Vote Remain and Say No to the Nine
As we are hopefully all aware, Albertans will vote in a referendum on October 19. Early voting commenced on October 14.
Voters are being asked ten questions, including whether Alberta should remain in Canada as a Canadian province, and whether to implement regressive immigration laws.
Questions 1-5 are related to immigration. These loaded questions ask voters to consider giving the government of Alberta more power to discriminate against immigrants by, among other things, depriving newcomers of the social services that are the right of all Albertans.
Questions 6-9 concern Alberta's relationship to the federal government. Again, these questions as presented are weighted in favour of the UCP government's desired outcomes. These questions ask voters to tear up Canada's constitution and to devolve more power to individual provinces rather than the federal government. This is clearly dangerous to workers' rights in the Albertan context as, to quote Unifor: "Alberta is notorious for some of the weakest laws in Canada, including on labour protections, housing affordability, poverty, workplace health and safety enforcement, unionization, among others."
Finally, question ten offers a choice of two options:
"Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?
Option 1: Alberta should remain a province of Canada
Option 2: The Government of Alberta should commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada."
Needless to say, a successful separation vote this round will likely trigger a referendum; a successful binding referendum in future would upend our lives as we know it as AU employees. We would face extreme uncertainty as to our future as a university. How would a sovereign Alberta government treat Athabasca University? What is AU’s approach to out-of-province students and employees? What about our hard-won collective agreements? A successful separation vote would end in complete chaos.
Alberta unions are standing up to say vote Remain and No to the Nine. The AUFA executive encourages all members who reside in Alberta to take part in this referendum vote. The view of the AUFA executive is that we all need to send a firm message to the UCP government that Albertan workers want to remain in Canada, and that we stand in solidarity with workers from all backgrounds and immigration statuses.
Unifor has a detailed breakdown on why workers should vote to remain in Canada, and should vote No to the Nine. Please visit their page.
The Canada Forever campaign has created a website that includes voting resources as well as a list of pro-united Canada rallies.
In solidarity!