[MBates]

Originally Posted by Muta

Macleans: What Alberta voters should know about Jason Kenney and the UCP

https://www.macleans.ca/politics/wha...y-and-the-ucp/

For someone who is attacking another person for misleading discourse on a topic, there are some interesting parts of this article worth highlighting.

For example, on the equalization referendum:

Even if a referendum did force the federal government to the table, there is nothing stopping a Prime Minister from simply saying: “Nah, we’re not changing anything. But thanks for making the trip.”

Changes to the funding formula itself are already reviewed regularly in Parliament—a referendum doesn’t necessarily give Alberta any more leverage to lobby for a change than it currently has.

Literally a clear vote in a referendum would stop a Prime Minister from behaving in this manner. The SCC has unanimously declared there is a legal obligation on the feds and all other provinces to come to negotiate in good faith. Alberta would be in the position to go to the courts to say the feds failed in its legal obligations and the courts would be obligated to order the feds back to the table.

And why throw in the word 'necessarily' in the last sentence? Could it be because the author knows a referendum could give Alberta more leverage than it currently has and nobody will ever know unless it is tried?

I am quick to remind that I actually do not think this is a very good idea because I am rather wary of what opening up the constitution on one issue for one province could lead to. I just do not see why now journalists seem to think they are qualified to definitively predict constitutional law outcomes. Peter Hogg has for decades been a leading constitutional law expert who said Marc Nadon was legally permitted to sit on the SCC. Last I checked, Peter Hogg was completely wrong.

Then on the carbon tax...talk about theatre:

A provincial government is entirely within its rights to rescind the carbon tax. Just as a federal government is entirely within its rights to invoke its backstop, which would simply ensure that Ottawa, rather than Edmonton, collects that tax and controls all the revenues that it generates.

The UCP has promised to join Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick in a court challenge of the federal government’s right to impose that backstop. The outcome of the challenge is a big unknown. Maybe it will succeed. Maybe not. Either way, Alberta will rack up a few billable hours and get a front-row seat to a great bit of theatre.

She cannot even maintain her own definitive constitutional opinion for one paragraph in her own article. If the challenge to the federal government's 'right' to impose the backstop is successful, then by definition the federal government is not 'entirely within its rights to invoke its backstop'.

Again, I am not trying to say it is a smart move or not. But I think that a lot of Albertans in this election have decided they are willing to give these things a shot because they have watched 4 years of another strategy that has not worked and so they will take some risks on a completely different approach.

Why does that have to mean they have been tricked into buying snake oil?