It’s been a sad revelation to me that quitting has become a core value among people who style themselves as conservatives.
Western conservatives quit the federal PC party to create Reform. Daunted by their electoral prospects, they abandoned Reform to entice conservatives as the Canadian Alliance, which they in turn rejected before they finally merged back with the PCs to form the Conservative Party of Canada.
Meanwhile Quebec PCs quit the party over Meech Lake to form the Bloc Quebecois, offering good careers and generous federal pensions to advocate for quitting Canada—something they have since quit advocating, for now anyway. More to come on that.
Back at home, some members of the Alberta PC party quit to form the Wildrose. After the PCs selected Jim Prentice to serve as leader and premier, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith and ten other party members quit Wildrose to sit on the government bench with the PCs. Then they quit. Then all of the members of the Wildrose and PC parties quit to form the United Conservative Party.
And now some UCP members want to go for the big prize, the National Championship of Quitting: they want to leave the country altogether.
Considering that love of our country has always been an admirable core conservative value, I’m left to wonder why the more traditional members of the party are even tolerating this.
The newest sad twist to the story, the premier’s referendum on whether to hold a referendum, has revealed another characteristic that used to be unthinkable among genuine conservatives: abject cowardice.
The premier is afraid of the separatists within her party; they have the power to remove her. At the same time she is afraid of Albertans, who are overwhelmingly proud and loyal Canadians. We, too, have the power to remove her.
And so she is giving the separatists every procedural advantage they want, while issuing weaselly-worded contradictory slogans like “a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada.”
(A province can have greater autonomy within Canada, a worthy goal. Alberta can have strength and influence within the federation, something we can all support. But it cannot be a sovereign entity within a sovereign entity).
Leadership, Rule One: you can’t please everybody.
Rule Two: you must find the courage to decide.
Smith is accountable to her party members. But she and her party were elected to govern, not by skilled backroom operators but by Albertans. The government’s greater duty—and it’s not even close—is to all of us, of every political stripe or of none at all.
This isn’t like the highways budget or determining where to build a school. This is fundamental to our citizenship, our future, and our existence either as Canadians or as whatever else the future may hold for us. It’s far more serious than the day-to-day political fun and games.
A referendum on a referendum is a weak device to buy time, but Smith’s government has no mandate to even entertain the question. They did not run on an independence platform, and they have never been clear on where they stand.
The party has two honourable courses: the obvious one is to reject separatism altogether. The other is to finally decide what they stand for and contest an election on their principles, one way or the other: as a federalist party or a separatist one.
Talking one way while acting another does not bring clarity. A “never-endum” of referendum after referendum serves nobody. It’s time for this government to gather their courage and tell us where they stand.
No more back doors, no more rigged consultations, no more double-talk. If they want to go down this road, they must call an election and ask Albertans if we trust them to proceed.