EDMONTON, Alberta—The results of the Oct. 19 Alberta referendum show that a majority of Albertans recognize separation from Canada was a bad option for working people. At the same time, however, the results reveal the extent to which the United Conservative Party, which governs the province, and other right-wing forces have succeeded in injecting racist and xenophobic narratives into social and political discourse.
More than 75% of voters indicated their desire to remain a part of Canada and not initiate a process of separation. Related to this, a slim majority of 50.9% rejected the UCP proposal for provinces to opt out of federal programs like public healthcare, education, and social services, without losing any of the associated federal funding. This is an important result in a province whose government is implementing legislation that directly undermines and dismantles single-payer Medicare.
On the other hand, Albertans voted in favor—by small margins of between 54 and 57%–of the UCP’s first four referendum proposals which clamp down on immigrant rights. These include limiting immigration numbers to Alberta, reducing immigrants’ access to jobs and social services, and charging them for access to universal healthcare and public education.
Speaking to People’s Voice the day after the referendum, Naomi Rankin, leader of the Communist Party of Canada in Alberta warned that the government and other right-wing forces were banking on shifting public discourse further to the right through the referendum.
“With their dishonest ‘referendum’ questions, the UCP has unfortunately succeeded in dragging racist and xenophobic language into the mainstream of political discussion,” Rankin said.
“It would be naive to expect them to respond minimally to the narrow majority on most of the questions. They will use this as an excuse for sweeping attacks on the rights of unions and all workers, for more ferocious cuts to healthcare, education, and other social services, for a two-tiered medical system, for making public education non-universal, for dismantling environmental safeguards, and for steamrolling over Indigenous rights and human rights generally.”
In addition, Rankin notes that the provincial government has used the referendum to deflect people’s legitimate frustrations away from its policies.
“Whenever the UCP does something which is clearly against the interests of working people and which is clearly unpopular, they will trot out their favorite scapegoat and incite racism to blame immigrants or Ottawa, or both, for their own government actions.”
The vote culminated a divisive campaign in which the labor movement and Indigenous people led the charge against the UCP’s nine referendum proposals and for Albertans to reject separation.
The Alberta Federation of Labour framed its referendum work as a component of its ongoing “Fight Back Now!” mobilization against the UCP government. The AFL worked with affiliated and non-affiliated unions in Alberta to mobilize thousands of people at actions in 20 communities across the province on Oct. 17, as well as for a massive rally in Edmonton on Oct. 18.
The referendum saw one of the highest voter turnouts on record, with 80-85% of Albertans going to the polls. This high turnout was driven by necessity, as workers facing a more precarious future have been pitted between two Trojan horses being thrust at them by the UCP: annexation by the United States, and dissolving social services and employment prospects at home.
The UCP agenda throughout this referendum was never to defend the interest of Alberta’s working people. It was to give themselves an out for the next page in their playbook—deepening cuts and granting corporate monopolies unrestricted access to open mining pits, oil exploration, and a new form of corporate parasitism, AI data centres.
It will be essential for labor and its allies to continue building and escalating the fight against the UCP, Rankin emphasized, particularly since Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and her government will take the votes for eight out of nine referendum proposals as a mandate to introduce xenophobic, anti-Indigenous, and anti-labor legislation.
This may prove more challenging in the wake of the referendum’s rejection of separation, which removes the question of “Canada” as the main rallying point. To continue building, the labor movement will need to make sure it strongly articulates a workers’ agenda, the Communist Party says.
That must include, for example, connecting the fight against the UCP with opposition to Ottawa’s attack on labor through Bill C-39. The AFL in the first place will need to reach out and broaden the engagement of unions in the province, particularly to the building trades and private sector unions like Unifor, and generate sustained action by mobilizing the labor base by organizing within each local and each workplace to get involved.
“We should not underestimate the danger,” says Rankin. “The decline of a fossil-fuel based economy in the province is inevitable because of technological advance in renewables globally. Right-wing governments like the UCP will double down on anything that helps them to shift the burden of the decline onto working people to protect corporate profits.
“The propaganda of scapegoating and racism is the key to dividing working people and weakening their resistance to impoverishment and repression. Indigenous people and visible minorities will bear the brunt of the attacks, but the attacks will not be limited to them.
“It is more important than ever for the union movement and the progressive movements and organizations to unite and escalate the Fight Back Now! campaign.”
People’s Voice
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