The Human Condition: Divisive unity

By Daniel Schnee on December 14, 2022.

It has been a wild and exciting few weeks during the 2022 FIFA World Cup soccer championship. Canada’s Alphonso Davies scored Canada’s first ever goal, Saudi Arabia beat Argentina, and via some flawless defence Morocco has made it all the way to the semi-finals.

In fact there has been so much excitement one might have hardly noticed that our provincial legislature passed Premier Danielle Smith’s beloved sovereignty act. This potentially fascistic (and ironically titled) Alberta Sovereignty Within A United Canada Act was approved last Thursday at approximately 1 a.m., and was even applauded by various members once all was finished. Thankfully though, it had been excised of provisions that would have given Smith and her cronies the power to bypass the legislature and rewrite our laws as she saw fit, once the rest of the legislative members took the UCP to task.

Smith herself claims a grand reset on our relationship with Justin Trudeau’s government is necessary, because “it’s not like Ottawa is a national government. The way our country works is that we are a federation of sovereign, independent jurisdictions. They are one of those signatories to the Constitution and the rest of us, as signatories to the Constitution, have a right to exercise our sovereign powers in our own areas of jurisdiction.”

Smith has no idea how our country works. Alberta does not have some kind of special independence, thanks to the jurisdictional powers our and indeed any other province may have. Also, the Canadian constitution does not include any sort of language that states Alberta is “sovereign.”

What the Constitution does have though, are several rights of citizenship that Smith and her UCP could violate if the Act goes a single amendment further.

For example, if Danielle Smith violated my basic rights through provincial adjudication, she would violate my rights as a citizen under Section 15(1) of our Charter, due to the fact that my nation of origin is Canada, and she is not allowed to discriminate against persons of any nationality. She then would have to claim that I have fewer rights under Canadian law because – “sovereignty.”

Also, as a full citizen, I have the right to enter, remain in, and leave Canada, including moving to and taking up residence in Alberta to pursue the gaining of a livelihood, thanks to Section 6(1)(2). Any limitation on these rights must be based on reasonable requirements of residency or face punishment under criminal law, so Smith would basically have to invent new laws and crimes – after the fact – in order to once again violate my Section 6 rights. I could go from citizen to criminal in a moment without lifting a finger, and so could you.

What Smith also forgets is that the UCP are not guaranteed permanent power, and thus if someone else takes majority control they could do to the UCP what Smith has done to the rest of us.

Ultimately Smith believes Ottawa is not a national government. Well it is, and the UCP best remember that when they start reaping the confusion and pain that the Act will sow. At the very least we should never forget which political party it was that propagated such confusion and pain in the first place.

Dr. Daniel Schnee is an anthropologist and jazz/rock drummer

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