Separatism In Canada Must Be Killed Off Now

Canadians have to be bold and kill off all talk of provinces separating, and soon.

The Alberta separatists seem to be a particularly loathsome group, with many apparently really wanting Alberta to join the US, even if it means selling access to Alberta’s resources on the cheap, but Quebec separatists in the past have not been that much better.

I have a huge problem with separatists in both Quebec and Alberta. They are all liars. They ignore facts or reality, and sell what they think is a dream, but will end up being a nightmare for the people in their province as well as the rest of the country.

They believe that the ends justify the means. They do not really believe in democracy, particular in its complexities. Separatists actually have contempt for the people they purport to want to serve.

The 1995 Quebec Referendum led the federal government to pas the Clarity Act because Separatists tried to mislead or soft-peddle independence in the wording of the referendum. Separatists used “sovereignty” instead of the clearer term “independence” and offered “sovereignty association” without ever defining what that meant or how it would work, such as adding an extra level of democratic government to the three we had. Canada is sovereign, but we have various associations with the US, such as NORAD and NAFTA, so was that what was meant?

The 1995 referendum wording was “Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Quebec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995, Yes or No?” Apart from not using the term “independent”, did voters really know what was in the 1995 agreement, and would the terms of the “new economic and political partnership” be a reasonable and realistic offer designed to actually be viable and acceptable to Canada, or was it just a trick to win over a few more voters by offering something that sounded like a compromise but would be designed by the separatists to be doomed to fail?

After the narrow win of the “No” side, the federal government did two things. In 1996, the Chretien government asked the Supreme Court to rule on the issue of the right of Quebec, or any province, to separate, with the ruling coming in 1998. Then, the government passed the Clarity Act in 2000.

The Supreme Court ruling was clear – no province, not even Quebec, had any right to secede, under Canadian or international law. Period.

But then the Court went beyond what it was asked to decide (likely to get a unanimous decision), and volunteered additional comments, which are not actually law or binding, though the Court essentially invented a “binding” duty to negotiate, even though provinces have no right to leave Confederation. The Court cannot force people on either side to negotiate in good faith, even if there is a supposed obligation to show up at a negotiating table.

The Court said this: “The obligations identified by the Court are binding obligations under the Constitution.  However, it will be for the political actors to determine what constitutes ‘a clear majority on a clear question’ in the circumstances under which a future referendum vote may be taken.”

 Of course, the province wanting to separate will hold its own referendum. The federal government has a “power of disallowance” which has fallen into disuse, but if that power were to be revived and used, the federal government could stop any unclear or unfair referendum from being held.

The 2000 Clarity Act was meant to respond to the Supreme Court decision, and particularly the issue of a “a clear majority on a clear question”. Note they did not just say “majority” but “clear majority”, which the Court did not define.

My view was that the Court was essentially trying to prevent violence and a civil war, or civil insurrection, and encourage peaceful separation much as Great Britain had to accept the independence of most of Ireland in 1922, though the mostly Protestant part of Ireland was to remain in Britain and the border line legally determined.

Quebec separatists also decided that while Canada was divisible, Quebec was not. This was blatant hypocrisy.

What is forgotten is that several First Nations and Inuit groups in Quebec held their own separate referendums just days before the 1995 provincial referendum to assert their rights to self-determination, and reject being taken out of Canada without consent. This is from AI:

• The James Bay Crees: On October 24, 1995, the Grand Council of the Crees organized a vote asking members whether they consented as a people to the Government of Quebec separating their traditional territory from Canada. Out of a 77% turnout, 96.3% voted “No” (to remain in Canada).

• The Inuit of Nunavik: The Inuit held a parallel local vote asking if they agreed that Quebec should become sovereign. Roughly 95% to 96% voted “No”.

• The Montagnais (Innu): Montagnais communities also held ballots shortly before the main referendum, with an overwhelming 99% voting “No” to separation.

The same problem emerges in Alberta as well, of minorities with rights not wanting to be taken out of Canada. This would be a mess in Alberta, as it would have been in Quebec.

One of the complaints in Alberta is that, back when it had less than 190,000 people, some wanted it to be one bigger province that included Saskatchewan that would have been called “Buffalo”. I had never heard of this gripe until this year, but where does Saskatchewan fit in to all this?

But let’s go back to “”a clear majority on a clear question”.

