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

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.