[MBates]

Originally Posted by Tacopuck

Here is the way interpret how this can be used. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Previously if the federal government implemented a law or regulation that would require provincial authorities to abide by (key being here government entities) and the AB gov thought this was not in the best interest of Albertans they would have to take the federal government to court to get it overturned in order to for those provincial authorities to not abide by said federal law or regulation.

With the Sovereignty act, cabinet can identify a federal law that in their view is not in the best interest of Albertans (which will be up for debate on a case by case basis), put to a vote in the legislature (basically an auto approval for a majority government) and then be able to direct the provincial authorities to act against or not follow the said federal law / regulation.

After this is done and if the federal government is adamant that their law / regulation must be abided by the provincial government / authority then they would take the AB gov to court in order to overturn the Sovereignty act use.

In the end its the same outcome as the supreme court of Canada has final say who has jurisdictional authority with regards to the law / regulation in question. However the difference with the Sovereignty act is instead of the province going to the courts to ask permission for AB to do what it wants, it will give the province the ability to just go ahead and then put the onus on the federal government to take the province to court to stop them.

So in this scenario the federal government has to decide if its politically worthwhile to to ask the courts to force their laws / regulations on the province in order to implement their law / regulation.

IMO it boils down to a "Easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission" scenario.

Apologies in advance for a bit of a long and dense post...

What you set out above is the reason why people who care about the rule of law are speaking very loudly against this. A law that says you shall ignore laws you know apply to you so long as a group of people you know have no legal authority tell you to ignore the laws?

All as a method to get politicians in Ottawa to...respect the parameters of the law?

There is a reason Alberta is coming out of this looking like a laughing stock.


Best I can tell, there are a couple major deceptions that are being employed to give this approach its appeal to a large swath of the population who do not understand how our system works.

One major problem with the scheme of the 'Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act' is apparently even recognized by the name of the Act: federal laws apply to all persons throughout the united federation called Canada.

Your relationship with the federal government is between you and it...not one by proxy via the Edmonton Legislature or the UCP Cabinet.

For example, if you refuse your legal obligation to remit your federal taxes you pay the penalties and go to jail - not some performative buffoon politician trumping up the idea it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission to ignore the Income Tax Act.

Individual police officers in Alberta have swore an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen and her heirs successors and assigns and are duty bound to enforce federal laws. If the UCP cabinet orders police services to ignore certain laws the cabinet ministers are not the ones who have to choose to betray their oath or disobey the purported "lawful" orders. This will all fall on the shoulders of individual officers - most of whom have no desire to become political pawns.

So, the mighty Premier Danielle Smith Government is less 'standing up' for Albertans than it is hiding behind them as human shields for fights they want to start with the feds. Kind of like a bad friend, drunk and disorderly at closing time at the bar somehow getting you punched with his big mouth.


Another major problem is the premise of creating and using this Act is a set of bad talking points including the claim that Canada is a collection of individual sovereigns.

This is inaccurate. There is one sovereign power of the Canadian Monarchy divided into jurisdictions in the Constitution Act 1867. Premier Smith has a well-polished talking point that the Provinces are 'sovereign' in their specific 'lanes' and Ottawa is separately 'sovereign' in theirs...and they can validly be forced to 'stay in their lane'.

Well, ok. Section 91 and 92 of the Constitution Act 1867 do set out the division of powers with language of exclusive jurisdiction. But you cannot only read the sections you like and ignore the others. Nor in a common law nation state can you ignore the common law interpretations of the original text. In other words, the lanes have been defined by the Courts and the Courts decide what is in or outside of said lanes. Not MLAs or MPs.

