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Alberta’s Referendum Fails Every Democratic Test We Have

Danielle Smith’s ten-question ballot doesn’t just measure discontent with Canada. It helps manufacture it

Right now, a central tenet of how Canadians govern themselves is being contested by Alberta premier Danielle Smith. “Direct democracy is the ultimate form of democracy,” asserts Smith with the self-assurance of a second-year seminar student. Respectfully, we disagree.

Initiation of the Alberta referendum was made on insufficient signatures by a UCP that was not elected based on a separatist platform

The issues on the ten-question ballot present a potentially vote-swaying narrative promoting dissatisfaction with federal government

Rather than defend against foreign propaganda, the UCP has taken steps to weaken election interference investigations

Canada, as we all know, is not an ancient Greek city-state; we don’t make decisions about our collective future in the town square. Rather, we are a constitutional, parliamentary democracy. We elect representatives to make law and policy designed to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number in a pluralistic manner. Our electoral system isn’t perfect, and neither is the party system, but it is what we have.

Some might nonetheless find the idea of a referendum romantic: a rare opportunity to capture the public will on a question of great importance. Under the right conditions, direct democracy might live up to that promise. But the ten-question exercise in national sabotage set in motion by the ostensibly federalist United Conservative Party government, set for October 19, hardly qualifies.

To understand why, it helps to break the referendum process into three distinct phases, following the framework developed in Stephen Tierney’s book, Constitutional Referendums, which is still the most exhaustive book on referendums to date. Each phase can be evaluated on its own democratic merits—and, taken together, they reveal just how far Alberta’s process falls short.

First phase is initiation. Who kicks off the referendum and determines the questions upon which the electorate will deliver a verdict? In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte called a constitutional referendum on whether France should become an empire under his reign—a proposal that would transform the country’s status as a republic and make him supreme ruler for life. This was the third in a series of plebiscites Napoleon leveraged for total control of France. Unsurprisingly, over 99 percent of citizens voted for Le Petit Caporal.

Was the vote democratically initiated? No, it was not. Napoleon himself dictated the question, and it was set for the purpose of crowning himself emperor. So we see that the mere act of holding a vote does not, in itself, equal democracy. Indeed, Napoleon won overwhelming support because the ballot was public, not secret, and the guillotines from Robespierre’s reign of terror were still sharp. People valued their necks, and their votes showed.

It is possible of course to set up a referendum democratically. After Jacques Parizeau’s Parti Québécois defeated the Quebec Liberal Party in 1994, it came as no shock that he would take his victory as a mandate to move forward with a vote on separation, as he had promised to do within the first year of his term. Similarly, when David Cameron’s Conservative Party won an unexpected majority over the Labour Party in the United Kingdom’s general election in 2015, Britons knew exactly what would follow: a vote on whether to remain within the European Union the next year. Such a vote, after all, was an explicit part of the Conservatives’ platform.

Alberta’s UCP was not formed as a separatist party, nor were they elected in either 2019 or 2023 on a platform advocating for a referendum on secession, or on any other matter. Does it therefore have a democratic mandate to subject........

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