'Alberta Forever Canada' petition sees potential hurdles according to Alberta political scientist
'I would think that this has got to be one of largest petition campaigns, not just in Alberta, but in Canadian history,' Wesley said. 'I can't recall a petition in Canada that would have had north of 250,000 signatures.'
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If they are able to garner that number of signatures in the dead-heat of summer, Wesley said it would be a great political feat.
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It's a high-risk, high-reward venture that will ultimately see where Alberta stands on the topic.
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'If they get enough signatures, it does definitely support their claim that Albertans want nothing to do with separatism,' he said. 'If they don't, it has the potential to put wind in the sails of the separatist movement, who can claim their numbers are bigger than what the polls are showing.'
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Wesley hopes the petition isn't motivated by wedge politics.
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He views petitions and referendums as majoritarian instruments that are often used on complex issues that require discussion and negotiation.
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'In a way, taking this to the streets and having these conversations in public removes it from the elite-style accommodation that makes federalism work in Canada,' Wesley said. 'Will this drive a wedge within the United Conservative Party? I'm not sure they need any more.
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'They've got the federal byelection campaign that's drawn the leader of the federal party into discussions around this; the UCP has their AGM in the fall where this will be at the top of their agenda; and if anything, this petition adds one more potential area for division among the UCP caucus and cabinet.'
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With additional external pressures, Wesley said the petition will become another front where the UCP will need to pay attention.
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'And that position is very unclear,' he said.
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In terms of the petition itself, Wesley said one challenge it may face can draw similarities from what federalists ran into during the Quebec 1995 referendum campaign.
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'Albertans, like Quebecers, are not happy with the status quo, so selling them on the notion of remaining… (it doesn't) really capture the mood of Albertans, most of whom are not actually happy with the way things are going within confederation,' he said.
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One of the challenges he sees is avoiding the sell of 'what Canada is right now.'
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'That's what the federalists did in Quebec in 1995,' Wesley said. 'Jean Chretien famously said that when somebody asks him how easy it is to campaign he'd say, 'It's easy, I have the best product in the world: I've got Canada.'
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'And if that's the tactic that the Lukaszuk group is going to employ, I think they're going to find some resistance on the doorstep.'
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Another potential pitfall is making people choose between Canada and Alberta.
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'The vast majority of Albertans strongly identify with their province and country, and more than that, they hate being asked to pick between the two,' Wesley said. 'If the Forever Canada campaign is only selling Canada and not talking about what it means to be Albertan and how being Albertan is also being Canadian, I think it's going to be a branding misfire.'
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If there's one thing Wesley would like someone to ask, it would be regarding laws surrounding the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) petition and Lukaszuk's petition.
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National Observer
an hour ago
- National Observer
How Bill C-5 adopted the language of Canada's Conservatives
