with many, many other Albertans and Canadians over the course of the next 150 days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The \u201cremain\u201d campaign will be buoyed by new polling numbers that show the number of people feeling the country is heading in the right direction is the\u00a0highest since 2017.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n That group will include Smith, who despite her recklessness in calling an unnecessary referendum, said she, her government and her caucus support remaining in Canada.<\/p>\n She said that the Carney government\u2019s policy of \u201cco-operative federalism\u201d is \u201cturning the tide on 10 years of disastrous policy\u201d under Justin Trudeau.<\/p>\n And she defended her decision to hold the referendum by saying 700,000 voters (including federalists) signed referendum petitions and her government \u201cneeds to get direction from all Albertans.\u201d<\/p>\n There is a hope among some in the province that a resounding \u201cremain\u201d vote will put the issue to rest.<\/p>\n I doubt it. In similar fashion, unionists in the U.K. argued that the 1998 Scotland Act that created a parliament in Edinburgh would \u201ckill nationalism stone dead.\u201d By 2007, the independence-supporting Scottish National Party was the governing party; seven years after that, it came close to creating a sovereign Scotland.<\/p>\n These are deep collective emotions, and once unleashed they create passions and resentments that are not quickly abandoned.<\/p>\n