What if Alberta did vote to leave?
A dark and uncertain path would await, with no guarantee of anything at the end
As Alberta spins ever closer to a rudderless sovereignty referendum in which the premier provides all the leadership of a radio phone-in host—“let’s open up the lines and hear what the people have to say!”—Albertans themselves and others are starting to ask important and difficult questions related to what would it actually mean, in practice, if Alberta did the deed and voted to leave.
There are a few different ways to answer this question, but the simplest answer is “no one knows”. We would be in uncharted territory watching a land-locked single resource-dependent export-led economy opt out of a prosperous, peaceful, and highly decentralized democratic federation.
That said, we can do a little better than that using relevant episodes from history. Two key historical touchpoints are the national question in Quebec, and Brexit. In different ways, both examples drive home one inevitable point: the future of Alberta in its relationship to Canada would have to be negotiated post-referendum, one painful and uncertain step at a time. The story and legacy of the Quebec question tells us much about the path Alberta would have to walk to leave, and Brexit gives a hint of what to expect if it took that road. I’ll take each in turn, and use both to shed some limited light on Alberta’s situation.
A Concept of a Sovereign Country
Before going further, I should take a moment to unpack the concept of “sovereignty”. In brief, it’s an assertion of independent governmental authority, notably including a monopoly over the legitimate use of force over a defined people and territory.
It has both de facto components—that is, the government can actually do the things we expect governments to do—and, just as crucially, de jure components, which means that other sovereign countries recognize that country as sovereign. Sovereignty is, in a sense, a club that other members control admission to, and Alberta would not be sovereign until other countries—notably Canada and the United States— recognize it as such.
Once they do, they would engage in relations through the mechanism of international law. What does that mean? Effectively, international law is the codification of agreements independent countries undertake with one another. In general they cooperate if, and only if, they see it in their interests to do so. Indeed, in many ways “international law” is misleadingly named. While agreements and treaties are codified in language reminiscent of domestic in-country laws, the mechanism of enforcement is entirely different. Within a country, the government enforces the law. Outside it, formal anarchy prevails: no single actor has the right and responsibility to enforce international law. Rather, international law is as binding as states collectively choose to make it. If one state breaks international law, it’s up to the other state(s) to respond. If that doesn’t happen, then it doesn’t happen. It is for this reason that “international law” is so often observed in the breach. Simply put, if Alberta opts out of Canada, it loses every enforceable protection offered by the constitution, and in its place gets exactly, and only, what it can bargain for.
The Quebec Example
The Quebec sovereignty saga has in many ways clarified and refined the path to secession for provinces in Canada, and hints at what would happen after. In the wake of the near miss that was the 1995 referendum, the Chretien government, largely orchestrated by Stephane Dion, took rapid steps to respond. Effectively, it outlined a Plan A, and a Plan B. Plan A was an attempt to address Quebec’s long standing grievances around things like constitutional amendments, recognition of its status as a distinct society, and autonomy over aspects of economic and social policy. We already see some evidence of a Plan A emerging in Alberta’s case in the form of increased willingness to consider additional pipelines.
Plan B is more relevant to the discussion of the path to sovereignty, however, as it emerged in direct response to what many saw as a deliberate strategy of ambiguity in Quebec’s quest for sovereignty. Plan B entailed first, a reference to the Supreme Court asking for clarification on the legality of sovereignty, and second the Clarity Act, which codified the federal government’s understanding of the court’s answer into Canadian law.
The Court said, effectively, that no province had a right to unilaterally secede from the federation due to the implications for others within the country, but that the rest of the country would be obligated to negotiate secession in good faith if a clear majority expressed a desire to leave in response to a clear question. The details of what a clear question and clear majority looked like were left to political actors to define.
In its preamble, the Clarity Act made clear the stakes and the process, asserting that “it is incumbent on the Government of Canada not to enter into negotiations that might lead to the secession of a province from Canada, and that could consequently entail the termination of citizenship and other rights that Canadian citizens resident in the province enjoy as full participants in Canada, unless the population of that province has clearly expressed its democratic will that the province secede from Canada.”
In the text of the law, the act spelled out what determining a clear majority might involve—including considerations of the question posed, the magnitude of the majority, voter turnout, and other contextual factors, and positioned the House of Commons as the arbiter of clarity.
Finally, beyond the stakes identified the preamble, namely the end of Canadian citizenship and the termination of rights such residents are entitled to as such, the act also lays out clearly some of the points to be negotiated in the event of secession, notably “including the division of assets and liabilities, any changes to the borders of the province, the rights, interests and territorial claims of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada, and the protection of minority rights.”
What does all this mean? Again, if Alberta really were to step through the sovereignty door with a clear majority on a clear question, it would be condemned to be free—exchanging the collaborative rights of membership in the Canadian federation for the transactional relationship of independent neighbours governed by mutually negotiated and enforced international law.
You Brexit, You Bought It
Brexit provides an example of just how painful a process that can be. The European Union was (and is) a kind of supranational federation, similar in a few notable ways to Canada’s own. In Europe’s case, each member country retains important elements of sovereignty that Canadian provinces do not, but it nonetheless was a pooling of sovereignty, such that states agree to be collectively bound by the same rules and institutions. Once the UK voted to leave, all bets in the unwinding of that pooling, so to speak, were off. Leavers’ promises were like so many tears in the rain. Everything ultimately proved subject to a negotiation process that continues to this day, and the UK continues to pay for its access to the limited EU services it still retains. Political and economic rights, including even the boundary of the UK in Ireland were all thrown into abeyance, to be painfully negotiated—and that was a situation in which the UK already operated as a sovereign state in ways Alberta simply cannot, from currency to defence to global recognition.
