Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks at a press conference after the Speech from the Throne in Edmonton, on Nov. 29.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press
The recent actions of some of Canada’s provincial premiers bring to mind a scene from Woody Allen’s 1971 comedy Bananas, in which the newly installed dictator of a Latin American country greets his cheering compatriots for the first time.
“Hear me,” he commands. “I am your new president. From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish. In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside, so we can check.”
“Power has driven him mad,” says an observer.
We are not saying that Canada’s duly elected premiers are tinpot dictators. But we are saying that some of them have gone off the democratic deep end in the pursuit of their political agendas.
The latest example is Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Her government this week tabled its promised deliverance from the iron chains of federalism, the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act, and it’s as loony as anticipated.
The bill proposes, after the simple passage of a resolution in the legislature, to give cabinet the power to unilaterally amend legislation via orders in council. Cabinet can do so if it’s been decided that a federal law is unconstitutional, or even just “harmful,” without first testing the constitutionality of the law in question in court, and without defining the word “harmful.”
Cabinet can also order provincial bodies not to enforce specific federal policies or laws. It verges on insanity.
By all accounts, the Smith government had a difficult time on Tuesday explaining the workings of its law during a confused and chaotic press conference. That’s to be expected of a bill whose incoherent goal is to usurp the constitutional powers of the federal government, and to neuter the provincial legislature along the way.
In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford has gone mad with power in his plan to build 1.5-million homes over 10 years. This month he reversed himself on a promise not to allow development in the province’s Greenbelt – a vow he had repeated like a mantra for years. And his government has neutered the municipal councils of Toronto and Ottawa, by allowing the mayors to adopt pro-housing bylaws with only one-third of the vote.
Mr. Ford also has made a regular habit of resorting to the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to get what he wants. This fall he tried to use it to essentially strip an education workers’ union of its right to strike. He backed down in the face of a general strike, a predictable outcome that Mr. Ford somehow failed to imagine might be the result.
On to Quebec Premier François Legault, whose Coalition Avenir Québec government in 2019 unashamedly enacted an unconstitutional law, Bill 21, that prohibits some public employees from wearing religious symbols or garb at work. Mr. Legault calls it a defence of Quebec’s secular culture; a Quebec Superior Court judge called it a cruel violation of Charter freedoms in a 2021 ruling, but he had to let it stand because the law is shielded from restraint and tolerance by the notwithstanding clause.
What the premiers of Alberta, Ontario and Quebec share is their predilection for populism. All three focus on a base of voters that they portray as the victim of an uncaring enemy. In Quebec, it’s the federal government and immigrants that are the peril. In Ontario, it’s “elites” in big cities. In Alberta, it’s Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Their populism is exacerbated by Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system, which allows parties to target voters in particular ridings, often divided along rural-urban lines, to win enough seats to control a legislature with as little as a third of the popular vote. Carving up voters this way is something all parties at all levels do.
But the blame for the worst consequences of the rise in polarization in Canada falls on premiers who, in the name of their allegedly aggrieved voters, are quick to undermine democratic voting principles, pass incoherent laws, break key promises and gorge on the notwithstanding clause.
Political leaders always have options when facing big challenges. But instead of working within the norms and conventions that form the foundation of our democracy, too often lately there are premiers who like to make people wear their underpants over their trousers for the entertainment of their base.