Alberta has a long history in Canada as a leading province, joining confederation Sept. 1, 1905.
Agriculture, forestry and the energy industry have significantly contributed to the economy of Alberta and Canada.
Over the past several decades, Alberta provincial governments have been concerned with their relationship with federal governments. Conservative governments in Alberta have particularly felt mistreated by federal Liberal governments on various economic and funding issues.
Now the provincial government under the United Conservative Party has taken a major step to help settle some of the key issues.
Alberta voters will have their say in the matters.
A provincial referendum has been called for Oct. 19 for electors to cast ballots on the two biggest issues identified by the Alberta Next panel – constitutional reform and immigration.
The last time the Government of Alberta held a referendum was Oct. 18, 2021 during municipal government elections. At that time, voters faced two questions on daylight savings time and transfer payments. Two basic questions seemed very simple for electors at that time.
However, the upcoming referendum will have a total of nine questions – four on constitutional reform and five on immigration.
Unless citizens have a deep passion and knowledge on many of the issues in question, it may be difficult to draw a high turnout of voters – especially when there is no election.
Some of the questions on constitutional reform include:
-Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to abolish the unelected federal Senate?
-Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to allow provinces to opt out of federal programs that intrude on provincial jurisdiction such as health care, education and social services without losing any of the associated federal funding for use in its social programs?
-Do you support the Government of Alberta working with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the Canadian Constitution to better protect provincial rights from federal interference by giving a province’s laws dealing with provincial or shared areas of constitutional jurisdiction priority over federal laws when the province’s laws and federal laws conflict?
The provincial government will need to do a lot of work to inform people about the issues to convince voters to cast ballots.
Questions on immigration include:
-Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more-sustainable level, prioritizing economic immigration and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities?
-Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law mandating that only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and individuals with an Alberta-approved immigration status will be eligible for provincially-funded programs such as health care, education and social services?
One solution to the problems for the UCP government may be a federal election and voters elect a Conservative majority government. It’s probably something Premier Danielle Smith and the ruling government desperately want.
The referendum will be 11 years ago to the date that the Liberals have been in federal office.
All questions are posted on the government website at gov.ab.ca on the new release Feb. 20.
Richard Froese