The Black Hat Gang must be happy. Premier Danielle Smith is ripping a page from Donald Trump’s playbook and ramping up the culture war rhetoric in Alberta.
In a three-and-a-half-minute video posted to her YouTube channel on September 23, Smith announced her party’s intentions to amend and strengthen the Alberta Bill of Rights.
You know, the document that most Albertans aren’t even aware of.
Smith’s video announcement, set to an uplifting soundtrack, focuses on three things that a group of conservative insiders known as “the black hat gang” have been loudly lobbying for at recent town hall events.
First is body autonomy and the right to refuse medical treatment, including vaccines – an admittedly controversial topic during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Second is a promised amendment to ensure “no Albertan can be deprived of their property without due process of law and just compensation.”
The third is a promise to uphold a gun owner’s right “to legally acquire, keep, and safely use firearms.”
In the video statement, Smith claimed that gun owners have been “unfairly targeted” by the federal government in recent years but offered no examples of such treatment.
She did not explain why or how private property is threatened in Alberta or what property rights will mean in practice, but the Black Hat Gang wants a right similar to the “stand your ground” law that allows Americans in some, mostly southern states, to shoot property intruders. Will this be something included in the new Alberta Bill of Rights?
Practical or Politics?
The “strengthening” of the Alberta Bill of Rights begs several questions.
Is Smith playing politics by stirring a pot full of polarizing American-style cultural flashpoints, like the right to bear arms and an obsession over defending private property?
It’s an excellent way to divert attention from real issues such as housing affordability and delinquent oil and gas companies’ failure to pay their property taxes.
It’s also possible that her hand is being forced by pressure from the ultra-right black hatters who are fixated on guns, defending private property, and refusing vaccines.
Or is there something more to Smith’s Bill of Rights bluster – something that will have real legal implications?
“That depends,” says University of Alberta law professor Eric Adams.
According to Adams, the proof will be in the wording of the legislation, which will be introduced later.
“Obviously, there is an attempt to change some aspects of some fundamental parts of the Alberta legal system by expanding the Bill of Rights. But they — in some ways — are pretty modest,” Adams told Global News.
The Alberta Bill of Rights has been in effect since 1972, but few Albertans knew about it until recently.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been and continues to be the guiding legal document regarding court decisions regarding rights and freedoms in Alberta.
Lorian Hardcastle, an associate law professor in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, thinks Premier Smith is playing to her anti-vax base by blowing hot air over body autonomy.
“We already have that right under the Charter,” Hardcastle told CTV News. “The right to life, liberty and security of the person already protects medical autonomy. It isn’t clear to me what the government is trying to accomplish here. If it is just a right to make medical choices, or if this instead is broader, and it could limit the ability of employers to acquire vaccines of health-care workers or limit the ability of the government to put in place public health measures.”
We’ll see what the proposed legislation says when it is released and whether the majority of Albertans feel strengthening the Bill of Rights is necessary.