The 2000 Clarity Act essentially requires the Canadian Parliament to act quickly to debate and determine if the referendum question was clear and it was a clear majority, and then to enter negotiations “in good faith”, which is highly subjective. But the government cannot make offers or negotiate secession without this, though of course the Parliament can repeal or change the Act at any time.

What nobody seems to be discussing is what constitutes “a clear majority“.

A vote of 50% + 1 is called a “simple majority”, or “bare majority”, or “ordinary majority.”

Typically, for changing constitutions of governments, political parties, or some non-profit corporations or charities, more than 50% + 1 is required. The number varies, and to amend our Constitution, we require at least two-thirds of the provinces (currently 7 out of 10) that represent at least 50% of the total population of all provinces combined.

To amend some parts of our Constitution, all the provinces must agree – unanimity is required, or 100%. NATO found this structure to be unworkable when it tried to let in new members like Sweden and Finland, in that a single country could extort concessions to change their vote, or completely refuse for no reason.

But in other contexts, “clear majority” can be “3 out of 5” (60%), 2 out of 3 (66.67%) or 3 out of 4 (75%), though going even higher to 4 out of 5 (80%) is rarer. The US Constitutional Amendment formula is complicated but has 2/3 for some processes and ¾ for others.

The Bylaws of the UCP in Alberta require a 75% vote in favour at an Annual General Meeting.

Parliament can easily reject “50% + 1” of the voters who show up as NOT being a clear majority of people supporting independence, or sovereignty, or whatever term separatists choose.

What if turnout is low? In elections, we still use First Past the Post, where what matters is who gets the most votes, regardless of turnout. So, when we talk of “majority”, should we be talking about a majority of people who voted, or a majority of the people eligible to vote?

But in both the Alberta referendum, and in the newly elected Parti Quebecois government in Quebec, they seem to ignore “clear majority” and assume 50% + 1 is enough to set in motion an irreversible process leading to independence. But I have yet to hear anyone loudly opposing this incorrect assumption.

If Mark Carney and the Cabinet so decided, they could require a 75% line for “clear majority”, the highest likely bar. Now, even 60% seems impossible to achieve in both provinces given polling over the last decades. For the sake of argument, 2/3 or 66.67% seems reasonable to me, based on turnout – two people out of three who voted.

In Quebec in 1995, the “Yes” vote was 49.42% and the “No” vote 50.58%, it was clearly not a decisive win for “No”. Turnout was a remarkably high 93.53%, so as a percent of the total, “No” was only 46.44%.

The Brexit vote is a clear warning to Canadians that we have to argue strongly against the idea that 50% +1 is enough.

In the 2016 vote, 51.89% of voters supported “Leave” against 48.11% for stay. Turnout was 72.21%, but afterwards, many who supported “stay” complained that the polls seem to show a victory for that option, so as a result they did not bother to vote. This might have been exacerbated by the fact that the Stay vote was concentrated in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Greater London and larger cities, with Leave concentrated in rural areas.

British PM Andy Burnham favours Britain rejoining the EU and undoing Brexit. A recent poll published in The Guardian shows that just under 60% of Brits think Brexit was a mistake. The polling also shows around 50% of voters want to rejoin the EU, with only 28% wanting to stay out and 22% undecided. Since late 2021, undoing Brexit and rejoining the EU has consistently led in the polls by a significant margin.

Canadians, like our allies, believe in democracy, or the idea that people should have a meaningful say in who governs the country and its policies. But there are limits to the use of “50%+1”, while there may be times when there is no other democratic alternative.

Take the votes for Newfoundland’s future after the Second World War. Newfoundland had been self governing, then got deeply into debt and power was returned to Britain. Continuing to be run from Britain, which was the status quo, was eliminated in the first referendum, coming in last from three choices that included a return to “Responsible government” and joining Canada, neither of which got over 50%.

In the second referendum, joining Canada won with only 52.34%. Not particularly decisive. However, I would suggest there is an underlying rule here. When there is a fork in the road and continuing with the status quo is not an option, like going off a cliff or hitting a tree on an actual road, then a simple majority is fine, as it is with relatively unimportant decisions or ones that can be reversed with little or nothing lost but time. Brexit was not such a situation, and given the narrow victory for leave, a viable option might have been to reject the vote or delay it, and to try to negotiate major reforms to the EU in good faith.

But the other thing is that a simple majority is not appropriate when a matter is not urgent, and the rights of the other side will be infringed or ignored when they should not be sacrificed.