Quebec’s quest for sovereignty-association is another example. Much of the murkiness in the debate over Quebec’s proposed departure revolved around assertions by sovereigntists like Rene Levesque that Quebec could, in effect, have its cake and eat it. A vote to leave, under the “sovereignty-association” formulation, was a vote to soften the relationship between Quebec and the rest of Canada, proposing an imagined future in which Quebec could choose the links it retained with Canada, and those it would sever.
Free to Negotiate?
From the perspective of the reset of the country, however, that was and remains a non-starter for any province declaring independence. Once it moves to become sovereign, any seceding territory would have authority to govern its own people and territory (subject to negotiations over things like citizenship and borders), but no say over what happens anywhere else beyond what it can negotiate.
Indeed, everything between Alberta and its neighbours would be subject to negotiations—both in its initial set-up, and subsequent action. On the path to independence, things like share of national debt and the national pension plan fund would have to be negotiated, and Alberta would have little leverage to offer. Changes to the Canadian Pension Plan, for instance, currently require the consent of 7 provinces constituting 2/3rds of the country’s population. There is no reason to think the other provinces would choose to abandon that agreement even after a vote to secede; thus Alberta would be compelled to offer terms the other provinces found acceptable to secure any share of the fund at all.
The border with other provinces and territories would also be negotiated, as would the status of marginalized populations and Indigenous peoples within Alberta—negotiations that Indigenous peoples themselves have indicated would be contentious, and subject to vigorous challenge in defence of Indigenous rights. After all, if Canada is divisible, so is Alberta; and a Republic has no automatic claim to the obligations and rights of the Crown with respect to Indigenous peoples and treaty territories.
Once independent, Alberta would be a land-locked oil exporting nation. It would be negotiating with the Canada (and the US) over everything from support for Alberta’s admission to the UN and other aspects of membership in the international system, to currencies and exchange rates, to national and continental defence, to shared borders and citizenship rules, to admission in the USMCA—again, with as much leverage as you might expect for a country of 4.5million entering a free trade zone encompassing nearly 500 million people, an agreement moreover that the US president openly muses about ending.
Without such an agreement, Alberta would be left negotiating on a transactional basis with its much larger neighbours to the North/West/East, and South. In its negotiations with Canada, Alberta’s biggest asset might actually be the presence of the Transcanada and Yellowhead highways, and rail lines connecting BC and its Pacific ports to the rest of Canada. Given the mutual benefit of continued trade flows, some reciprocity would likely be possible, but Alberta would have to expect a hard bargain from the recently jilted Canada, with no reason for Canada to build new pipeline capacity. Moreover—and what may be most overlooked so far in these discussions—Canada would have no obligation to help with the inevitable post-oil phase in Alberta, when the time comes to clean up the land and turn to new industries. The clean-up alone is estimated in hundreds of billions of dollars. The economic retooling defies my ability to estimate, but hundreds of billions more seems plausible. If Alberta leaves, it’s paying that price tag alone, after the oil has run dry or the market for it has collapsed.
Similarly, a sovereign Alberta would necessarily entail the extinguishment of membership in Canada for provincial residents, in favour of citizenship in the new country. It would then be entirely up to Canada whether and under what conditions Albertans could retain dual citizenship in Canada—and if they did, what it would imply for thorny questions like voting rights. As with every other point of cross border relations, it would be negotiated without any guarantees for the departing province. If the rest of Canada is unwilling to bend, Alberta residents who prefer to retain their Canadian rights will have to vote with their feet—as some Anglo Quebeckers did (along with their capital) when it seemed possible the province would leave.
Of course, there would be other options—well, another option, anyways. A Republic of Alberta would be free to pursue deeper relations with the American republic to its south. Given the deep presence of US capital in the Alberta oil sector, such links run deep already. The US President, meanwhile, has already made clear what likely terms would be for free trade—accession. Again, though, there would be no guarantees of representation for an Alberta so stuck between a rock and a hard place. Alberta could as easily become a U.S. territory, with limited representation, as the 51st state. “Puerto Rico North” is as possible as “Alaska South”.
All Hell for a Neighbour
So, the long and short of it is that a sovereign Alberta would be condemned to be free, but not free of obligations. In the place of constitutionally guaranteed enforceable rights, its residents would have only what its government can negotiate with its sovereign neighbours. Alberta and its government would be on its own, for better—and for worse.
Albertan separatists likely believe their agitation will pressure the federal Liberal govt into succumbing to their demands, "like Quebec gets."
These Albertans are apparently ignorant of how this strategy has not exactly made Quebec wealthier.
Since the 70s, the flight of capital and people from QC has profoundly changed their society to be less English and less affluent.
Montreal is still a jewel, and certainly elites still exist.
But the province's economy has declined, and it receives federal support because it needs it!
And this decline happened just from the threat of separation, not actual independence.
Albertan separatists are, as Chantal Hebert said, like children playing with matches. No plan, no serious analysis, no perspective, dragging everyone into great risk.
Albertans have the highest per capita income and low cost of living.
This noise is simply a partisan Conservative project to distract from the UCP govt's corruption by fighting the fed Liberals. Old playbook, that.
Also, Smith is terrified her party will split. Like Poilievre, Smith has been captured by her extreme base. She seems weak and cowardly.
I'm hoping the majority of Albertans will rebel against such blatant manipulation before too much damage is done.
Stewart, you are a gifted writer! Thank for this piece, which is well researched, informative, and devoid of sensationalist rhetoric, yet drives home convincingly the dangers of the Smith government's reckless abandon.