Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney is warning that Alberta independence would “divide families” as Albertans prepare to vote in the October 19 referendum.

It is a remarkable argument from the premier whose own government imposed rules explicitly preventing Albertans from gathering with their families.

In December 2020, Kenney’s government prohibited indoor and outdoor social gatherings across Alberta. Families were barred from celebrating Christmas together unless they lived in the same household. Albertans living alone were eventually granted a narrow exemption allowing them to attend one gathering with another household between December 23 and 28.

Kenney defended the restrictions by arguing that ordinary extended-family Christmas celebrations could overwhelm hospitals.

His government divided families again in September 2021. Indoor gatherings were limited to vaccinated people from no more than two households. Albertans eligible for vaccination who remained unvaccinated were prohibited from attending indoor private gatherings altogether.

Kenney also introduced the Restrictions Exemption Program, Alberta’s version of a vaccine passport. It excluded unvaccinated Albertans from restaurants, entertainment venues, recreational facilities and numerous family activities unless they produced a recent negative test at their own expense.

Those divisions were not theoretical. They happened immediately and were enforced by the provincial government Kenney led.

Can political disagreements over independence cause tensions within families? Certainly. So can disagreements over elections, religion, pipelines and vaccine mandates.

Kenney is entitled to oppose independence. But portraying a democratic vote as a threat to families is emotional speculation from a former premier whose own policies legally prevented relatives from seeing one another.

When Jason Kenney had the power to keep families together, he chose mandates that kept them apart.