In June, as Bill C-5 wound through parliament and talk of nation-building projects rose to national prominence, so did the voices of Indigenous leaders concerned by the lack of consultation. By no coincidence, June also marked a record spike in mentions of one particular term in Canadian news: 'economic reconciliation.' It's a loaded term with a range of implications, depending on the speaker. For proponents of C-5, 'economic reconciliation' encompasses Indigenous consultation, partnership and a share in the jobs and profits generated by new industrial projects under the new bill. 'Indigenous peoples are not just participants in our economy. They are rights holders. They are the original stewards of this land,' Energy Minister Tim Hodgson told the Toronto Regional Board of Trade on June 25, the day before C-5 received Royal Assent. 'If we are serious about retooling our economy, then economic reconciliation must be front and centre.' But for critics, 'economic reconciliation' is a dangerous twist on a familiar term, deployed by politicians and industry to justify a power grab. 'Economic reconciliation stalls true reconciliation,' ran the June 17 headline of an emblematic critique by Melissa Dupuis, an Innu activist and campaigner for the David Suzuki no doubt be hearing less about reconciliation and more about economic reconciliation,' Dupuis wrote,'the same threat that for years has translated to, 'Either you sign and you'll get money, or you don't sign, you get nothing, and we'll do it anyway.'' In the eye of the beholder For all its volatility, the term seems irresistible to some politicians. Conservatives — both provincial and federal — have taken a particular shine to it. For proponents of Bill C-5, "economic reconciliation" encompasses Indigenous consultation. But critics see it as a dangerous twist on a familiar term, to be deployed by politicians and industry to justify a power grab, Arno Kopecky writes. In 2018, Andrew Scheer — then leader of the federal Conservatives — began invoking 'economic reconciliation' on a regular basis, and it made it into subsequent leader Erin O'Toole's 2019 election platform. In BC's 2024 election, Conservative leader John Rustad's platform didn't mention 'reconciliation' on its own — just 'economic reconciliation.' The same was true of Pierre Poilievre's platform in this year's federal election. Since then, Doug Ford has repeatedly emphasized the importance of economic reconciliation in his efforts to gain First Nations support for mining in Ontario's Ring of Fire region. Mark Carney and his officials are also happy to invoke 'economic reconciliation.' But while Carney's election platform did mention it twice, it also discussed reconciliation five other times without that modifier. In the Liberals' platform, reconciliation means everything from funding Indigenous-led conservation and supporting the search for unmarked graves at residential schools to implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action. That's a far more holistic view of reconciliation than Conservatives tend to articulate. But when it comes to Bill C-5 and the current push for nation-building projects, that word 'economic' has an undeniable bipartisan appeal. By the time the bill passed at the end of June, Carney's Liberal government appeared to realize the risk it was running in alienating Indigenous leaders. It was then that Mandy Gull-Masty, the Cree Minister of Indigenous Services Canada, told reporters the prime minister would host an 'engagement session' with First Nations leaders from across the country in July. Striking a conciliatory note, Gull-Masty said it was up to Indigenous communities to set the terms. The government, she said, wanted to know: 'What does economic reconciliation mean to you?' 'Looks like marketing' Unsurprisingly, it depends who you ask. 'The concern with this focus on economic reconciliation is that it's reductive. It reduces [reconciliation] to a matter of dollars and cents,' says Bruce McIvor, a Metís lawyer and partner at First Peoples Law LLP. There are times when the consequences of a particular industrial proposal outweigh the benefits. 'It's not just about the money — it's about protecting the water and lands for future generations,' he says. Framing a proposal entirely in financial terms 'has the real potential to lead to a consequence where the government says: 'First Nation, we offered you economic reconciliation, you turned down the equity deal, so now you're just being obstructionist. You're standing in the way of the national interest, and we're going to push this project through. … I think a lot of non-Indigenous people will be receptive to that or to that argument.' That concern is shared by chief Joe and many other Indigenous leaders across Canada who have been promoting 'economic reconciliation' for years. 'I get cringy when it looks performative, it looks like marketing,' says John Desjarlais, the Métis director of the Indigenous Resource Network [IRN]. The IRN is a pro-industry group that advocates for Indigenous involvement in resource extraction, and Desjarlais has come out in support of Bill C-5. But in conversation with Canada's National Observer, he tempered that support with a cautionary note that acknowledged the tricky position Indigenous leaders across Canada now find themselves in: wanting to advance development and create wealth for their communities, yet wary of industry taking advantage of the general haste to cut unfair deals and evade environmental oversight. 