Dog bites Premier

“When you have a problem and a solution,” the barber said, “you don’t have a problem anymore.”

“When you have a problem and no solution” - and here he shrugged - “you have a way of life.”

The barber worked not far from the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa, and spent many years offering wisdom to MPs and Senators. And he was right, of course.

His aphorism applies, these days, to Alberta’s erstwhile Premier, Danielle Smith. Smith has a big problem, one entirely of her own making. To mix metaphors, Smith has let loose a rabid dog in her own backyard - presumably to keep Ottawa at bay.

But now the rabid dog is biting her.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. If Smith had any smarts at all, she would have said no to the separatists in her own UCP caucus, and she would have never agreed to embrace separatism. She would have never allowed a referendum on Alberta separation to happen. She would have done what Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein and Jason Kenney always did - fearlessly defend Alberta’s interests, but within Canada.

Instead, she has chosen to offer up a vomitous, byzantine 37-word salad, and thereby place the country - and Alberta - at risk. She has chosen to stir up division and anger that will last for months.

And, say those who know: it will last for years, too.

Her referendum to destroy Canada will not succeed. The Angus Reid polling people did a survey in the wake of Smith’s announcement. Nearly 70 per cent of Albertans said they’d vote “no” to a question that simply asks whether Alberta should leave Canada, or stay in Canada. And nearly 60 per cent say Smith has handled the issue poorly, and half of the province want her to quit.

She won’t, of course, because she’s politically illiterate.

It was all avoidable. Recent history in the province of Quebec could have saved Smith lots of trouble. Ask Karl Belanger. He knows.

[To read more, subscribe here]