Premier Smith and her supporters just conveniently skip all of the overlaps - and what happens in the situation of overlaps. I am baffled nobody (journalist or political opponent) has just flat-out asked her (or her group of constitutional 'experts') to tell Albertans what the 'double aspect doctrine' is. We are talking first year law school stuff here (or, a reasonably educated Google search for that matter):

https://www.constitutionalstudies.ca...double-aspect/

The double aspect doctrine is a tool of constitutional interpretation used when both levels of government have an equally valid constitutional right to legislate on a specific issue or matter. Double aspect represents the modern notion of co-operative federalism, which abandons the out-dated idea that every subject matter falls under the exclusive control of either the federal or provincial government.[1]

Double aspect fosters respect for the decisions of the elected legislatures of both levels of government. As the name indicates, the double aspect doctrine acknowledges that both Parliament and the provincial legislatures can pass valid legislation relating to the same subject depending on the aspect from which the subject is being approached.[2]

In case the Premier and the Albertans blindly saying this legislation is going to be so great for us would like a recent example of how the double aspect doctrine applied to confirm the Federal government indeed has a legal, constitutional 'lane' that it shares and can legislate overlapping with Alberta...it is in the same article:

Another, more recent, example is in References re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act.[4] The double aspect doctrine was discussed at length in the GGPPA Reference, where the SCC was tasked with deciding whether the federal government’s plan to establish a national pricing system for greenhouse gas emissions was valid law under the national concern branch of its peace, order and good government (POGG) power. The 6-3 majority found that the double aspect doctrine can apply when federal jurisdiction is grounded in POGG, but whether it does will depend on the facts of the case.[5] The SCC noted that this approach conforms to the modern approach to federalism, which favours flexibility and a degree of overlapping jurisdiction.[6] The doctrine should be applied cautiously, however, to avoid “eroding the importance attached to provincial autonomy.”[7] The federal law in this instance only imposed a minimum national standard, and allowed the provinces to legislate above it – the federal and provincial laws apply concurrently, but the federal law is paramount. In cases such as this, to ensure the protection of provincial autonomy, the court must be satisfied that there is a “compelling interest” in enacting rules over the federal matters which interact with provincial ones, and that “multiplicity of aspects is real and not merely nominal.”[8]

In my view the only one who cannot stay in her lane is the Premier and her now enthusiastically supportive government.

The rule of law cannot be optional. When a judge makes an error in a ruling, the ruling stands until an appeal court overturns it. You are not allowed to just say - that order is stupid and I am pretty sure it is wrong so I will not follow it.

If Premier Smith claims to be able to declare sovereignty from laws she thinks are dumb, what is stopping any of us from doing the same with respect to laws her government passes? We have the same amount of authority as she does to declare laws not worthy of being followed.

Extreme anti-science activists and Covid mandate protesters have already shown us the harm that can be caused by a population emboldened to ignore laws when they decide the laws infringe their rights (conveniently ignoring the rights of everyone else and not bothering to use the courts). Will less Freemen on the Land show up in Alberta now? Or will they flock to a place that now officially follows their playbook? Self-declare laws invalid and dare authorities to do something about it. Sounds like a utopia.

And a number of the legal battles the Premier apparently wants to fire up with this unserious legislation are constitutional battles that have already been lost and settled. I've noted the Greenhouse Gas reference above. How about reclassification of firearms interfering with the 'exclusive jurisdiction' of the provinces over property and civil rights? Alberta lost almost that exact fight in the SCC more than 20 years ago...and a quick look online shows over 30 lawyers listed as appearing in the SCC (which does not include all the others who work on the file but do not make the appearance list).

So perhaps a less abstract harm of what some might be inclined to see as a harmless flipping of the rule of law on its head - will ultimately be endless millions of public funds wasted fighting guaranteed loser court battles.

But I am sure the families being displaced from children's respite care will understand it was for their own good that those funds could not be used to assist them.

Or the women's shelters currently turning hundreds of people away because lack of provincial funding.

Or the collapsing Legal Aid program due to - you guessed it - lack of provincial funding.

Pretty sure the food banks are flush with extra cash these days so definitely don't need it for them.

And the list can go on and on...