The Alberta Sovereignty Act plays a dangerous game — for no rational reason

What was touted initially as the Alberta Sovereignty Act was finally tabled in the province's legislature this week under a more elaborate title — the Alberta Sovereignty Within A United Canada Act.

If the additional words in the official title sound familiar, it might be because they bear a striking resemblance to a motion Stephen Harper tabled in the House of Commons as prime minister in 2006. Harper proposed that the House formally recognize that "the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada."

Harper's motion was an attempt to parry a motion tabled by the Bloc Quebecois that called on the House to recognize that "Quebeckers form a nation." And the BQ's motion was a handy way of causing trouble for the Liberal Party – which was embroiled in both a contentious leadership race and an internal debate about whether to apply the concept of nationhood to some or all of the people in Quebec — and to the country writ large.

The immediate result of all this parliamentary brinksmanship and word games was that nearly everyone found something in Harper's motion that they were willing to support. The resolution passed by a vote of 265 to 16. 

One of the 16 dissenters was Ken Dryden, the legendary goalie who was a Liberal MP from 2004 to 2011. A few hours before the vote was taken, Dryden rose in the House and condemned the whole affair as unserious and potentially dangerous.

"This feels wrong because it does not feel as serious as it must be. It feels like games – bad, manipulative, opportunistic games, political games," Dryden said. "All these games and manipulations are not for us. They only create a slippery slope for later on.

"The public has learned to accept most things political but not this. The stakes are too high."

Sixteen years later, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe wants his province to be recognized as a "nation within a nation" and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wants the freedom to ignore federal laws while remaining part of a "united Canada."

Perhaps the influence of Harper's motion was merely rhetorical. Maybe Moe and Smith would have found a way to their current positions regardless.

But Dryden's warning about gamesmanship seems relevant again.

According to an open – even proud – explanation by one of the minds that conceived the idea of an Alberta Sovereignty Act, the legislation was supposed to be unconstitutional. That seems to give the game away. On that score, Smith's government seems to have succeeded.

The bill "fundamentally upends a number of stabilizing principles in our Canadian constitutional order," said Eric Adams, a constitutional scholar at the University of Alberta.

"There is manifestly no basis under the Constitution for a province to try and nullify the effect of a federal law because it thinks … it is causing harm to those people in the province," said Carissima Mathen, a law professor at the University of Ottawa.

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