Albertans have a chance to bury separation. But they have to go out and vote

In the 1995 Quebec referendum, 93.5 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot.

That’s 24 percentage points higher than the turnout in the last federal election, 33 points above Alberta’s last election – and 63 points higher than last year’s municipal election in Edmonton.

In the riding of Robert-Baldwin, which includes my hometown of Dollard-des-Ormeaux, referendum turnout was 95.5 per cent.

The morning after, each supporter of the No side understood the weight of their vote. The federalist margin was razor thin – a difference of just 54,000 ballots out of nearly 4.8 million. If the passionate intensity of the Yes side had not been matched, and if even a relative handful of federalist voters hadn’t bothered to show up, Canada’s future would have been entirely different, and considerably worse.

If you’re an Albertan thinking of not voting in Monday’s referendum – because the polls say the Remain side is well in the lead, so what difference will it make? – give your head a shake.

Be inspired by the 1995 Quebec example. Or, if fear is more your thing, get motivated by Britain’s 2016 Brexit vote.

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The vast majority of opinion polls in advance of the referendum on leaving the European Union said that the Remain side was going to win. The margins weren’t large, but the trend was consistent.

The polls turned out to be wrong. Leave won by four percentage points.

Britain thereafter negotiated its way out of the EU, with serious and entirely negative economic consequences for the country. Among those bearing the consequences were millions of Brits who hadn’t voted.

One of Brexit’s surprises was low voter turnout. It was just 72 per cent – not much higher than in the previous year’s general election. Turnout was especially low in many Remain-supporting areas, such as London. Young people, the group most strongly opposed to Brexit, were the least likely to have voted.

Overconfidence, along with confusion about what the referendum question really meant, likely contributed.

Those two elements are also present in Alberta’s referendum.

Polls have consistently indicated strong support for remaining in Canada. For example, the most recent Léger poll (an online survey of 1,001 Albertans, conducted Oct. 2 to 4, with a margin of error of 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20) finds 70 per cent support for Remain.

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Albertans have been hearing these kinds of numbers for months. That may lead some federalist supporters to wonder if they really need to go to the trouble of lining up to vote. Why bother?

This referendum is also confusing – deliberately so. There are 10 questions, none straightforward.

The main event, Question 10, asks voters if they want to remain in Canada, or if they want to start the process of separation by holding another referendum. It’s a plebiscite about a future referendum – which may lead some people to believe that you can safely stay home on Monday, on the dangerous assumption that the result won’t be all that serious either way.

The other nine questions cover immigration and constitutional issues. They’re even less straightforward than the separation question.

The immigration questions, which take complex matters and torque them into partisan grievances, are more designed to rile people up than inform actual policy.

As for the constitutional questions, they’re about fanning political grievances, with no hope of resolution. The rest of the country, including Quebec, has zero interest in reopening the Constitution and restarting the constitutional wars that consumed Canada for a generation.

Explainer: What about Alberta’s nine other referendum questions?

Reading all 10 questions takes several minutes. Understanding the issues behind them would take hours. And voters must wade through nine absurd questions in order to get to the truly consequential one, which is buried at the end.

All of which is likely to depress turnout, particularly on the pro-Canada side.

My hometown was overwhelmingly federalist in the 1995 Quebec referendum, with 89.8 per cent voting No. That nearly every eligible voter voted made all the difference.

Two decades later in Britain, the fact that so many on the Remain side were confused or complacent, and didn’t vote, made all the difference.

As a song by a great Canadian band goes, if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Even if you don’t show up for the vote, you’re still subject to the results.

I’m not an Albertan, so I don’t get a ballot. All I can do is urge the more than three million Albertans who have the right to exercise it.

You won’t regret taking the time to vote. You might live to regret that you didn’t.