7 ms·

Important context, this referendum isn't binding, but rather a referendum on whether a binding referendum should be held. Separation is deeply unpopular, but Sm

Important context, this referendum isn't binding, but rather a referendum on whether a binding referendum should be held. Separation is deeply unpopular, but Smith has been putting her thumb on the scale every step of the way, and this non-binding referendum isn't subject to the Clarity act in the same way that a subsequent binding one would be.

arrowsmith 5mo ago
I don't get it. They're having a referendum on whether or not to have a referendum? Why bother with two steps? I googled the Clarity Act and it appears to be recently-passed US (not Canadian) legislation about regulating cryptocurrencies or something. What's its relevance here? I am not Canadian and know nothing about Canadian politics. Someone please enlighten me.
- rascul 5mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarity_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarity_Act
- wang_li 5mo ago
  Bill C-20 passed in 2000. It's not so much effort to type "canadian clarity act" into a search engine or wikipedia.
- cf100clunk 5mo ago
  > I don't get it. They're having a referendum on whether or not to have a referendum? Exactly. Albertans are scratching their heads, wondering what on earth Premier Smith is trying to accomplish. Utterly ridiculous ''solution'' to some internal problems within her party, I'm guessing.
- giarc 5mo ago
  It's a very complicated situation in Alberta. There were basically two competing petitions. A "Forever Canada" petition which supported Alberta staying in Canada, however it was built to force the provincial government to hold a vote in parliament about separation, therefore forcing all representatives to show their true feelings on separation. A second petition by "Stay Free Alberta" asked the government to hold a referendum on separating. However, it was blocked by a judge because a previously ruling basically said that separating would violate treaty rights of Indigenous peoples in Alberta. It's also fraught with controversy as the individuals running the petition were able to (likely illegally) obtain the voter rolls for every Albertan. They used it to build an online tool to track their progress. There is speculation (without evidence since the signatures on the petition is not public) that they simply used it to fill out the petition for people they knew. There are pieces of evidence that point to this being a possibility, for example, a Stay Free Alberta leader claimed that in some communities, nearly 98% of residents signed the petition. These are generally right leaning communities, however, getting 98% of people in a community to do a single thing would be incredibly hard.
  - arrowsmith 5mo ago
    So the “anti-separation” petition was a bad faith move by pro-separation forces? Am I reading you right?
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- analog31 5mo ago
  Interestingly, my state (Wisconsin) has a two step process for constitutional amendments. An amendment has to pass a referendum in two consecutive legislative sessions. It still doesn't prevent us from doing stupid things, but it seems to be programmed as a check on hasty voting, or on people assuming that nobody's going to vote.
nonethewiser 5mo ago
Is there actually even a legal process for leaving Canada? I would assume you can't just decide to leave. EDIT: oh, there is a process. thats the Clarity Act. This seems extremely surprising - I've never heard of this sort of thing before with any other country.
- martythemaniak 5mo ago
  It should be the least surprising thing about Canada - it has been dealing with separatist referendums for decades.
  - cf100clunk 5mo ago
    One such referendum, in 1995, was preceded by decades of discussion in Quebec of the pros and cons that triggered a 1980 referendum.
- nish__ 5mo ago
  It's a thing because Quebec has tried to separate before.
  - cf100clunk 5mo ago
    Not a vote to separate. Quebec only tried to win a referendum giving the Province the authority from voters to approach the federal government with negotiations to achieve separation. Its more than a pedantic difference.
    - bawolff 5mo ago
      Part of the reason the clarity act is called the clarity act, was the belief the referendum question was intentionally unclear to trick people into voting for it.
- petcat 5mo ago
  > Is there actually even a legal process for leaving Canada? Does there need to be a legal process? If Albertans are willing to fight a war over it then all they need to do is declare that they don't recognize Ottawa's authority anymore and then go about trying to get other countries to recognize their independence.
archimedes237 5mo ago
It is technically possible to separate legally, but there are so many intentional roadblocks that it is effectively impossible to do so.
gausswho 5mo ago
If I recall correctly, the Brexit referendum wasn't binding either. When the result ended up the way it did, there was sufficient political capital to push it through without a follow up vote.
- arrowsmith 5mo ago
  The Brexit referendum was non-binding for important constitutional reasons. Legally, leaving required an Act of Parliament. To hold a binding referendum, they would have had to pass an Act that says "here are the exact details of how we'll leave the EU, coming into force if the referendum passes". But that would have required them to figure out all the exact details of what it means to leave the EU, and they didn't bother - they just held the referendum and assumed they could figure out the details later if Leave won, which they didn't expect would happen. We all saw how well that worked out. > there was sufficient political capital to push it through without a follow up vote. This seriously overstates how smoothly things went between 23/6/2016 and 31/1/2020
  - gausswho 5mo ago
    Maybe you can help illuminate something that confused me about the result of the referendum. I thought it was worded such that voting yes would lead to a committee determining the details, and that that would lead to a second referendum? It felt like the UK population was tricked into voting for a 'sure I'll hear out your plan' which then turned into 'cool, we'll make a plan and then begin implementing it'.
    - arrowsmith 5mo ago
      I don’t remember anyone before the referendum saying it would be the first of two. A lot of people pushed unsuccessfully for a second referendum after the first one but that was never based on any pre-existing legalities or precedent, it was just an attempt to overturn the first result from people who were upset that theyd lost.
      - 5mo ago
llm_nerd 5mo ago
Smith is doing this because now outrageous amounts of American plutocrat money is going to flow into pushing the "leave Canada" position (from ketamine-rot trash like Musk. American plutocrats despise that a functional country not ruled by the super-rich sits so close). Smith has gone to the US to plan with her American partners repeatedly. And they aren't first pushing becoming a token raped resource of the US, because that is massively unpopular. Instead they're pushing a magical "super Canadians within Canada but also not beholden to those libs and I get to pardon people" middle ground. This is all so comically transparent and obvious. Oh and fun fact -- a "Forever Canada" petition gained far more signatures, far quicker (and without people stealing election lists or faking signatures). Smith's UCP stalled and sat on it, but then raced to follow the "democratic will" of the tiny subset of Albertans that are calling for separation. I understand that Albertan Canadians stick with leaders like UCP because that's their only conservative choice, but this is going to turn out incredibly poorly for you. Even this stupid question is purposefully ambiguous enough that any answer can be construed as "yes, leave".
ctrl-alt-zen 5mo ago
Thank you for a factually and legally grounded take on this. Lots of comments seem to think this has zero precedent or applicable legislation and just want to make it up as they go, much like the poorly informed and inarticulate separatists here in Alberta.

