37 Words: How Alberta's Ballot Question Tilts the Field

Last week, we recorded with Evan Menzies about the brewing Alberta referendum — and within hours of us hitting publish, Premier Smith unveiled the actual ballot question. So we're back at it. It's also the first outing of the revamped format — a number, a postbag question, the deep dive, and last orders. Tell us what you make of it. What we got into: - The 7-point question. New Angus Reid polling shows that simply rewriting Alberta's 37-word ballot question in plain English moves support for staying from 60% to 67%. The wording is doing campaign work — and 51% of Albertans, including 38% of UCP voters, say the official version is confusing. - A listener's smell test. After my conversation with Kyla, a listener asks what actually backs Pierre Poilievre's claim he can do better on the economy. Andrew on why opposition leaders rarely get to prove anything — and why, on credibility right now, Canadians have already chosen. - Carney's "dangerous bluff." The Prime Minister came out swinging this week. Is naming the bluff plainly leadership — or does telling Albertans their vote is undemocratic just hand the Yes campaign exactly the grievance it feeds on? - Why Brexit is the wrong analogy. Andrew calls it sloppy — then uses it himself three times, because Scotland 2014 is the real playbook. Better Together won, but won ugly. Project Fear, the Telegraph's referendum-day Burns poem, and why "you'll be poorer" lands badly on people who already feel poor. - Andrew's best line. "For a lot of separatists, it's not so much they want to leave Canada. They feel Canada's left them." The whole Remain messaging problem in one sentence. - The 25% threshold. I bring in Damon Centola's Change — why 35% Yes, with no campaign yet run, is closer to a 50/50 fight than dismissive eastern punditry wants to admit. Also discussed: Andrew's accidental field trip to Leavenworth, Washington (a town that looks like Bavaria because of a 1960s economic-development study), why people in Vancouver can't walk in a straight line, my pick of Derek Thompson's Plain English on the global fertility crisis, and a brief debate over whether fewer humans on the planet is, on balance, a bad thing.