Do eight people have the right to vote to kill a ninth person, even if they give the ninth person a vote? Essentially that is the plot of the Hitchcock movie Lifeboat, where the ninth person is a Nazi spy. It was also the subject of a Monty Python sketch, but this is where the term “tyranny of the majority” comes in.

In the Alberta referendum, First Nations have treaty rights that date from 1874 to 1906, all but one signed before Alberta was a province. And Alberta had a total population of around 185,000 in 1906, all of whom are long since dead, and its population in the last Census was over 4.2 million, mostly of people whose ancestors arrived since 1906 and just under 7% First Nations.

I do think that on the one court ruling already to come out of this, negotiations with First Nations have to be part of any process, but that there is no point negotiating until it is clear there is a reason, and people who propose a referendum and get signatures have no authority to enter negotiations on behalf of anyone but themselves.

The Parti Quebecois won a minority government with around 28% of the vote, and polls in 2026 on separation or sovereignty in Quebec have ranged between 24% to 36% in favour, usually in the high 20s. This would be an excellent opportunity to declare that 50% + 1 is meaningless and would not pass the test of “clear majority” under the Supreme Court decision.

The PQ has said it would delay another referendum until after Donald Trump stops being US President in January 2029. With a minority government and unpopular leader, the PQ might lose power before they can have a vote.

Some commentators contend that if a third Quebec referendum goes down to defeat, separatism will be dead. That would be great, but it is probably better if we avoid another vote entirely, and raise the bar for any vote to lead to separation.

Meanwhile, the Alberta polls in 2026 have varied between 17% and 35% in favour of independence, with recent polls in the low 20s. The one somewhat positive thing Danielle Smith has done is to add other questions to the referendum, which should boost turnout so the Brexit problem of people taking the result for granted is less likely. That being said, Smith is likely adding to Western or Albertan alienation.

The Alberta referendum has 10 questions, and #10 is not a referendum on independence itself, but a referendum to hold a referendum, with two options:

Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?

Option 1: Alberta should remain a province of Canada.

Option 2: The government of Alberta should commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.

So, this referendum does not require a “clear majority” itself.

To kill separatism, the other eight provincial leaders, and territorial governments, and the federal political parties, need to drive home this year that 50%+1 is not enough.

As for the rest of the ten questions, mostly they deal with issues like health care for non-permanent residents, immigration, photo ID for non-federal elections, and changing the Constitution with respect to Supreme Court judges, abolishing the Senate, and provincial laws having supremacy over federal ones.

Quebec has had more control over immigration than other provinces since 1991. This is one policy area where I think Ontario, where I live, and other provinces have a reasonable chance of getting more power, since giving Quebec a power and not offering the same to other provinces has usually been a problem, though other provinces have been fine with not asking for the same rights. Alberta has floated the idea of leaving the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) for its own plan, the same approach as Quebec. As an Ontarian, I wish our provincial government had the same ability as Quebec to have a pension fund that was oriented towards economic nationalism instead of heavily investing outside of Canada.

The other referendum questions might come up against federal laws such as the Canada Health Act, or just go nowhere if they involve changing the Constitution.

Separatism in Quebec, and now in Alberta, have hurt Canada over the last 70 years or so, since the 1960s “Quiet Revolution”. But demands from Alberta on things like a Triple-E Senate have also distracted from other reforms that might have been better and more meaningful. One such issue is that now being raised about the number of MPs (and Senators) from each province harming the West. This is mainly because Atlantic Canada is grossly over-represented. That said, Saskatchewan should have fewer MPs than it now has if we stuck strictly to “representation by population” like the US House of Representatives.

Even the US has a few oddballs wanting Texas to regain its independence, so maybe there will always be a few people pushing obsolete or absurd ideas. But if we can kill separatism by actually following the Supreme Court decision that calls for far more than 50%+1 support, and we can also get past the current trade war with the US, then maybe we can start looking at more meaningful demands.

Canada lacks a national securities regulator, which is a problem nobody talks about. As an Ontarian, I would like to see us have consultations on what changes we might want too. Our Constitution dates to 1867, and the changes made in 1982 were not made with an eye towards many of the issues we need to address now. But the 1982 changes made it impossible to make major changes in some areas, because of the requirement for unanimity for certain constitutional amendments, and support from 70% of provinces representing 50% of the population for other amendments.

What country makes it easier to separate than to make meaningful or reasonable reforms? Canada, that’s who. We can solve this in part by making it clear that the 1995 Quebec referendum with just 50%+1 of the vote leading to seperation is not the rule and will never be accepted by other Canadians with any other province that holds a vote.