arrowsmith 5mo ago

I don't get it. They're having a referendum on whether or not to have a referendum? Why bother with two steps? I googled the Clarity Act and it appears to be recently-passed US (not Canadian) legislation about regulating cryptocurrencies or something. What's its relevance here? I am not Canadian and know nothing about Canadian politics. Someone please enlighten me.

rascul 5mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarity_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarity_Act
wang_li 5mo ago
Bill C-20 passed in 2000. It's not so much effort to type "canadian clarity act" into a search engine or wikipedia.
cf100clunk 5mo ago
> I don't get it. They're having a referendum on whether or not to have a referendum? Exactly. Albertans are scratching their heads, wondering what on earth Premier Smith is trying to accomplish. Utterly ridiculous ''solution'' to some internal problems within her party, I'm guessing.
giarc 5mo ago
It's a very complicated situation in Alberta. There were basically two competing petitions. A "Forever Canada" petition which supported Alberta staying in Canada, however it was built to force the provincial government to hold a vote in parliament about separation, therefore forcing all representatives to show their true feelings on separation. A second petition by "Stay Free Alberta" asked the government to hold a referendum on separating. However, it was blocked by a judge because a previously ruling basically said that separating would violate treaty rights of Indigenous peoples in Alberta. It's also fraught with controversy as the individuals running the petition were able to (likely illegally) obtain the voter rolls for every Albertan. They used it to build an online tool to track their progress. There is speculation (without evidence since the signatures on the petition is not public) that they simply used it to fill out the petition for people they knew. There are pieces of evidence that point to this being a possibility, for example, a Stay Free Alberta leader claimed that in some communities, nearly 98% of residents signed the petition. These are generally right leaning communities, however, getting 98% of people in a community to do a single thing would be incredibly hard.
- arrowsmith 5mo ago
  So the “anti-separation” petition was a bad faith move by pro-separation forces? Am I reading you right?
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
analog31 5mo ago
Interestingly, my state (Wisconsin) has a two step process for constitutional amendments. An amendment has to pass a referendum in two consecutive legislative sessions. It still doesn't prevent us from doing stupid things, but it seems to be programmed as a check on hasty voting, or on people assuming that nobody's going to vote.

