Former Liberal candidate Patrick Lennox and Queen's University professor Margaret Moore argue in a piece in The Walrus that Alberta’s October 19 referendum fails every democratic test that matters.

They are right that the United Conservative Party was not elected in 2019 or 2023 on a separatist platform. They are wrong when laying the initiation of the referendum at the feet of the government, though. They use Thomas Lukaszuk’s failed contention that his petition, garnering over 400,000 signatures demanding a referendum, wasn’t actually demanding a referendum.

When the 300,000 and some signatures from Stay Free Alberta demanding a referendum are added to the mix, it indicates a significant segment of citizens wanted the question put to the ballot, albeit on different sides of the issue. The most responsible and democratic way for a government to deal with this is to listen to the citizens and put the question to an open vote.

The Walrus contributors hyperbolically make a comparison between Napoleon’s plebiscites in 1804 and Alberta’s referenda today. It’s an absurd parallel to draw.

Napoleon’s ballots were public, the alternative was dangerous, and the question crowned him. Alberta’s vote is a secret ballot, organized by an elections authority, with organized campaigns on both sides, and no question that installs Smith as ruler for life. The issues aren’t even in the same realm.

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The pair dips into the tired canard implying foreign interference has been so rife and uncontrolled that the simple citizens of Alberta can’t be trusted to see through the noise and vote responsibly on the issues. The foreign interference claims have been regularly debunked, but why let a good myth go to waste?

They wrap up their piece, of course, by making comparisons to Hitler, Mussolini, and Saddam Hussein. It’s rather surprising they didn’t include Vlad the Impaler.

Hitler, Mussolini, and Saddam used plebiscites because the counts were rigged, the opposition was crushed, and the result ratified power they already held by force. Citing them against a competitive provincial referendum with a legal opposition, a free press, and a premier publicly campaigning to stay in Canada is rhetoric, not a test.

The only case that Lennox and Moore effectively established is that they hold a contempt for direct democracy and don’t feel the unwashed citizenry should have the right to participate in policy formulation.

Direct democracy is a tool used effectively around the world in some of the most stable and peaceful countries on earth. Alberta’s electoral authority may be bungling the administration of the vote, but the vote itself is the purest form of democracy rather than a failure of it.