I’d also be very interested in hearing from our western Canadian Dopers on the question of Albert separatism. The question isn’t doing well in the opinion polls I’ve seen, there are more practical problems with it than you can shake a stick at (starting with the fact that the treaties with the First Nations are with the Crown, not the province!), and my impression is that their main talking point is that Canada doesn’t vote Conservative enough for them, so they want out.
I’m sorry, but the whole Alberta separatist movement strikes me as being incredibly ‘reality impaired’, along with the Alberta UCP…
…but I’m just an elite, leftist easterner now (despite growing up in Manitoba), so what do I know? @Spoons ? @Northern_Piper ? @Gorsnak ? Can you enlighten me?
The thread that @orcenio pointed to is a good starting point. But since you asked, I’ll give it a try, as your question goes (IMHO) outside that other thread.
Alberta has a problem with Quebec. That’s really what this all boils down to: Quebec complains, Ottawa gives it attention, Quebec complains some more, Ottawa gives it money, and Quebec is happy. Until it needs more money, so it complains again, and Ottawa gives it more money.
And whose money does Ottawa give? Alberta’s.
Oh, and Quebec can thumb its nose at the Charter willy-nilly, because they have some freakish attraction to the French language, and the Laurentian Elites (both Trudeaus, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, and others from other parties) in Ottawa wish more people in other parts of Canada spoke French, just like Quebec. Fulfilling Pierre Trudeau’s vision of a bilingual Canada from coast to coast. And Alberta has absolutely no wish to speak French.
That’s the heart of the problem. Note that it is not necessarily the way I feel, but it is the way many Albertans feel.
I’ve met a few. The guy in a red baseball cap with “Make Alberta Great Again” in white lettering on the front. The guy at the end of the bar who drinks four beers in a half-hour before muttering “Fucking Trudeau, we’d be better off if we left Canada.” The billboard that proclaimed “More Alberta, Less Ottawa” on Highway 2 from Fort Macleod to Calgary.
Many Albertans feel that they give more to Canada than they get back. Prince Edward Island has 4 senators to represent 154,000 people; Alberta has 6 senators to represent 4.5 million people. I can understand Alberta’s gripes at being unrepresented in the Upper House.
But I cannot understand why some Albertans want to leave Canada. Jeez, Canada offers a pretty sweet deal: a passport that is inoffensive to just about everybody else on the planet, a middle power that offers a voice of reason in international talks, a huge country that has a lot of resources to offer in trade—what’s not to like? Oh, something about oil. Yes, Ottawa wants to move away from that. Well, Alberta, maybe you should diversify away from oil and gas. Your tourism and agriculture is great, but you have the smarts to get into other industries—hell, you have skilled manufactories that work mainly in the oil and gas industry, but their skills can be turned to other things. You choose not to, because you’re putting all your money on oil and gas. That’s your problem, and no matter how much you bitch, moan, and complain about Quebec, it won’t change the fact that you are chasing a resource and a technology that the world is increasingly leaving behind.
I’m sure that if things were to come to a referendum (which is up in the air, as Alberta has two competing referendums at issue, one to stay and one to go), Albertans would overwhelmingly vote to stay in Canada. Should that happen, and Alberta unexpectedly votes for independence, I’m leaving. And I’m not the only one. Alberta’s population would drop by half, mostly those of us with advanced educations, and without any other ties to here. I’ve got friends elsewhere in Canada that can help me to get re-established. That’s something the separatists always fail to consider: the brain drain.
No, you pretty much nailed it. The Alberta Prosperity Project and its followers are idiots. Separatists can’t even agree among themselves. Half want an independent country, and half want to join the US.
The petition is not clear on this very important distinction. Jeffrey Rath, petition promoter, didn’t try to secure a $500 billion loan from the US to make Alberta independent. He wants Alberta to become a state. At best Alberta would end up a territory. Just like Puerto Rico.
Of course not. They’ll do like Quebecers did after 1980: keep trying to elect politicians that are sympathetic to their cause, and continuing to sell the idea that Alberta would be better off as an independent body or a US state.
Wow - there’s a lot to that thread. I can’t say I’m finding any of it surprising, and none of it has made me have any more inclination towards Alberta separatism, or even moving back to Alberta, than I had before! Thanks for pointing that out to me, though!
