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https://www.westernstandard.news/opinion/pardy-the-referendum-goose-could-still-be-cooked/70051
“Thanks to Bill 14, the CIA no longer forbids proposing a referendum on independence.
But the problem has not gone away. Instead, the government has given it a different form.
Bill 14 has moved it from the beginning to the end of the process. The final provision of Bill 14 amends the Referendum Act.
That’s the statute under which a referendum would be held. Before Bill 14, under the Referendum Act a successful independence referendum would have been binding on the government. But not anymore. Bill 14 says the government is not required to implement the results of a referendum
“if doing so would contravene sections 1 to 35.1 of the Constitution Act, 1982.”
Those are the same words that caused the trouble in the repealed section 2(4) of the CIA. Independence “contravenes” sections 1 to 35.1. If Albertans vote to leave Canada, the Alberta government now has the power to refuse.
I put this question to Alberta’s Minister of Justice Mickey Amery last week, during an interview hosted by Jason Lavigne.
“You've reserved for the government the ability to be a gatekeeper at the end of the process,” I said, “the ability to say, we don't want to do it [pursue independence even with a “Yes” vote].” The Minister responded, “In theory that could happen.”
Would the government dare?
If 60% of Albertans voted for independence, refusing to move forward could be political suicide.
But if the referendum was narrowly approved by 50% plus one, the story might be different.
Premier Danielle Smith has consistently identified “a sovereign Alberta inside a united Canada”, as her mandate.
A government committed to that outcome that might well repudiate a referendum win for independence.
A “binding” referendum on independence, says the new law, is not binding at all.
The government can reject independence even if the people vote for it.
The independence goose might still be cooked, just with a different sauce.
We won’t find out until after a successful referendum.”
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Although I agree with pretty much everything she says, she misses the bottom line for all these insane recall petitions…the NDP’s goal is to take over government. The can’t win it legitimately in an election so they’re trying to do it via disruption. They don’t want change in our system, they just want to rule.
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The current wave of recall petitions sweeping across Alberta — with 21 MLAs now facing recall efforts — represents a fundamental misunderstanding of both our democratic system and the purpose of recall legislation itself. While petitioners cite disagreements over Bill 2 and the use of the notwithstanding clause to end the teachers' strike, they're actually attacking the very foundation of our Westminster parliamentary system while pretending the problem lies with individual MLAs.
Let's be clear: the Recall Act was designed to address corruption, unethical behavior, and serious misconduct — not policy disagreements. When former Premier Jason Kenney introduced this legislation, it was meant to hold politicians ...
Jeff Rath is so desperate to name drop and be the big guy on campus that he doesn't seem to understand that all his talk about the Trump Administration and the US supporting Alberta independence is going to be twisted by the media machine to do to the Albertan fence sitters what Carney did to Eastern voters with his "elbows up" anti-Trump narrative. Rath thinks "hey look at me I'm getting all this attention from the US for Alberta" but just having Trump's name anywhere near the independence movement is going to bite us in the butt. Thanks Jeff! Hope you enjoy your name-dropping and I pray it doesn't TRUCK us - but at the very least it's going to give us a lot of work to undo the conflation!
