Solberg suggests Alberta residents could immediately lose their Canadian citizenship if the province were to separate.
Former Harper cabinet minister and CEO of New West Public Affairs, Monte Solberg, poses a provocative question in his latest Substack:
"I wonder if Canadians would support granting Canadian citizenship to those who broke up their country?"
But the question itself rests on a false premise. Albertans would not be asking Canada to grant them citizenship after independence. They would already be Canadian citizens.
People born in Alberta today are Canadian citizens under the Citizenship Act. There is currently no provision in Canadian law that automatically revokes citizenship because a province leaves Confederation. Before debating whether Albertans should keep citizenship, one must first explain how millions of Canadians would lose it.
Solberg never does. Instead, he suggests separatists want "the security and even the opportunity that Canada offers them" while abandoning their obligations to the country.
Yet Canada already recognizes dual citizenship. Millions of Canadians hold citizenship in another country while remaining Canadian citizens, including the Prime Minister. Dual citizens convicted of terror offences do not have their citizenship stripped.
Canada also allows citizenship to be passed to some people born abroad who may never reside in Canada. The principle that citizenship can coexist with loyalty to another jurisdiction is already embedded in Canadian law.
When Quebec held sovereignty referendums in 1980 and 1995, no serious federal leader proposed stripping Quebecers of Canadian citizenship if they voted to leave. The debate was over whether Quebec should separate, not whether Quebecers deserved punishment for considering it.
The more revealing part of Solberg's article is not the citizenship question. It is the suggestion that citizenship should depend on political obedience.
Canada does not strip citizenship from people because they support Quebec sovereignty. It does not strip citizenship from people who advocate republicanism, constitutional reform, abolition of the monarchy, or even terrorism. Why should Alberta independence be treated differently?
If Quebecers had the democratic right to vote on sovereignty without having their citizenship threatened, Albertans deserve the same standard. Otherwise, citizenship stops being a right and starts becoming a political reward for holding the correct opinion.
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