As the Western premiers pulled on Team Canada soccer jerseys at the close of their meeting in Kananaskis on Tuesday, some kind of barbed comment was inevitable. Wab Kinew obliged. “I just want to tell Premier (Danielle) Smith, that she looks great in a Team Canada jersey,” the Manitoba premier said, pointedly.
As host of the conference, Smith may have expected some kind of deference from her colleagues, despite their hostility to her decision to hold a referendum this fall on pursuing separation. Instead, she was made to look uncomfortable in public.
At the closing press conference, Smith attempted to explain why she put forward the question, which will ask Albertans if they want to stay in Canada or hold another vote to consider separation. She said the issue is the courts, which have quashed a petition for a proposed independence question from the separatist Stay Free Alberta group because it didn’t properly consult with First Nations.
Smith said she thought the court erred in judgment in an “anti-democratic decision” that creates confusion about what constitutes the “duty to consult.” She had barely finished when Kinew interjected: “I’d like to respond …” The camera panned to the Manitoba premier from his Alberta counterpart, who looked like she wanted to chew broken bottles.
“A lot of what you have said is not correct, Premier Smith,” he said. “It is not up to the petition gatherers to fulfil the duty to consult, it is up to you and the Alberta government.” He said he agreed with the judge’s ruling that the prospect of new national borders being erected would infringe on rights, thus requiring a duty to consult.
But Kinew is the most popular premier in the country for a reason: he didn’t confine his argument to the narrow sectional confines of Indigenous rights; he made the case for Canada. He appealed to Albertans frustrated at the lack of progress on pipelines by pointing out that there is movement on big projects like LNG in British Columbia, the Port of Churchill in Manitoba and on northern trade corridors.
“This is the moment to get big things built,” he said. “Why don’t we hold off on this referendum talk for a year or two and see if we get these pipelines under construction?… Let’s work together to show Albertans how appreciated they are in this country.”
Kinew doubtless carries baggage in Alberta: he’s not from the province; polling shows he is relatively unknown to most Albertans; and, many who do know him see him as a socialist who is hostile to non-Indigenous rights. But he has persuaded two-thirds of voters in his own province of his worth. This campaign is about persuading Albertans about the benefits of Canada through a combination of reason, character and feeling, tapping into their values, beliefs and emotions. Kinew has instinctively mastered Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle: logos, ethos and pathos.