nonethewiser 5mo ago

Is there actually even a legal process for leaving Canada? I would assume you can't just decide to leave. EDIT: oh, there is a process. thats the Clarity Act. This seems extremely surprising - I've never heard of this sort of thing before with any other country.

martythemaniak 5mo ago
It should be the least surprising thing about Canada - it has been dealing with separatist referendums for decades.
- cf100clunk 5mo ago
  One such referendum, in 1995, was preceded by decades of discussion in Quebec of the pros and cons that triggered a 1980 referendum.
nish__ 5mo ago
It's a thing because Quebec has tried to separate before.
- cf100clunk 5mo ago
  Not a vote to separate. Quebec only tried to win a referendum giving the Province the authority from voters to approach the federal government with negotiations to achieve separation. Its more than a pedantic difference.
  - bawolff 5mo ago
    Part of the reason the clarity act is called the clarity act, was the belief the referendum question was intentionally unclear to trick people into voting for it.
petcat 5mo ago
> Is there actually even a legal process for leaving Canada? Does there need to be a legal process? If Albertans are willing to fight a war over it then all they need to do is declare that they don't recognize Ottawa's authority anymore and then go about trying to get other countries to recognize their independence.

archimedes237 5mo ago

It is technically possible to separate legally, but there are so many intentional roadblocks that it is effectively impossible to do so.

gausswho 5mo ago

If I recall correctly, the Brexit referendum wasn't binding either. When the result ended up the way it did, there was sufficient political capital to push it through without a follow up vote.

arrowsmith 5mo ago
The Brexit referendum was non-binding for important constitutional reasons. Legally, leaving required an Act of Parliament. To hold a binding referendum, they would have had to pass an Act that says "here are the exact details of how we'll leave the EU, coming into force if the referendum passes". But that would have required them to figure out all the exact details of what it means to leave the EU, and they didn't bother - they just held the referendum and assumed they could figure out the details later if Leave won, which they didn't expect would happen. We all saw how well that worked out. > there was sufficient political capital to push it through without a follow up vote. This seriously overstates how smoothly things went between 23/6/2016 and 31/1/2020
- gausswho 5mo ago
  Maybe you can help illuminate something that confused me about the result of the referendum. I thought it was worded such that voting yes would lead to a committee determining the details, and that that would lead to a second referendum? It felt like the UK population was tricked into voting for a 'sure I'll hear out your plan' which then turned into 'cool, we'll make a plan and then begin implementing it'.
  - arrowsmith 5mo ago
    I don’t remember anyone before the referendum saying it would be the first of two. A lot of people pushed unsuccessfully for a second referendum after the first one but that was never based on any pre-existing legalities or precedent, it was just an attempt to overturn the first result from people who were upset that theyd lost.
    - 5mo ago

llm_nerd 5mo ago

Smith is doing this because now outrageous amounts of American plutocrat money is going to flow into pushing the "leave Canada" position (from ketamine-rot trash like Musk. American plutocrats despise that a functional country not ruled by the super-rich sits so close). Smith has gone to the US to plan with her American partners repeatedly. And they aren't first pushing becoming a token raped resource of the US, because that is massively unpopular. Instead they're pushing a magical "super Canadians within Canada but also not beholden to those libs and I get to pardon people" middle ground. This is all so comically transparent and obvious. Oh and fun fact -- a "Forever Canada" petition gained far more signatures, far quicker (and without people stealing election lists or faking signatures). Smith's UCP stalled and sat on it, but then raced to follow the "democratic will" of the tiny subset of Albertans that are calling for separation. I understand that Albertan Canadians stick with leaders like UCP because that's their only conservative choice, but this is going to turn out incredibly poorly for you. Even this stupid question is purposefully ambiguous enough that any answer can be construed as "yes, leave".

ctrl-alt-zen 5mo ago

Thank you for a factually and legally grounded take on this. Lots of comments seem to think this has zero precedent or applicable legislation and just want to make it up as they go, much like the poorly informed and inarticulate separatists here in Alberta.