Alberta referendum

Ah, politics. In addition to preparing for municipal and provincial elections, I also get to worry about the American congressional mid-terms and the upcoming Alberta referendum. Hooray?

For the sake of my sanity, I’m going to stare into the void of Alberta politics and look at the referendum questions. Did you know that there are ten of them? I had no idea.

Questions sourced from https://albertareferendum2026.ca/

BALLOT QUESTION 1

Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities?

First things first, everything from “for purposes of” on is irrelevant. The question is “Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration?” To be fair, Quebec already has extra say over immigration. The extra fluff is a dog whistle about immigrants taking away “our” jobs. I’m already feeling pretty cynical.

BALLOT QUESTION 2

Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law mandating that only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and individuals with an Alberta-approved immigration status will be eligible for provincially-funded programs, such as health care, education and other social services?

BC has a three month delay before MSP kicks in. I don’t think we have any such delay for education. “Alberta-approved immigration status” could mean anything, which makes me leery. I’d also argue that it’s a bad idea to have an underclass of people without access to health care, education, and other social services.

BALLOT QUESTION 3

Assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for social support programs as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring all individuals with a non-permanent legal immigration status to reside in Alberta for at least 12 months before qualifying for any provincially-funded social support programs?

Again, a year is a long time. Imagine moving to Alberta, finding out you’re pregnant or have cancer or whatever, and not being able to access any services without paying through the nose. This strikes me as unnecessarily cruel.

BALLOT QUESTION 4

Assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for public health care and education as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta charging a reasonable fee or premium to individuals with a non-permanent immigration status living in Alberta for their and their family’s use of the health care and education systems?

I don’t understand why this is a separate question from number three. If people say “aye” for the former question and “nay” for this one, would immigrants be completely denied service? That seems like bad policy.

BALLOT QUESTION 5

Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate or citizenship card, to vote in an Alberta provincial election?

I checked Alberta’s voting requirements. Currently you need to provide either one piece of government ID with your full name, address, and picture on it; two pieces of ID, both with your full name, and one with your current address; or have someone complete an attestation form.

So there’s a process to prove identity. We have a voters list to control who’s allowed to vote, prevent people from voting multiple times, yada yada. So the change here is tightening up what’s required when you show up to vote.

This is a type of voter suppression. It’s disenfranchising the people who, for whatever reason, don’t have easy access to a driver’s license or their birth certificate or what have you.

My question is: to what end? Is there a voting fraud issue in Alberta? Why do you want to change this? The cynical answer is because the UCP doesn’t care about the people being disenfranchised.

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?

I don’t have a strong opinion. I googled, and this article on the subject points out that in Canada, provincial judges have the authority to strike down federal laws. I think that would have to change before I’d be okay with provinces choosing their own judges.

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?

Again, I don’t have a strong opinion. The senate is a body that exists. As far as I can tell, they don’t seem to do much.

… Despite writing this post, I am not a political person! I don’t look that closely at how government works. If I were asked this question, my response would be, “I have no idea. Why are you asking me?”

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?

There’s a lot of stuff here about amending the constitution. This feels really dodgy.

Anyway. For this one … no. I don’t this provinces should be able to opt out of federal programmes like that.

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?

Seriously, so many constitutional amendments. What’s going on?

Uh, no. This is just going to lead to more needless fighting between provincial and federal governments.

BALLOT QUESTION 10

Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?

I hate this. We’ve already lived through the disaster of Brexit. Why would anyone expect this to go any better?

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Look. I don’t have incredibly strong takes about most of these questions. Quebec has extra immigration control; BC doesn’t offer free health care for the first three months; I don’t care about the senate.

The subtext of the questions bother me, though. There are five questions suggesting that immigrants are the problem; and another five pointing the finger at the federal government. I would argue that Alberta has benefited greatly from migration, especially from the rest of the country. I also suspect that the fighting with the federal government is political theatre meant to distract from the actual problems Alberta faces.

Like, Alberta should stop relying so much on oil and gas revenues to fund the provincial government. This year their budget projected a $3.0 billion drop in bitumen royalties at the start of the year, and a $9.4 billion deficit. Now, thanks to Trump’s idiotic invasion of Iran, they’re looking at a $2 billion surplus. This is a bananas way to fund your government. What if the price of oil crashes again? What are they going to do when the rest of the world decarbonizes?

Seriously. Just create a provincial sales tax. Alberta would still have lower taxes than the rest of the country, and they’d have so much more money to fund all those social services immigrants are apparently bankrupting.

Sigh.