The Alberta Sovereignty Act was an inevitability.

But the end result may not be what some hope it will be.

Last week, more fuel was poured on the dumpster fire that is the current state of relations between the federal government and the province of Alberta when federal Liberal cabinet Minister Randy Boissonnault penned an open letter to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. 

Boissonnault’s letter was an inflammatory broadside against Smith’s signature piece of legislation, the Alberta Sovereignty Act.

Smith’s Sovereignty Act aims to codify a “screw you, we’re (not) doing this” approach to provincial-federal relations. It hopes to replicate a posture that the province of Quebec has successfully used for years to get what it wants out of the federal government. The Act has been proposed after seven years of battles between Alberta and the federal Liberal government over energy policy, tax policy, agricultural policy, interprovincial trade, transfer payments, and more.

Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has always approached federal-provincial relations with Alberta differently than with other provinces, largely because he doesn’t depend on Albertans to voting for him to keep his job. Rather, fighting with Alberta gives him something he does need - a political foil against which he can virtue-signal his progressive bonafides to other parts of the country where he needs to stave off a split in the left of centre votes to win seats that are critical to the Liberal’s holding government.

Trudeau’s willingness to divide regions of the country against each other also has the knock on effect of causing a cycle of angst within the federal Conservative movement. The more Trudeau puts the screws to Alberta, the more frustrated the province becomes. The more frustrated the province becomes, the more likely the national Conservative voter base is to fracture, infight, and split the right of centre vote, as happened with the Reform Party in the late 1980’s. This scenario guaranteed government for the federal Liberals between 1993-2006.

Trudeau’s political fortunes are brighter when history repeats itself in this regard. 

This was recently demonstrated when the federal Conservatives ousted Ontario-based Erin O’Toole as leader after losing the 2021 federal election, in part over grievances regarding his proposed carbon taxation plan. However, the Conservative party is now showing some discipline under recently elected federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, during a cost of living crisis which Trudeau has yet to find his footing against. This trend spells bad news for Trudeau.

However, if Alberta were to now plunge itself into a political war over separatism, even at the provincial level, this could both fracture the conservative movement and potentially cause a national unity crisis that would deflect political attention off of Trudeau’s handling of the faltering national economy. The Liberals probably feel the Sovereignty Act might open the door to such a path. Its existence is likely something that the Liberals have long hoped to be the inevitable outcome of their brand of regionally divisiveness. The thinly veiled mirth in Boissenault’s letter certainly suggests as much.

However, this might be a gross miscalculation on their part. 

First, energy security is front of mind for many Canadians in a way that it hasn't been in decades. As other Western nations look for ways to shore up carbon energy supplies in an unstable geopolitical situation, and as fuel prices soar due to lack of supply and substitute goods, the Alberta energy sector is having a moment that Trudeau has been loath to embrace. A provincial government that is willing to do whatever it takes to realize the potential for sustainable growth in this area may lead Trudeau into a protracted battle that he might not have the national political capital to win. 

Second, Trudeau has shown that he will provide no wins to an Alberta leader who shows that they're willing to work in good faith with him. Both NDP leader Rachel Notley and former UCP leader Jason Kenney lost their jobs in part due to seeing little progress on major irritants after taking more of an appeasement approach toward negotiations with Trudeau’s government.

Smith, in her short tenure, has taken the exact opposite approach. This is likely because history suggests she has politically little to lose by taking a more hardcore posture against Ottawa than her predecessors. In this context, if Trudeau shows her no quarter as he did with Notley and Kenney, there’s a higher possibility of Alberta choosing a nuclear option like pulling Alberta out of the Canadian Pension Plan. Smith has designed the Sovereignty Act to put the Trudeau government on notice that Alberta is not going to play the same ball game that it has been for the last seven years. That is, Smith is telling Trudeau that she’s prepared to create leverage to see progress on issues where negotiations and a conciliatory approach from the province have thus far failed. These are things that could significantly damage the Liberal’s fortunes.

This is not to say that the Sovereignty Act comes without significant political risk to Smith. She will have to demonstrate that with the Act, her government is still capable of preventing any unintended consequences that may be associated with using leverage options against Ottawa.  A lot is riding on her ability to do this.

But even more depends on whether Justin Trudeau decides to keep leaning into a brand of politics designed to regionally divide Canada for his political gain. If he doesn’t change course, Canadian voters might realize that electing a different government that’s less hostile to Alberta would be a good thing for everyone.

So instead of Randy Boissonnault writing a letter accusing the Premier of Alberta of causing a national unity crisis, he probably could have better served his constituents by writing a note to his boss asking himself to look in the mirror on the matter.

Deescalating tensions and creating wins for everyone is the best course for all.