Subscribe
Donate
Subscribe
Facebook X-twitter Instagram Youtube
Alberta Independence

Protected: Too Clever by Half: Why Ottawa’s Clarity Act Helps Neither Side in Alberta’s Separation Debate

George Koch and Jim Mason
June 7, 2026
The House of Commons once had an effective law in front of it that laid out clear steps to assure that any provincial referendum on independence would be democratic and any negotiations after a “Yes” vote would be fair. But it wasn’t the current Clarity Act – it was a bill put forward by the opposition Reform Party in 1996, and the Liberal government chose to ignore it. Instead, it passed its own legislation designed to crush support for any subsequent secession movement. In Part II of their series on what the Clarity Act means to today’s debate over Alberta’s future, George Koch and Jim Mason delve into the Act’s origin story and explain why it’s so blatantly stacked in favour of Ottawa – and how that could inflame separatist sentiment and undermine the federalist cause.
Alberta Independence

Protected: Too Clever by Half: Why Ottawa’s Clarity Act Helps Neither Side in Alberta’s Separation Debate

George Koch and Jim Mason
June 7, 2026
The House of Commons once had an effective law in front of it that laid out clear steps to assure that any provincial referendum on independence would be democratic and any negotiations after a “Yes” vote would be fair. But it wasn’t the current Clarity Act – it was a bill put forward by the opposition Reform Party in 1996, and the Liberal government chose to ignore it. Instead, it passed its own legislation designed to crush support for any subsequent secession movement. In Part II of their series on what the Clarity Act means to today’s debate over Alberta’s future, George Koch and Jim Mason delve into the Act’s origin story and explain why it’s so blatantly stacked in favour of Ottawa – and how that could inflame separatist sentiment and undermine the federalist cause.
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Love C2C Journal? Here's how you can help us grow.

More for you

A Mess and Minefield: Ottawa’s Clarity Act on Provincial Separation is Anything but Clear

Jim Mason and George Koch

Proponents of independence for Alberta seem to believe the federal Clarity Act provides a sure pathway to secession should they win a referendum vote. But as Jim Mason and George Koch explain, the Act is less pathway than political minefield. It demands a clear question with a clear majority vote – but offers no criteria for either. It provides no instructions on how separation negotiations should proceed, but it does allow other provinces, Indigenous groups and others to intervene. And it assigns virtually all decision-making to Ottawa. It is, Mason and Koch find in the first of this two-part series, a formula not for resolution but deadlock, virtually certain to frustrate any constitutional effort to secede. Almost like it was designed that way.

Bubble-Wrapped World: How Safety Culture Has Destroyed Our Sense of Adventure

Murray Lytle

Why were our forebears more adventurous than we are today? Was it just that they had more empty space to explore, no GPS or instant communications to keep them safe, no social welfare state to protect them? It’s all that and more, writes Murray Lytle. The derring-do of days past, he argues, sprang from a value system that admired courage and saw risk-taking as a social virtue – even a duty – that could expand knowledge and build a better world as well as protect the nation. Lytle urges our society to shake off its smothering safety culture and rediscover a sense of adventure.

Ego Over Everything: How the Progressive Fixation on Identity Perverts the Arts

T. G. Kelemen

Artists once understood they were serving something greater than themselves – truth, beauty, memory – things universal and transcendent. No longer. In a culture where imagination is cast as “cultural appropriation” and exploitation, what matters is not art but the artist. Ego, self-regard and “lived experience” are paramount. In this searing critique, T. G. Kelemen uses recent examples of cancellation in the arts to explain how “progressive” pieties have inverted the very foundation of the arts, fuelling not just a culture war, but a war on culture.

More from this author

Reading Progress

Share This Story by George Koch and Jim Mason

Donate

Donate

Subscribe to the C2C Weekly
It's Free!

Subscribe
* indicates required
Interests
By providing your email you consent to receive news and updates from C2C Journal. You may unsubscribe at any time.