Equally Sovereign: Alberta and the New Provincial Rights Movement

Abstract

This article examines the political and constitutional development of Alberta’s contemporary assertions of provincial sovereignty within the Canadian constitutional order, with a special focus on the 2022 Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act (“Sovereignty Act”). The article argues that Alberta has sought to exercise a conception of provincial jurisdiction as “equally sovereign” in alignment with Canadian constitutional federalism. In this chapter, we begin by reviewing the Canadian constitutional scheme and the development of the jurisprudence expounded by the Supreme Court of Canada to contextualize recent developments. The aim is to outline the relevant legal principles, while briefly highlighting the political forces that helped solidify their place in Canadian constitutional law. Then, we turn to assessing the Sovereignty Act. We discuss its evolution and the stated aim of the Alberta government. We trace its origins to the Free Alberta Strategy and explain how the idea as articulated in that document was unconstitutional because it sought to interfere with the role of courts entirely. We show that Premier Smith ultimately reformed this proposal to adapt it to the Canadian federal system. The result of this shift is a Sovereignty Act that appears to assert existing provincial powers in a novel way. Finally, we consider what this may mean in practice, using the adoption of the Firearms Act as an example to illustrate that the Sovereignty Act can be operationalized in a constitutionally compliant manner. We also discuss its role in facilitating public education about the constitution and its development, using its first formal invocation as an example.

Keywords: Extrajudicial constitutional interpretation, Alberta Sovereignty Act, Canadian federalism