Opponents of Alberta’s independence have been pivoting their case from promoting centralized federalism to delegitimizing the referendum process itself. A column by Mark Crawford, an associate professor of political science at Athabasca University, published in the Edmonton Journal follows this tact.

Crawford’s case gets strange when he doesn’t just claim the ten questions don’t belong on a referendum, but he proposes four of his own, which he feels are appropriate for a referendum and are totally unrelated to the current list. Crawford offers four reasons why he feels a referendum may be merited. Then claims the ten questions in Alberta don’t meet any of them.

They are:

1. If there is no clear electoral mandate on a fundamental issue
2. Breaking political deadlock 
3. Giving permission to break a prior promise 
4. Resolving decisions where government has a clear conflict of interest

On his first reason alone, every single question meets the bar he set. None of the proposals in the referenda facing Albertans in October were electoral issues in the last provincial election. If the provincial government wants to work quickly on the proposed policies and actions, a referendum offers them that mandate. Issues regarding immigration and constitutional reform proposals are certainly fundamental.

Smith explicitly said the immigration package needed a referendum because it was a major shift. That is the “missing mandate” case. The Senate, judicial appointments, and opt-out questions exist because ordinary federal-provincial negotiation has been deadlocked for decades. Those are his second category.

The third and fourth categories don’t apply, but it doesn’t matter. The questions meet the standard set by Crawford.

Then Crawford presents a left-wing wish list of questions that he feels should be on the ballot, from entrenching the status quo in healthcare, to pitching a provincial sales tax, to restricting the use of the notwithstanding clause, to restricting the ability of citizens to hold a referendum in the first place. It’s hard to see how his proposals meet his own criteria any more than the current list of questions does. It is a very strange case he is trying to make.

Whether or not the current questions asked in the October 19 referendum are the “wrong” ones or not, the power to decide lands where it belongs: in the hands of citizens. Crawford’s unusual column doesn’t debate the merit of voting one way or another in the referendum. It just appears to be modelled to try to muddy the waters on the entire exercise and delegitimize the process in the eyes of citizens.