Glossary

Plain-language explanations of the unusual financial, economic, legal, and political terms used across the claims. Each definition describes how a term works and does not take a side. These same definitions appear as tooltips on desktop and link here on touch devices in claim summaries and across the site, including MLA and MP.

B

Bank of Canada: Canada's central bank, which sets the country's benchmark interest rate and acts as banker to the federal government.

C

Canada Pension Plan: A national public pension, often abbreviated CPP, funded by mandatory contributions from workers and employers during their working years, which then pays retirement and other benefits.
Citizen Initiative Act: An Alberta law that lets citizens start a petition or referendum by collecting a required number of signatures within a set time.
Clarity Act: A federal law that puts the Secession Reference into statute, setting out when the government would negotiate secession, including the need for a clear question and a clear majority.

D

Dollarization: Using another country's currency as your own, which means giving up a central bank of your own to set interest rates or act in a crisis.
Duty to negotiate: The obligation the Supreme Court described in 1998: a clear vote to leave requires governments to enter negotiations, but the vote by itself does not end a province's membership in Canada.

E

Equalization: A federal program funded from federal tax revenue that gives provinces with weaker tax bases unconditional payments calculated to bring their fiscal capacity toward the national average. Provinces do not pay into it.

F

Federal general revenue: The federal government's pooled income from federal taxes and other sources, out of which it funds its programs. It is not a fund that provincial governments pay into.
Federal transfers: Money the federal government sends to provinces or to individuals, such as health and social transfers, under their own rules and separate from equalization.
Fiscal capacity: A measure of how much revenue a government could raise from its own tax bases at average tax rates. It is the yardstick used to compare provinces under equalization.

G

Grandfather and senatorial clauses: Constitutional rules that guarantee each province a minimum number of seats in the House of Commons, regardless of population shifts.

L

Landlocked: Having no coastline of one's own, so that reaching the ocean requires crossing another country's territory.
Lender of last resort: A central bank's role of supplying emergency funds to banks during a financial crisis, so that short-term panic does not collapse otherwise sound institutions.

M

MLA: Member of the Legislative Assembly. An elected representative in Alberta's provincial legislature at the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in Edmonton.
Monetary policy: The management of interest rates and the money supply by a central bank to influence inflation, employment, and the wider economy.
MP: Member of Parliament. An elected representative for an Alberta riding in the House of Commons in Ottawa.

N

Net fiscal contribution: The difference between the federal taxes paid by the people of a province and the federal money spent in or for that province. A positive balance means more is paid in than is received back.

O

Old Age Security: A federal pension, often abbreviated OAS, paid by the Government of Canada to people who meet age and residence or citizenship requirements. It is funded from general federal revenue rather than from individual contributions.
Order in Council: A decision made by the cabinet using powers an existing law already grants, without a separate new vote in the legislature.

S

Secession Reference: The Supreme Court of Canada's 1998 ruling that set out the legal conditions for a province leaving Canada, including that it cannot do so unilaterally.
Section 35: The part of Canada's Constitution Act, 1982 that recognizes and affirms existing Aboriginal and treaty rights.
Section 36: The part of Canada's Constitution committing Parliament and the provinces to the principle of equalization payments. Changing it requires a constitutional amendment, not an ordinary law or referendum.
Successor state: A new country formed from part of an existing one, which under international practice takes on a negotiated share of the former state's assets and debts.

U

UNCLOS: The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, an international treaty setting out rights and duties at sea, including transit rights for landlocked states.