Leong: Alberta government undermines it own referendum plans |
The Danielle Smith government has made a lot of noise about direct democracy.
The government itself is proposing a whole slew of referendum questions, which are expected to be put to voters in October 2026.
And naturally, it has chosen to consult the people on the thorniest of wedge issues.
One batch of questions has to do with immigration-related issues, more particularly on restricting access to health and social services for certain types of non-citizens.
The cost of such services is presented as being $1 billion. That sounds like a lot of money but represents slightly more than one per cent of the 2026 budget, whose expenditures are listed as $89 billion.
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Another has to do with constitutional matters, certainly meant more for symbolism than anything else. Anyone who remembers the series of failed attempts to amend the Constitution, extending from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, can tell you what a politically traumatic experience that was.
On both counts,........