Danielle Smith declares war on Newfs
Proposed slashing to parliament vandalizes Canada, screws small provs
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s proposed changes to the Canadian constitution would cut Newfoundland and Labrador’s representation in the federal parliament by more than half.
They are a fundamental attack not just on the ideas that underpin the Canadian constitution but on the very place of Newfoundland and Labrador in Confederation.
It’s pretty simple.
In the 1860s, the people who met to form Canada deliberately rejected the idea popular in southern American states of states’ rights and state sovereignty. They created a country in which provinces had areas of exclusive power but gave the federal government the dominant role since it was intended to be the national government. Canadians have a common criminal law, unlike in the States, and in Canada issues like a woman’s right to control her body are not subject to the whims of local prejudice and superstition.
Smith rejects that fundamentally. She wants “to empower and better protect provincial rights.” The video that accompanied the release last week says that “some ideas that made sense 150 years ago” no longer make sense. Those ideas about Canada that make it tightly different from the dis-United States are what Smith wants gone.
Smith’s vision of Canada is the pre-Civil War United States but with a Canadian twist. That’s why she talks about what are effectively states rights. She wants to weaken the power of what she calls “smaller” provinces in the federal government - not Alberta, although it too is small - and at the same time demands those smaller provinces like Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador pay Alberta when it exercises what Smith calls “sovereignty.”
There’s nothing coherent about Smith’s proposals, nothing that lines up the proposed constitutional reforms with her supposed goal of Alberta “sovereignty.” Nothing clearly addresses whatever grievances Smith and some Albertans have. Incoherence or craziness has never stopped any Canadian politician from acting on the craziest of claims, though. That’s why Newfoundlanders and Labradorians need to watch out since Smith’s ideas would screw Newfoundland and Labrador.
“Right now those living in smaller provinces are greatly over-represented,” Smiths’s proposal reads, “when compared to those living in larger ones.” That apparently referred to the House of Commons alone but that isn’t clear by any means. A video released at the same time as Smith’s announcement (see below) listed Senate abolition as the first choice for senate change but the Senate is also part of parliament where “small provinces” are over represented according to Smith.
That’s important because the Senate - appointed on a regional basis - exists to counterbalance the House of Commons’ representation by population. If you change the Commons, you need to change the Senate to represent provinces equally, not eliminate it. And that matters because for a province like Newfoundland and Labrador, getting rid of the Senate *and* at the same time electing the Commons strictly on the basis of population means Newfoundland and Labrador’s representation in Ottawa would be slashed by more than half. Decoupling the Senate and the Commons as Smith does, would be a disaster.
Right now, Newfoundland and Labrador elects five members of the House of Commons using the strict division of the country by population. There’s another seat because the Constitution says no province can elect fewer members to the Commons than it has appointed to the Senate. There are six senators. And then there’s one more seat in the Commons thanks to a 2022 law that anchors every province’s number of seats in the Commons to what it had in 2019.
That’s a total of 13 representatives in parliament (Senate and House of Commons) for Newfoundland and Labrador today. Smith’s changes would reduce that to five right now (strict rep by population and no Senate), with no floor either for how low Commons representation could go. Depending on how a future parliament sets the number of members, and how small the Newfoundland and Labrador population is relative to the Canadian population you could see it slip much lower than five. Prince Edward Island would have just one seat in the Commons under Smith’s scheme, if that. Alberta would have 37.
“Adhering strictly to representation by population in the House of Commons,” as Smith wants, would also open the possibility that in future parliaments, Labrador would be represented by Quebec members of parliament or parts of Newfoundland would be represented by Nova Scotians or Prince Edward Islanders. It would also allow British Columbians or Saskatchewanians to represent Albertans, which doesn’t seem to be what Smith had in mind.
If you’ve noticed, Smith is supposedly concerned about protecting provincial interests. Well, the way Canadians elect representatives to the House of Commons reflects many aspects of Canadian reality. That includes Smith’s supposed concern. The formula for giving seats based on population moves away from strict representation by population in which every riding would have a roughly equal number of Canadians in it protects provinces by increasing representation in the country’s key political chamber for smaller provinces. She actually wants to wreck that and, quite obviously, wreck much more besides.
If anyone in Canada is seriously concerned that the federal parliament doesn’t represent Canada and Canadians, then the solution is a senate that gives equal representation from each province, that has members elected directly by Canadians, and that has the power to hold up some laws. An equal, elected, and effective senate could also have the power to review and approve some appointments such as judges in the Supreme Court of Canada.
This is not a new idea. The so-called Triple-E Senate idea came from Alberta and had strong support from Preston Manning. That Smith has now rejected that idea flatly - she includes serious reform as an afterthought as a possible alternative to abolition - is significant. Senate reform became a key part of the Charlottetown Accord in the 1990s but provincial Premiers gutted the idea by insisting on changes that shifted more power to them. Canadians wanted it but they rejected the Charlottetown Accord - and the Premier’s perverted Senate reform idea in it - in a national referendum.
Senate reform has come up a couple of times since but in inevitably fails because Senate reform would rob Premiers of their ability now to posture on the national stage as defenders of the province’s interests. Senators would give them serious political competition in that score. Now you understand why Danielle Smith isn’t serious about reforming the senate - and thereby protecting Albertans’ interests in federal issues - so much as getting rid of it entirely.
As for the rest of Danielle Smith’s schemes, it would cause deep and irreparable harm to Canadians, generally and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians especially.