'We knew we're going to be walking a tough line,' Desjarlais said. 'Expediency is possible, if there's a relationship built on mutual trust and respect. But the flip side of that is, if there is a nation that has done their due diligence and they say no, we need to respect that.' Dawn Leach, chair of the National Indigenous Economic Development Board, agrees. The board has produced multiple reports advocating for economic reconciliation; according to Leach, the term grew out of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Call To Action #92, on Business and Reconciliation, which 'call(s) upon the corporate sector in Canada to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a reconciliation framework.' Leach has dedicated much of her career to improving economic conditions for Indigenous communities, but she's wary of efforts to do so that bypass Indigenous involvement — like the crafting of Bbill C-5.. 'They want to expedite the process, and we do too,' Leach told Canada's National Observer. 'But we need to be brought in at the beginning of the process. After the election, everything took place without our people at the table.' Leach is skeptical of proponents of Bill C-5 who invoke economic reconciliation — 'it's something that's in place now to appease us' — but she doesn't feel it's too late for Carney to correct course. 'I think we can get back on track, but it's got to be really meaningful going forward from here. You can't have meetings without us.' Should that happen, Leach warned, 'that's where all the problems start. That's where all the court cases will happen.' A best case scenario? If you ask Leanne Joe, a hereditary chief with the Squamish nation, there are as many interpretations of 'economic reconciliation' as there are Indigenous communities. Chief Joe is a co-author of ' Step Into The River: A Framework for Economic Reconciliation,' a 180-page guide to this concept, published by Simon Fraser University in 2022. 'To me, it is decolonizing well-being and wealth, and looking at it from an Indigenous world view,' she said. 'My son is not wealthy because he has one dollar more in his bank account than you or I. He is wealthy because he can get out on the land, he can hunt, he can fish, he can gather, he understands place names, he understands landmarks, he understands his origin stories.' Chief Joe doesn't deny that money plays a huge role in First Nations' well-being, but even here she challenges the notion that politicians can simply cut Indigenous communities into the profits. 'It's not just about having a seat at the economic table,' she says. 'We already have that. I need to transform the table.' Asked what exactly she means by that, she doesn't hesitate: 'Let's go with the obvious: Land back, cash back. Let's begin there.' One standout example she cites is Sen̓áḵw, a huge development project in the heart of Vancouver owned by the Squamish nation. Sen̓áḵw was the original name of a seaside village the Squamish nation occupied long before Europeans arrived; in 1913, the BC government burned the village to the ground and forced its inhabitants onto a barge that was set adrift at sea. Almost a century later, in 2003, the Squamish won a decades-long legal battle that returned four hectares of the original site to the nation. In 2022, backed by a $1.4 billion loan from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation — the largest in that organization's history — construction began on an 11-tower, 6,000-unit housing complex. Chief Joe is quick to acknowledge her nation's unique circumstances. 'Squamish Nation happens to be in a place that is unprecedented for our nation,' she says. 'We have gone from a state of dependency, in less than three generations, to a nation that will thrive financially.' But for all the importance of financial restitution, Chief Joe emphasizes that well-being — and reconciliation — involves far more than money. 'That's not going to solve the amount of [Indigenous] children that continue to be in care. It's not going to solve the amount of injustices in the justice system. It is not going to solve the increasing amount of Indigenous women, girls, LGBTQS+ individuals that go missing and murdered in this country.' Chief Joe doesn't remember exactly when 'economic reconciliation' entered the vernacular. The term was used in South Africa during the post-apartheid years, but it wasn't until after Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission published its report in 2015 that it started popping up here. 'It was a term that people were starting to glom onto,' she recalls. 'It's like 'reconciliation.' It's a term that just managed to land with settler Canadians, so you run with it.'
