Quebec and Alberta: the problem kids in Confederation. What have they learned from each other?
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has promised an October referendum on provincial autonomy. In Quebec, the CAQ government is drafting its own provincial constitution. Not long from now, both Quebecers and Albertans could face a stark question: Do you want to stay in Canada?
I recently connected with Patrick Taillon, a constitutional law professor at Laval University in Quebec City who advises Quebec’s justice minister. He’s been watching Alberta closely. Constitutional mechanics might sound dry, but Patrick’s insights cut through the jargon with refreshing clarity.
To many Canadians, Quebec already feels emotionally detached from Confederation. Is a provincial constitution just another step down that road?
“The prevailing approach in Canada has been constitutional status quo: take it or leave it,” Patrick says. Whether it’s Western alienation or Quebec’s autonomist and sovereigntist traditions, there’s been almost no appetite for serious reform to address the underlying tensions.
“In a mature federation, constitutional change isn’t abnormal,” he argues. “It is sometimes necessary.”
Patrick is too young to remember the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, but he understands their lingering shadow.
What really keeps Quebec in Canada, he suggests, is the sheer difficulty of getting 50 per cent plus one of voters to back a single, transformative break. “Quebec has been living with a kind of democratic impasse for decades.”
A provincial constitution won’t magically solve that. When I sat on former Alberta premier Jason Kenney’s Fair Deal Panel, few Albertans got excited about the idea. Patrick agrees: no province needs a written constitution to function. “It’s more about clarification, affirmation and coherence,” he explains.
Quebec, as the only French-majority jurisdiction in North America, has unique cultural and linguistic realities that need protecting. Other provinces could follow suit, he says. “Quebec is simply moving first, and doing so in a more systematic way.”
Still, the language of a “distinct national character” sets off alarms — especially among First Nations and other Canadians who wonder what that even means in practice.
“Being Québécois does not mean not being Canadian,” Patrick responds.
“These identities are not mutually exclusive; they operate at different levels.” Even in a hypothetical independence scenario, he suggests, Quebecers born Canadian would likely keep their Canadian citizenship. Identity and citizenship, he says, are more complex than simple oppositions.
Patrick acknowledges that political actors in Quebec and Alberta are watching each other, borrowing ideas and adapting strategies — though this cross-pollination gets little attention outside expert circles.
“Alberta, for example, has openly drawn inspiration from Quebec’s Quiet Revolution in its reflections on pension reform and the possibility of creating a provincial pension plan,” he points out.
There’s also growing alignment on judicial appointments, where Alberta’s Smith has pushed back against what Patrick calls a “federalism deficit” in how judges are chosen. The text of a motion for a constitutional amendment that recently appeared on the agenda of the Alberta Legislative Assembly is nearly identical to the one tabled in Quebec almost a year ago.
Rather than viewing these initiatives in isolation, Patrick sees them as part of an evolving interprovincial constitutional dialogue. It’s a compelling frame.
Yet the strategies differ in important ways. Quebec’s current approach under the CAQ has focused on autonomy within Confederation, rather than on the credible threat of separation. Alberta feels different.
“Premier Danielle Smith’s situation reminds me, in certain respects, of Robert Bourassa’s position in 1992,” Patrick observes.
“She appears constrained by a significant sovereigntist current within her own electoral base,” he says. “Maintaining that base may require being ‘somewhat sovereigntist’ — assertive toward Ottawa and open to the language of autonomy — without actually advocating a formal break from Canada.”
His read: Smith is using leverage, and the implicit pressure of rising Alberta independence sentiment, as a short-term bargaining tool to extract gains from Ottawa. It can work in the near term, he suggests, but over the medium and long term, Quebec’s experience offers a cautionary tale.
“In Quebec’s experience, the use of referendum pressure as a negotiating instrument eventually reached a ceiling,” he observes. “When the moment of decision arrived, a majority of voters hesitated to endorse outright independence. If the same dynamic were to unfold in Alberta, the strategy could produce a political boomerang effect.”
The prevailing approach in Canada has been constitutional status quo: take it or leave it
The independence movements themselves also differ profoundly, Patrick explains. Quebec’s rests on deep linguistic and cultural foundations, with decades of institutionalization behind it — think the disciplined political vehicle of the Parti Québécois under René Lévesque. Alberta’s movement is newer, more grassroots, driven by distrust of Ottawa, fiscal grievances and a desire for economic control over resources.
“It does not rest on a linguistic foundation,” Patrick notes. “To date, there is no leadership structure comparable to what the Parti Québécois represented.” That organizational difference may prove more significant than ideological contrasts, he says, when assessing the durability and trajectory of each movement.
Ottawa has experience managing Quebec separation referendums, but it has never faced the prospect of simultaneous movements in two provinces. Patrick’s of the view that if either province voted yes — hypothetically — negotiations would have to begin. And, he suspects, the federal government would suddenly become far less rigid about the possibility of constitutional change.
Finally, I asked the question that should keep Ottawa up at night: Does the potential willingness of a Trump administration to recognize a unilateral declaration of independence — by Quebec or Alberta — matter?
“The Trump administration is not only unpredictable,” Patrick says, “it is also politically unstable.” Still, he acknowledges, if a major external actor signalled it’s prepared to respect the democratic choice of Albertans or Quebecers, it could reshape the negotiation dynamics that would follow any vote.
“If any Canadian province could realistically cultivate alliances within segments of the American political class,” Patrick concludes, “Alberta would likely be well positioned to do so, given its economic ties and political affinities in parts of the United States.”
But, Patrick cautions, “building such diplomatic relationships requires sustained effort, and the results are rarely as decisive or as clear-cut as political rhetoric sometimes suggests.”
Quebec and Alberta may be Confederation’s problem kids, but they’re also teaching each other lessons — about leverage, identity, patience and the limits of brinkmanship. Whether those lessons lead to a stronger federation or deeper fractures remains an open and uncomfortable question for the rest of Canada.
National Post
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