INNISFAIL – With a court battle continuing over a provincial government referendum on the emotionally-charged Alberta separation debate, Innisfail-Sylvan Lake MLA and cabinet minister Devin Dreeshen declares he is “pro-Canadian.”
But there is a caveat.
In an interview with the Albertan, Dreeshen, who is also the UCP government’s minister of Alberta Transportation and Economic Corridors, said he understands the “frustration” many Albertans have with the federal government.
“I'm pro-Canadian. My family fought for Canada in the world wars. My family moved to Alberta before Alberta was Alberta, but they also built Alberta to be the great place that it is today,” said Dreeshen. “And what I think is frustrating for so many Albertans, whether they've been here before 1905 or just recently moved to Alberta, (is) when they see a federal government that goes against their interests and finds new and innovative ways to hurt and harm Albertans' way of life.
“That just increases frustration.”
Dreeshen went on to say the current and past Liberal federal governments have not yet moved on nine “bad laws” that Premier Danielle Smith has repeatedly said she wants repealed.
“That is a big frustration for me and many Albertans to say, ‘it's hard to really be a proud Canadian when you have a Canadian government that's working against your best interests,” he said.
Pointing to the Canadian constitution he said it’s not the role of a federal government to infringe on provincial jurisdiction, especially in the area of resource development.
“That's when Alberta, every province, has issues with the federal government going into their territory and trying to influence what should be provincial jurisdiction,” said Dreeshen. “And that's always been Alberta's biggest frustration, going all the way back to the Lougheed era.
“If it (Constitution) was just followed, Alberta would have no issue with the federal government.”
Dreeshen also noted that while the Liberal government’s Bill C-5 is designed to circumvent existing federal liberal development laws for big nation-building project such as pipelines, the nine “bad laws” are still in place.
“If you would just want to see big projects being developed and built across the country, your first instincts would be to repeal all the laws that stop big development projects from being built in the first place,” said Dreeshen. “One of them is Bill C-48, which is a tanker ban that blocks any oil shipments.”
As for the current separatism referendum debate, which found its way into court on Aug. 7, Dreeshen said there is added “frustration” that the referendum process is facing roadblocks.
“When we passed the law to make citizen-initiated referendum, we lowered the threshold to make it easier for individuals to get enough signatures to have a petition to be able to say that a certain question should be put to Albertans during an election period,” noted Dreeshen.
“And it's frustrating for me to see that Elections Alberta had their ruling where to my understanding there was enough signatures and signatories to have a petition go forward, but they ruled that it somehow didn't meet a criteria.
“That went against the spirit of the law that we recently passed.”
Dreeshen added the whole point of citizen-initiated referendum is that the government doesn't have to have a position on it.
“This is Albertans wanting Albertans to answer a question they think is of relevance and importance during an election cycle,” said Dreeshen. “To me, allowing these questions to be put to Albertans isn't scary, isn't dangerous.
“It's something that having a clear direction from Albertans on these types of questions that rise to that level is what makes for strong democracies, because democracies are all about people and empowering people to be able to make these decisions.”