The Province
5 hours ago
- The Province
Mark Carney takes a dig at B.C. Ferries for buying from a Chinese shipyard
Prime Minister makes quip about contentious decision during tour of Canadian Navy facility on Vancouver Island Published Aug 04, 2025 • Last updated 3 hours ago • 2 minute read Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks with Royal Canadian Navy Commander, Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, left, during a visit to the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Ranges (CFMETR) operations centre, on the Winchelsea Islands, near Nanoose Bay, B.C.,, on Monday, August 4, 2025. Photo by Darryl Dyck / THE CANADIAN PRESS NANOOSE BAY — Prime Minister Mark Carney continued his visit to B.C. on Monday as he toured the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Ranges facility on Vancouver Island. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Wearing a navy blue suit, Carney visited the facility near Nanoose Bay, about 30 kilometres north of Nanaimo, for about 2 1/2 hours, during which he toured the Royal Canadian Navy vessel Sikanni. A statement from the Prime Minister's Office says Carney's visit aimed to highlight Canada's plan to rebuild, rearm and reinvest in the Canadian Armed Forces. It adds Carney also used the visit to thank Canadian navy members serving on the West Coast. He was accompanied by Navy Commander Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee and Commanding Officer Craig Piccolo from the testing facility. They also joined Carney on a tour of the facility's Range Operation Centre. 'Fire one,' he mused as he peered through binoculars and pretended to fire a torpedo, drawing laughter from those present. Essential reading for hockey fans who eat, sleep, Canucks, repeat. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Carney marvelled at the strength of binoculars and joked about what he could see. 'I see a ferry,' he said, quickly adding, 'Not Chinese-made.' Carney's comment is in reference to B.C. Ferries, the private company owned by the provincial government that recently bought four ferries from a Chinese shipyard. While the company has said the shipyard offered the best deal, it has drawn criticism from Premier David Eby and federal Internal Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland. Prime Minister Mark Carney looks through high-powered ship binoculars during a visit to the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Ranges (CFMETR) operations centre, on the Winchelsea Islands, near Nanoose Bay, B.C.,, on Monday, August 4, 2025. Photo by Darryl Dyck / THE CANADIAN PRESS Carney left the facility by car, driving past a group of demonstrators with the Freedom From War Coalition. They held up Palestinian flags and signs calling on Canada to impose an arms embargo on Israel. One of them, Eden Haythornthwaite, said Carney's plan to spend more money on the military runs counter to the wishes and needs of Canadians, who want to see more money spent on public housing and education among other items. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'We don't need a whole bunch of armaments,' she said. Canada's commitment under NATO's new defence spending targets for actual hardware and infrastructure could cost up to $150 billion. Juljana Zeqollari questioned Carney's recent announcement that Canada's government plans to recognize a Palestinian state. 'In the meantime, they are sending bombs and military shipments to Israel to commit genocide,' she said. Carney did not take questions from media and did not meet with people like Brenton Thompson and Bill MacArthur, who were hoping to catch a glimpse of him. 'That was underwhelming,' Thompson said. The tour marked a continuation of his visit to B.C. On Sunday, Carney met with Eby as well as officials from the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. Carney and Eby discussed U.S. tariffs and a renewed animosity in the long-running softwood lumber dispute. After the meetings, Carney made a surprise appearance at Vancouver's Pride Parade, marching for about a kilometre along the route beginning outside B.C. Place Stadium. Read More Vancouver Canucks Vancouver Whitecaps Vancouver Canucks Local News News
The Province
9 hours ago
- The Province
Canada's economy is showing 'resilience' against U.S. tariffs. Why?
