The new year begins with Alberta and Saskatchewan on the warpath, thank goodness. In December, the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act received Royal Assent, while the Saskatchewan First Act recently passed second reading in the Saskatchewan legislature. These Acts will be of limited usefulness as legal instruments, and neither will change the Constitution. But that is not the game here. Alberta and Saskatchewan’s most potent defence against the dual threat of an interventionist federal government and legally imaginative Supreme Court of Canada is broad political dissent. These two bills signal a long winter of discontent with and challenge to the prevailing order.
