How much more obvious does it have to be? We have political rivals like Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney laughing it up together, joining forces to disparage and dismiss citizens who have challenged the status quo. Carney, Poilievre, Smith and Nenshi are all campaigning for the same outcome. Apparently, they can all find common ground when people start demanding change. Where was that cooperation when citizens needed them to govern competently, deliver reliable public services and account for how public money was being spent? Citizens needed action. Instead, they get political theatre while public services deteriorate and many struggle to get by. For years, citizens were dismissed. Now we have door knocking, letters and visits. Suddenly, everyone cares about Alberta. This is not left versus right. It is the public demanding accountability from governments that have failed to deliver. Citizens across the political spectrum expect competent public services, responsible spending and elected officials who answer to the people they serve. An establishment that can unite to defend its position should be able to find that same resolve to fulfil its responsibilities. They had years to listen. Years to get the basics right. Years to earn back public trust. Now they want citizens to listen to them and accept, once again, that they know best. The people living with the consequences deserve to be heard. Those responsible for the decisions must be prepared to answer.

In the Reference re Secession of Quebec case, the Supreme Court did not dismiss the potential separation of a province as treasonous or illegitimate. It treated it as a serious democratic and constitutional question.  The Court stated:  “A functioning democracy requires a continuous process of discussion… No one has a monopoly on truth, and our system is predicated on the faith that in the marketplace of ideas, the best solutions to public problems will rise to the top. Inevitably, there will be dissenting voices. A democratic system of government is committed to considering those dissenting voices.”  The Court explained that our democratic institutions accommodate “a continuous process of discussion and evolution,” including the right of each participant in Confederation to initiate constitutional change.  The Court also explained what would happen if the people of a province clearly expressed a desire to leave Canada stating:  “The continued existence and operation of the Canadian constitutional order could not remain indifferent to a clear expression of a clear majority of Quebecers that they no longer wish to remain in Canada.”  In other words, a referendum does not itself cause separation or change the Constitution. A clear majority voting on a clear question would instead give the democratic legitimacy for constitutional negotiations. It does not guarantee any particular outcome.  Yet many people are making things up about how this process would work. They suggest that merely discussing independence, advocating for it or even voting in a referendum would somehow automatically change Canada’s constitutional order. That is simply not true. It is fearmongering.  If Quebecers were entitled to have that discussion, Albertans are entitled to have it too. The Supreme Court even set out the process a province would have to follow, and Parliament later confirmed that process in the Clarity Act.  One may support independence, oppose it or remain undecided. But calling the discussion extremist is not an argument, calling its supporters traitors is not an answer, and shaming citizens into silence is not democracy.  If the discussion is lawful and the process is clearly set out in Canadian law, why is there so much vitriol toward the citizens who want to have it?  That question reveals what this is really about.  It is not fundamentally about right and left.   The real divide is not between neighbours who vote differently. It is between unaccountable power and a public demanding answers.

Canada’s invocation of the Emergencies Act was found to be illegal. Alberta’s public health orders were found to be illegal. Governments demanded compliance of the vax “for the public good.” Then they abandoned the injured. Where are the consequences for those in power? Where is the recognition of the harm done to the people? How do those involved have the audacity to lecture citizens about responsibility when they have yet to answer for their own decisions? And how are we supposed to trust leaders who demand accountability from everyone but themselves? You cannot convince me they are working for the people while they fight so hard to avoid accountability and refuse to acknowledge those harmed. Public office is not a shield from consequences. Those who refuse to answer for their mistakes or the harm they caused have no business holding power or lecturing the rest of us about right and wrong.