Published Aug 04, 2025 • 5 minute read Canadian and American flags fly near the Ambassador Bridge at the Canada-USA border crossing in Windsor, Ont. on Saturday, March 21, 2020. Photo by Rob Gurdebeke / THE CANADIAN PRESS OTTAWA — 'Some resilience' — those were the two words Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem used last week to describe how the Canadian economy is holding up under the weight of U.S. tariffs. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Just a few days later, U.S. President Donald Trump added 35 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods to a running tally that includes hefty duties on steel, aluminum, automobiles and, more recently, semi-finished copper. With tariffs piling up over the past few months, economists say Canada's economy is starting to show cracks — but few signs of collapse. TD Bank economist Marc Ercolao conceded it's a 'bit of surprise' to see the economy holding up against a massive disruption from Canada's largest trading partner. 'Many months ago, ourselves — as well as other economic forecasters — had an outlook for a much weaker Canadian economy. Obviously, that isn't manifesting now,' he said in an interview. 'We are avoiding the worst-case scenario.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. On Thursday, Statistics Canada gave a glimpse at how the economy wrapped up the second quarter of the year when many of those tariffs came into full effect. While the agency sees a couple of small contractions in real gross domestic product by industry in April and May, its flash estimates show the economy rebounding somewhat in June. If those early readings pan out, StatCan said that would be good enough for flat growth overall on the quarter. Some of those results are distorted by volatility _ businesses rushing to get ahead of tariffs boosted activity in the first quarter, and that's giving way to weakness in the second quarter, for example. It's still hard to pinpoint exact impacts tied to tariffs, Ercolao said, but a broad trend is emerging. Essential reading for hockey fans who eat, sleep, Canucks, repeat. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'What we can say over the last six months or so is that economic activity is somewhat flatlining,' he said. Services sectors are holding up relatively well, but Ercolao said export-heavy industries such as manufacturing and transportation are bearing the brunt of the impact. In an attempt to shore up some of that weakness, the federal government has announced various programs to support tariff-affected workers and broader plans to accelerate defence and infrastructure spending. Macklem noted during his press conference Wednesday that business and consumer confidence are still low, but have improved according to the central bank's recent surveys. And while some trade-exposed sectors have faced job losses and the unemployment has generally trended upward to nearly seven per cent, employers elsewhere in the economy continue to expand their payrolls. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Consumption is still growing,' Macklem said. 'It's growing modestly. It's certainly being restrained by the uncertainty caused by tariffs. But it is growing and we expect that to continue through the third and fourth quarters.' Last week the Bank of Canada kept its policy interest rate unchanged at 2.75 per cent in a third consecutive decision. If the central bank were panicked about the Canadian economy's ability to withstand U.S. tariffs, Ercolao argued it would likely have lowered that rate. The past week's GDP readings were good enough for BMO to raise its outlook for the third quarter into positive territory. Forecasters at the bank now expect Canada will avoid a technical recession this year. BMO chief economist Doug Porter said in a note to clients Friday that Ottawa's personal tax cut at the start of the month and robust demand for domestic travel amid the trade war will boost the economy this quarter, as will 'the less-dire sentiment' around economic forecasts. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Some other forecasters continue to pencil a tariff-induced recession into their outlooks. In the Bank of Canada's monetary policy report released alongside the rate decision, it outlined one scenario for the economy assuming the tariff situation remains largely status quo. Canada avoids a recession in that outcome. Growth in 2025 and 2026 remains overall positive, but half a percentage point lower than it would've been without the weight of tariffs. Macklem told reporters that the Bank of Canada would expect the economy to keep growing even with today's tariffs in place, 'but it'll be on a permanently lower path.' 'Unfortunately, the sad reality is that tariffs mean the economy is going to work less efficiently,' he said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Porter said in his note that the actual impact of Trump's new 35 per cent tariff on Canada's economy could be less than headline figure suggests. Because of a carve-out for Canadian exports that are compliant with CUSMA, BMO sees the effective U.S. tariff rate at roughly seven per cent under the new duties, less than a percentage point higher than where it stood before Friday. But with CUSMA up for renegotiation in 2026, Porter said that 35 per cent tariff rate could loom as a 'cudgel' over negotiations — taking full effect if the trade agreement expires without a new deal in place. The Bank of Canada published a separate 'escalation' scenario this week that would see the United States remove Canada's CUSMA exemption as it ramps up global tariffs. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Real GDP would drop an extra 1.25 per cent by 2027 in this more severe case; Porter said that this outcome would be 'serious for sure, but far from disastrous.' Ercolao said much of the tariff doom-and-gloom earlier in the year was tied to the speed at which those import duties would be imposed. But the on-again, off-again nature of U.S. trade restrictions to date has given businesses time to adapt to the new way of doing business and constant delays in implementation, he said. 'If we go back to when Trump began his presidency, had he went 100 per cent on his tariff plan right away, we probably would have seen a deep economic contraction just because it would have been so sudden,' Ercolao explained. 'Now we've been afforded that time to at least try to mitigate some of the negative impacts from what these tariffs were expected to do to the Canadian economy.' 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