[jszymborski]

Important context, this referendum isn't binding, but rather a referendum on whether a binding referendum should be held. Separation is deeply unpopular, but Smith has been putting her thumb on the scale every step of the way, and this non-binding referendum isn't subject to the Clarity act in the same way that a subsequent binding one would be.

[gausswho]

If I recall correctly, the Brexit referendum wasn't binding either. When the result ended up the way it did, there was sufficient political capital to push it through without a follow up vote.

[arrowsmith]

The Brexit referendum was non-binding for important constitutional reasons.

Legally, leaving required an Act of Parliament. To hold a binding referendum, they would have had to pass an Act that says "here are the exact details of how we'll leave the EU, coming into force if the referendum passes".

But that would have required them to figure out all the exact details of what it means to leave the EU, and they didn't bother - they just held the referendum and assumed they could figure out the details later if Leave won, which they didn't expect would happen.

We all saw how well that worked out.

> there was sufficient political capital to push it through without a follow up vote.

This seriously overstates how smoothly things went between 23/6/2016 and 31/1/2020

[gausswho]

Maybe you can help illuminate something that confused me about the result of the referendum. I thought it was worded such that voting yes would lead to a committee determining the details, and that that would lead to a second referendum? It felt like the UK population was tricked into voting for a 'sure I'll hear out your plan' which then turned into 'cool, we'll make a plan and then begin implementing it'.

[Aachen]

> Maybe you can help illuminate something that confused me about the result of the referendum. I thought it was worded such that voting yes would lead to a committee determining the details, and that that would lead to a second referendum.

The wording of such a famous referendum shouldn't be hard to find if you want to know the wording

Edit: just realised I still had this tab open from checking something for another subthread. It says nothing about a committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2016_EU_Referendum_Ballot...

Edit edit :)

On the same page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_Kingdom_European_U...), I found this. Perhaps you're remembering that?

> After internal polls suggested that 85% of the UK population wanted more information about the referendum from the government, a leaflet was sent to every household in the UK. It contained details about why the government believed the UK should remain in the EU. This leaflet was criticised by those wanting to leave as giving the remain side an unfair advantage; it was also described as being inaccurate and a waste of taxpayers' money (it cost £9.3m in total). During the campaign, Nigel Farage suggested that there would be public demand for a second referendum should the result be a remain win closer than 52–48%, because the leaflet meant that the remain side had been permitted to spend more money

[gausswho]

Thank you for those links. Those are written in a way that it's very obvious what you'd be voting for. I must have been thinking of some other voting measure, unless my memory is (very possibly) faulty.

[arrowsmith]

I don’t remember anyone before the referendum saying it would be the first of two.

A lot of people pushed unsuccessfully for a second referendum after the first one but that was never based on any pre-existing legalities or precedent, it was just an attempt to overturn the first result from people who were upset that theyd lost.

[gausswho]

In hindsight, I think I was misremembering that a second referendum was debated beforehand. But the non-binding aspect of the first had me thinking it would lead to further definition before it was embarked upon. Was there elections held between referendum and determining to do it?

[rcxdude]

Also based on the fact that no specific plan for brexit had popular support.

[arlort]

Also I believe there just isn't a constitutional mechanism in the UK for parliament to bind itself in such a way

[nonethewiser]

Is there actually even a legal process for leaving Canada? I would assume you can't just decide to leave.

EDIT: oh, there is a process. thats the Clarity Act. This seems extremely surprising - I've never heard of this sort of thing before with any other country.

[wk_end]

> This seems extremely surprising - I've never heard of this sort of thing before with any other country.

It's a little surprising - even as a Canadian - if you're unfamiliar with Canadian politics/history/civics, but Canada is more loosely held together than most other countries, including the US. And a comparison with the US is instructive, because Canada's founders were unifying the country the wake of the US Civil War and were working very much in response to it: there was a fear that the US would turn imperial in an exercise of national unity and begin trying to snatch up the rest of the continent from the British and a belief that the British wouldn't care to defend them, which was arguably the primary motivation for Confederation: to form a unified front against American expansionism. And the Fathers of Confederation had seen how horrible the Civil War was and wanted to prevent that sort of thing from occurring, so the provinces - like in the US, formerly independent colonies - were given more power than the States, with the separation of powers clearly and rigidly defined.

The Clarity Act itself wasn't part of Confederation, but that's the cultural legacy that informs it: a civilized process allowing provinces to separate without bloodshed is just about as fundamentally Canadian as anything.

[consumer451]

What surprised me about Canada is that sometimes there are fewer barriers to trade with outside countries, than between provinces! I recall someone saying "Canada needs an internal free trade agreement."

[8note]

thats the current prime minister you are referring to

[jszymborski]

It's a result of the second Quebec referendum. The Clarity Act may appear like it facilitates leaving the federation, but many critics (among them federalist and sovereigntists) believe that the law is too vague as it give the House of Commons the responsibility to determine "whether a clear majority had expressed itself". What that means in numerical terms? Nobody knows. Further the House of Commons has the right to override the referendum if they deem it to contradict any of the under-specified tenets of the Clarity act. Finally, you need to amend the Canadian constitution to finally separate, which according to my understanding, requires the approval of all the (remaining) provinces.

So it can be argued that the Clarity Act is a way to legislate friction to defederation.

Of course Quebec (and like Albertan) separatists hold that all this is moot and that they can self-govern as they wish following a referendum. Others look at the "no-deal" Brexit as a template.

