Former Chrétien-era federal cabinet minister John Manley waded into the Alberta independence debate with a column in the Financial Post entitled “This is no time to break up Canada.”

This has become a line embraced by Canadian federalists as Alberta approaches an independence referendum and the Parti Québécois is poised to return to power in Quebec. They point to the trade war and say all discussions on independence must stop until it’s resolved! NDP leader Naheed Nenshi and some others are even calling for Alberta’s referendum to be shut down mid-campaign.

Manley said, “Canadians are entitled to debate these questions. But our governments are equally obliged to recognize that this is an exceptionally bad time for Canada to become absorbed in another bout of constitutional navel-gazing.”

If not now, then when?

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Perhaps it has been national procrastination on the broken nature of Canada’s federation that made the country so vulnerable to a trade war in the first place. Getting the conversation over with can lend stability. One way or another anyway.

“Not now” is a permanent form of veto for federalists.

Canada has heard this before. Quebec was told the same thing in other decades: not during a recession, not during a constitutional round, not while the dollar was weak, not while the world was watching. The 1995 referendum happened anyway. And so will Alberta’s.

Manley knows the October 19 question is not a vote to leave. It asks whether Alberta should remain a province or whether its government should begin the legal process toward a later binding referendum. Elections Alberta says the result is not binding. There is, as he writes, nothing for Ottawa to negotiate tomorrow morning. That fact cuts against him. If the ballot is only a mandate to start a process, then calling it “breaking up Canada” is theatre. He isn’t fighting for unity. He is fighting against the debate.

Referenda lead to resolution. The alternative to a referendum is not calm nation-building. It is a running argument with no finish line.

Alberta’s complaint did not begin with Donald Trump. It is older than this trade round. Resource jurisdiction, pipeline politics, equalization, carbon policy, immigration settings, and the sense that national purpose is defined in places that do not live with the costs. Using Washington as a gag order on that file tells Albertans their discontent can only be heard when Ottawa considers it convenient. The conversation will never be easy or convenient.

This is a hard time to discuss Alberta’s place in Confederation. It will also be a hard time next year, and the year after that. The trade fight does not make the question illegitimate. Kicking the can down the road has led us to where we are today.