It appears that in the hiatus, waiting for parliament to convene later in the month, the news media have been having some fun. They are doing their best to start a feud between Alberta premier Jason Kenney and the Bloc Québécois’ leader in the House of Commons Yves-François Blanchet. Since they both like referenda, the media figure these guys have something in common.
The media guys, with little to do, were making fun of the Alberta referendum on equalization payments. This is a federal fund that is distributed to provinces in need. Alberta had its municipal elections last month and ran two province-wide referenda at the same time. One referendum was to stop adjusting clocks twice a year and stay on daylight time. The other was to get the federal government to cooperate in changing the constitution to stop Alberta taxes going into the equalization fund.
Typical of municipal elections, when the local mayoralty is a hot subject, as many as 50 per cent of the locals get out to vote. And when it is a ‘ho-hum’ matter, about 35 per cent might carry out their civic duty. And while there, some voted on the referendums and some did not. It did not help that many constitutional experts and quite a few non-experts had spread the word that the constitutional question was a silly waste of time.
But, silly or not, Municipal voters hate paying for things they do not understand. There were lots of blank ballots but some 61 per cent of those who voted said ‘Yes.’ They decided, at the same time, to sticking with correcting their clocks twice each year.
The news media had checked with senior liberal party people to find out when they would sit down and negotiate with Jason Kenney and his united conservatives. The answer they got was “Why?”
The reality is that it would take a vote in every province and a majority of Canadians agreeing to even open the constitution to discuss the question.
Since M. Blanchet has participated in referenda in his home province of Quebec, the news media thought he might have a few tips for Mr. Kenney. Since M. Blanchet has never won a referendum, that was when the name-calling got started.
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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry
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