In a Calgary Herald column this week, Jared Wesley treats the pitch encouraging people to vote for Option 2 to start a legal process, even if they aren’t yet ready to leave Canada tomorrow, as a confession that the campaign has no cards.

Wesley is right about one thing. A threat only works if the other side thinks you might use it. He is wrong about almost everything that follows.

He cites Jason Kenney’s 2021 equalization referendum as proof the tactic already failed. Kenney’s referendum didn’t have the teeth of a question leading the province down the path to independence, however. As long as the province is approaching the doorway to an exit referendum, the exercise is no bluff.

Secession politics has always run on two bases of support. There is the hard base that’s ready to leave the federation and the soft base that would prefer leverage and negotiations but is beginning to consider full independence. Those holding the cards are the swing voters, and they aren’t bluffing. Telling those voters they can support a process without supporting immediate secession does not kill credibility. It describes how most sovereignty movements actually grow.

The 2021 equalization vote asked whether a clause should be removed from the Constitution. About 61.7% of those who marked the question said yes. Kenney said out loud that the point was leverage, but none was gained. Ottawa ignored the results, and Alberta did nothing about it. Option 2 on Question 10 in Alberta’s current set of referendum questions offers the “or else” that Kenney’s poll on citizens lacked.

Equalization is a transfer program. Secession is an existential file. The Supreme Court’s 1998 Secession Reference and the Clarity Act exist because a clear provincial expression of will creates a duty to negotiate. Kenney’s ballot created no such duty. A majority for Option 2 would not take Alberta out of Canada. It would make it much harder for Ottawa to say there is nothing to talk about. That’s called leverage.

Wesley says conventional tools have already produced gains and can do so again: a stronger voice, alliances with other provinces, turning demands into agreements. But they haven’t. Alberta has been on a merry-go-round with Ottawa for generations, where it has to plead for concessions as a subservient entity in an ostensible federation.

Albertans are tired of begging and asking and are now demanding from Ottawa. Ottawa does not have to like that. It does have to decide whether ignoring a majority for Option 2 is cheaper than talking. That calculation is the leverage. Calling it a bluff does not make the calculation go away.