Prime Minister Mark Carney says he is “open” to amending the Canadian constitution to deal with major questions of structural change but only where there is strong “consensus” in the country.
In little-noticed comments during a podcast interview with host Ryan Jespersen, the prime minister addressed how he intends to respond to Alberta’s concerns, and why he advocated for voters to reject a future binding independence referendum, along with urging them to say “no to the nine” other questions and vote against Premier Danielle Smith’s other proposals for change.
Monday’s referendum vote asks 10 critical questions about Alberta’s place in Canada, including nine demands for more power over immigration, judicial appointments and withdrawal from federal programs with compensation guarantees. A demand to abolish the unelected Senate — long on Alberta’s wish list — would require constitutional change.
In the interview recorded Friday after he appeared alongside Smith in Red Deer, Carney insisted the federal Liberal government under him is already working with provinces on immigration reform and on changing the rules around investment in this country.
He went on to say, “The constitution is not unamendable, to be clear.”
“But it requires building a real consensus around what’s necessary to change and why it (should) change and which elements you are going to change,” said Carney.
In last week’s whirlwind trip between Calgary and Edmonton, Carney repeatedly outlined his belief that Canada “is working” and on the podcast repeated his view is that it is important to make “positive” change by working with provinces.
“Through cooperative federalism, through making the country work, we’re building that track record in Alberta,” and he added, making progress with other provinces, citing Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, the territories, Nova Scotia and others in the Atlantic region. “You build that, and then you say, ‘OK, where do we need to change?’”
“I get the point about an unelected Senate,” Carney said, but he pushed back against calls to make that a priority.
The prime minister argued that where Alberta representation counts is in the elected House of Commons. He said the number of seats in that chamber is periodically updated to reflect changes in population, and Alberta has gained seats as a result. “The primacy of the House of Commons in developing legislation and governing the country is reinforced by that democratic legitimacy.”
“Am I open to constitutional reform?” Carney continued. “Yes, I’m open to it,” he said. “But I’m not open to — or I’m open to it with laying the groundwork for consensus. And part of the way you, in my judgment, the way you lay groundwork for that is you build trust, you build on success, you move forward … And that in my view is the most effective way to do that.”
Carney said his job as prime minister is to “work with the facts on the ground, the governments we have in provinces, the governments that exist around the world and working with all stakeholders, including First Nations.” At another point, he noted the difficulty of renegotiating the Crown’s relationship with the First Nations who signed Treaties 6, 7 and 8 on territory that covers Alberta.
The prime minister made clear that he views Alberta’s concerns as “issues,” not grievances.
Carney reminded listeners the constitution’s amending formula was developed by former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed, calling him the greatest premier the province had.
The amending formula is complicated. It requires a unanimous vote by all provinces, the Commons and the Senate for certain changes, including major ones to the Senate itself. It requires the support of seven out of 10 provinces representing more than 50 per cent of the population for other changes — and Smith made a point on Friday to a conservative conference that she believes that the latter requirement is a threshold that can be met now that there are conservative-leaning governments in eight provinces.
Lawyer Keith Wilson, a leader of separatist voices in Alberta, said Saturday in an interview with the Star that a lot of the “gestures” by Carney are “temporary and relationship-based” and “not constitutionally based; they’re not structural, they’re not statutory based.”
“And that means Albertans continue to be vulnerable. We could have another national energy program. We could have an export tax imposed which would be devastating to our economy.”
Wilson said the federal government can only truly address those demands with “actual structural reforms, not just nice photo-ops.”
On the eve of its referendum, Alberta now stares down a fundamental question: is Monday’s vote the finish line, or the starting point to a years-long struggle over separation?
Independence leaders are vowing to keep up the fight regardless of the outcome and in the face of expectations from pollsters and federalist Albertans that their opinion is the minority.
The margin of victory will determine the force with which that movement can assert itself in Alberta’s political culture, or how reassured federalists can be of the province’s chances of staying in Confederation.
That raises the pressure of the high-stakes referendum even higher.
Thomas Lukaszuk, the former Progressive Conservative deputy premier who traversed the province in his maple leaf-speckled RV, first collecting signatures for a petition rejecting independence and then later campaigning ahead of Monday’s vote, says a win must be big enough to “send a very strong message.”
“It has to be decisive, and that means we as Canadians have to accept it as being decisive. I am not the one to define what decisive means, but at the end of this painful and divisive process we as Albertans and we as Canadians have to be satisfied that Albertans have sent a clear signal to the rest of Canada and to the rest of the world that this country is united,” he said.
“Certainly, (a) 50 per cent plus one vote would not do it, but in the realm of 70 per cent and higher would definitely send a very clear signal.”
Lukaszuk spoke after sharing a stage at back-to-back evening rallies with the prime minister, who travelled to Alberta Thursday and Friday to urge voters to turn out to ensure a “decisive” win that he said is needed to be commanding.
Throughout rallies and whistle stops in Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer, Carney hammered home a message that suggested people should not take polls for granted.
The stakes are also high for Smith, who said the separatists in her own party should accept the results of a decisive vote to defeat the movement, but she declined to say how she would deal with those in her ranks who refuse to abide by the outcome.
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