Nationalism, Regionalism, and Strategic Learning in Federal Systems: Drawing on the Quebec Model in Alberta

ABSTRACT

Territorial and intergovernmental tensions are particularly strong in multinational federations like Canada. In this article, we study how Quebec has become an explicit model for Alberta in its own quest for greater autonomy and influence within the Canadian federation. After discussing the notion of strategic learning as it relates to different types of territorial politics (substate nationalism, regionalism, and jurisdictionalism), the article explores three instances of explicit political borrowing from Quebec in contemporary Alberta politics: 1) public statements by provincial leaders advocating increased provincial autonomy; 2) the use of a referendum as a tool to put pressure on the federal government to adopt positions and policies friendly to the Alberta government, as occurred in 2021 with the consultation on equalization; and 3) the development of an Alberta-centered federal party with a secessionist position to bolster the influence of the province in federal politics, as occurred with the Maverick Party.

KEYWORDS:

• Federalism
• nationalism
• regionalism
• Canada
• Alberta
• Quebec

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Ally Hays-Alberstat for her editorial support and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Alberta is not the only western Canadian province that has used Quebec as a model for provincial autonomy: in 2021, Saskatchewan’s premier, Scott Moe, said his province was “a nation within a nation” and that he sought “to emulate” Quebec “regarding the special agreements, notably over immigration, that it has with the federal government” (Meideros 2021). Because of limited space, the present article deals only with Alberta.

2. In the early 2000s, Alberta’s autonomy discourse was focused on exploring alternative approaches to health care, as exemplified by the Klein government’s M.L.A. Task Force on Health Care Funding and Revenue Generation.

3. For example, 55.3% of Albertans who voted in the 2021 federal elections supported candidates from the CPC. By contrast, candidates from the LPC obtained only 15.5% of the vote, and the LPC finished third behind the New Democratic Party (NDP) in the province.

4. The United Conservative Party (UCP) was established in 2017 as a result of a merger between two conservative parties, the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta, which formed Alberta governments from 1971 to 2015, and the Wildrose Party.

5. The most recent initiatives taken by the Alberta government, like the Fair Deal Panel and the equalization referendum, also represent a way to mitigate embryonic secessionist sentiments.

6. If the SCC Secession reference may insist that the federal government has a duty to negotiate any constitutional amendment proposal brought forth by a province (including on equalization), it does not suggest that change has to be the result of this negotiation (Dion 2021).

7. Maverick Party candidates received between 1% and 4% of support in ridings where they ran for election.

8. The furious opposition within the UCP to leadership candidate Danielle Smith’s proposed (2022) Alberta Sovereignty Act, whose objective it would be to allow the Alberta legislature to exempt the province from federal laws deemed to violate the division of powers, suggests that the more radical option of secession would have virtually no support among UCP members if it were brought forward in a referendum. In fact, departing leader Jason Kenney argued the Act would put Alberta “on the brink of secession,” an outcome he clearly considered unacceptable, as does most of the Alberta political class (Kanigyn 2022).

Additional information

Funding

The authors report no funding for the preparation of this article.