[bawolff]

> the law is too vague as it give the House of Commons the responsibility to determine "whether a clear majority had expressed itself"

If it really came down to it, i think it would be the supreme court that decides.

[bfeist]

It was put into place after Quebec held a referendum that was close in 1995. Canada remedied the situation by making clear what it would take to leave.

[martythemaniak]

It should be the least surprising thing about Canada - it has been dealing with separatist referendums for decades.

[cf100clunk]

One such referendum, in 1995, was preceded by decades of discussion in Quebec of the pros and cons that triggered a 1980 referendum.

[gpderetta]

EU famously has one. Of course you might not consider it a country.

[Muromec]

EU doesn't call itself a country strategically to not trigger the usual suspects

[nish__]

It's a thing because Quebec has tried to separate before.

[cf100clunk]

Not a vote to separate. Quebec only tried to win a referendum giving the Province the authority from voters to approach the federal government with negotiations to achieve separation. Its more than a pedantic difference.

[bawolff]

Part of the reason the clarity act is called the clarity act, was the belief the referendum question was intentionally unclear to trick people into voting for it.

[lm411]

Discussing separation is okay when QC threatens it - hence the clarity act. But when AB wants to do it, they are just a bunch of redneck traitors according to the rest of Canada.

(Cue the "AB is nothing", "AB has no culture", folks that don't have a clue what they are talking about).

[Marsymars]

> they are just a bunch of redneck traitors according to the rest of Canada.

That's also the prevailing sentiment in much of Alberta.

[petcat]

> Is there actually even a legal process for leaving Canada?

Does there need to be a legal process? If Albertans are willing to fight a war over it then all they need to do is declare that they don't recognize Ottawa's authority anymore and then go about trying to get other countries to recognize their independence.

[Muromec]

Yes, but having a law is cheaper than having a war

[petcat]

The law is pointless if the province really wants to leave.

[ctrl-alt-zen]

Thank you for a factually and legally grounded take on this. Lots of comments seem to think this has zero precedent or applicable legislation and just want to make it up as they go, much like the poorly informed and inarticulate separatists here in Alberta.

[llm_nerd]

Smith is doing this because now outrageous amounts of American plutocrat money is going to flow into pushing the "leave Canada" position (from ketamine-rot trash like Musk. American plutocrats despise that a functional country not ruled by the super-rich sits so close). Smith has gone to the US to plan with her American partners repeatedly.

And they aren't first pushing becoming a token raped resource of the US, because that is massively unpopular. Instead they're pushing a magical "super Canadians within Canada but also not beholden to those libs and I get to pardon people" middle ground.

This is all so comically transparent and obvious.

Oh and fun fact -- a "Forever Canada" petition gained far more signatures, far quicker (and without people stealing election lists or faking signatures). Smith's UCP stalled and sat on it, but then raced to follow the "democratic will" of the tiny subset of Albertans that are calling for separation.

I understand that Albertan Canadians stick with leaders like UCP because that's their only conservative choice, but this is going to turn out incredibly poorly for you. Even this stupid question is purposefully ambiguous enough that any answer can be construed as "yes, leave".

[archimedes237]

It is technically possible to separate legally, but there are so many intentional roadblocks that it is effectively impossible to do so.

[arrowsmith]

I don't get it. They're having a referendum on whether or not to have a referendum? Why bother with two steps?

I googled the Clarity Act and it appears to be recently-passed US (not Canadian) legislation about regulating cryptocurrencies or something. What's its relevance here?

I am not Canadian and know nothing about Canadian politics. Someone please enlighten me.

[giarc]

It's a very complicated situation in Alberta. There were basically two competing petitions. A "Forever Canada" petition which supported Alberta staying in Canada, however it was built to force the provincial government to hold a vote in parliament about separation, therefore forcing all representatives to show their true feelings on separation.

A second petition by "Stay Free Alberta" asked the government to hold a referendum on separating. However, it was blocked by a judge because a previously ruling basically said that separating would violate treaty rights of Indigenous peoples in Alberta. It's also fraught with controversy as the individuals running the petition were able to (likely illegally) obtain the voter rolls for every Albertan. They used it to build an online tool to track their progress. There is speculation (without evidence since the signatures on the petition is not public) that they simply used it to fill out the petition for people they knew. There are pieces of evidence that point to this being a possibility, for example, a Stay Free Alberta leader claimed that in some communities, nearly 98% of residents signed the petition. These are generally right leaning communities, however, getting 98% of people in a community to do a single thing would be incredibly hard.

[arrowsmith]

So the “anti-separation” petition was a bad faith move by pro-separation forces? Am I reading you right?

[cf100clunk]

> I don't get it. They're having a referendum on whether or not to have a referendum?

Exactly. Albertans are scratching their heads, wondering what on earth Premier Smith is trying to accomplish. Utterly ridiculous ''solution'' to some internal problems within her party, I'm guessing.

[wang_li]

Bill C-20 passed in 2000. It's not so much effort to type "canadian clarity act" into a search engine or wikipedia.

[analog31]

Interestingly, my state (Wisconsin) has a two step process for constitutional amendments. An amendment has to pass a referendum in two consecutive legislative sessions. It still doesn't prevent us from doing stupid things, but it seems to be programmed as a check on hasty voting, or on people assuming that nobody's going to vote.

[rascul]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarity_Act