(Edmonton) The moment the official results of the October 18 equalization referendum were released, the machine of exaggeration and outrage was set in motion.
First, with Jason Kenney who says that Albertans have sent a “powerful message” to Ottawa about the dissatisfaction of the people of Alberta with regard to equalization. Admittedly, 62% voted in favor of the question proposing to withdraw article 36.2 concerning the equalization of the Constitution. But the turnout, estimated at 39% – Elections Alberta apparently unable to calculate it – is well below what one would expect from a referendum presented as crucial to obtain fiscal justice. However, with 60% of Yes on 39% of voters, one remains far from the general will of Rousseau. To further complicate the picture, Alberta’s capital Edmonton voted against the Conservative government’s proposal (52%).
However, to the exaggeration was quickly added indignation. Thus, the coincidences of the calendar made collide the result of the referendum with the appointment of the new Minister of the Environment of Canada, Steven Guilbeault, which is described as a “slap in the face” by some commentators.
This appointment, like that of Jonathan Wilkinson in Natural Resources, would make it even more urgent today than yesterday to obtain a new agreement on equalization, the fiscal status quo being no longer tenable. And we should also send a strong message to Quebec that it should stop opposing the construction of a pipeline to the east. Unfortunately, Quebec is (too) often targeted in this debate, although it should not be forgotten that many criticisms were directed at British Columbia when Prime Minister John Horgan used all the tools at his disposal to slow down, without success, the doubling of the Trans Mountain pipeline.
Under these conditions, how to respond to the result? First, certainly not by reviewing the account book, as recommended by Jean-François Lisée in a recent text by the To have to, by asserting that it is “for half with Quebecers’ money that the territory of Alberta was bought from the British by Canada in 1870” (“What Alberta owes us”). This kind of retrospective accounting about a territory that was not Alberta at the time is meaningless and it does not take into account the economic contribution of this province which remains major, according to an economist favorable to the principle of equalization (Trevor Tombe, ” What Canada’s economy would look like if Alberta’s recession never happened “). Lisée quotes Jean Chrétien, who embodies another way of seeing the problem. This is to say that Alberta complains continuously when this province is in fact favored and that all its whining is the resentment of intellectuals, industrialists and frustrated politicians who have managed to make Albertans believe that ‘they were disadvantaged when this is not the case.
Yet this is not the first time that there have been such autonomist surges in Alberta at times when very real economic anxiety is escalating. Alberta is rich overall, but the fact remains that with an unemployment rate of 8%, many people find themselves in a bad position.
Between the logic of bastards from the East that must be left to freeze in the dark and that of the “blue-eyed sheiks” who want to keep all the wealth, while continuing to pollute, there is a middle way. It consists in saying that if Jason Kenney distorts the problem of equalization for political ends, the results also indicate that this issue raises concerns and controversies not necessarily relating to manipulation and which precedes the arrival of Jason Kenney to power. .
For example, New Democrat Rachel Notley, critic if any of Jason Kenney, still said that if the wording of the question had been different, from the type of “review equalization” and other similar programs. , she would have voted in favor of such a proposal. If Notley is saying this now, it’s not just to annoy Kenney and say he botched, like everything he’s touching right now, the referendum. It is also because she suspects that a referendum with a different question and a real campaign focusing only on this subject would very probably have given a favorable result to an option recommending some form of review of the equalization formula, while while keeping the principle intact.
The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau should therefore find a way to respond other than by ignoring it, especially with new municipal administrations in Edmonton and Calgary that share the political orientations of the Liberals. But that is unlikely to happen, as the priorities of the Liberal government lie elsewhere.
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