This is inaccurate with respect to Saskatchewan, which received equalization into the 80’s.
That Alberta’s economy would have to collapse catastrophically to qualify only shows how well-off Albertans are. Remember, the complaint here is entirely down to the progressive federal income tax rates. Many more Albertans are in the higher tax brackets than are residents of other provinces. Is that because Albertans are more virtuous, harder-working, better capitalists than other Canadians? No, it is because Alberta is geologically fortunate. But instead of being happy that you’re living in a wealthy province with greater economic opportunity than elsewhere, paying no more in federal taxes than anyone else on the same salary, paying less in provincial taxes because the Alberta government suckles on the teat of oil royalties, you’re making the case for breaking up the country because the federal government takes about 5% of its total spending and transfers it to provinces with less money. Oh, and because of your perceived persecution, where Alberta is obviously hated by the Canadian government because it refused to adequately steamroll Indigenous opposition to the Trans Mountain pipleline, and hated by the other Canadians because they refuse to vote for the Reform Party and its descendants in adequate numbers to form government, not counting the three times when they did.
While breaking up the country would end the financial transfer from wealthy Albertans to less wealthy Quebecers and others, it would impose significant economic harm on both Alberta and the remainder of Canada in the form of trade friction. That alone would probably be enough to cancel out the gains from no longer disproportionately funding equalization payments, cutting the legs out from under the economic argument for separation. If my googling about has returned accurate results, you’re losing about 1% of provincial GDP to equalization (~$4B of ~$450B). That is likely notably less than the economic contraction you’d see following separation.
The persecution argument I can’t help you with much, because it’s based almost entirely on ascribed beliefs of others that are not very well-founded. Canadians by and large don’t hate Alberta or Albertans, or you’d see a lot less in-migration from other provinces. Oh, sure, you’ll see some denigrating rhetoric regarding a certain sub-set of Albertan conservatives - the wannabe culture warriors trying to use anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment to try to make political hay out of pronouns and book bannings and the like, and the wholly-owned-by-the-oil-patch types that are still denying climate change. And you’ll see some denigrating rhetoric about the specific Albertans who buy into this whole persecution complex thing, because it’s just so utterly ridiculous to anyone who doesn’t spend most of their time listening to the podcasts of Rebel News contributors. But that rhetoric isn’t aimed at Albertans. It’s aimed at the culture warriors, or climate denialists, or people with delusions of persecution. If you identify with any of those groups, then yeah, you’re going to catch some hateful speech now and then. But it’s not because of the colour of your license plates.
Ontario is geologically fortunate, so is Quebec. Being virtuous has nothing to do with it, entrepreneurial, risk taking, and innovative are more descriptive. Your addition of virtuous smacks of denying what makes Alberta unique within Canada. It’s not what’s under the ground its what we’ve done with it. For example: How’s the Ring of Fire going in Ontario? ~20 years? Prospect of billions of dollars per year of economic activity that will support the new economies supplying minerals needed for EV tech and others. As of now when will the first road be built just to get to the regions that will be mined? Sorry, you can’t say that Albertans aren’t different than other Canadians. We’d of had that built and producing by now and we’d of had double the current production of oil being produced if the federal government hadn’t put its nose in our business.
You say like the continued drain on Alberta by the rest of Canada should be okay. We should just accept that what we have now is good enough and be happy to help out others. Yet, it continues with no end in sight. No accountability from those who continuously receive it to do better. So, when we question the fairness of it, you say we should be grateful for what we have. Like you are the one granting it because that is the attitude we get from the rest of Canada. “Don’t worry, be Happy, Send money”.
We want a new deal, one that is equitable and allows us to make the choices we need to be even more successful. Canada isn’t going to allow us to do that within Confederation. See, we aren’t the greedy ones here. That’s our perception and it is as right as yours and backed by facts and history.
Canadians by and large don’t hate Alberta or Albertans, or you’d see a lot less in-migration from other provinces.
Just a comment on this. Then why aren’t Albertans voting for Liberals by now? Could it be only certain types of people come to Alberta? Or that once they get here they change their minds?
Because Albertans overall are short-sighted when it comes to picking winning political parties. If you want a seat at the table, you need to stop always backing the losing political party. It’s like the Poilievre question; the guy lost, fair and square in his own Ottawa riding, and now he’s going to take away the hard-earned seat of a Conservative MP. He can’t read the room. That’s like Alberta perpetually voting mostly Conservative. We can’t read the room and come up with a better strategy.
Ah, so picking the winner is more important than voting your values or interests. You want us to submit and vote in a party that doesn’t reflect us just so we can hang on the coattails of power.
Telling a province to “read the room” comes across as condescending when many Albertans feel that no one’s bothered to read ours.
I wonder if you think the side that represents Canada should use this sort or rhetoric when it comes to tell people to not vote yes on the referendum when it arrives. Which way do you think this will direct their vote?
Frankly, I could come up with better reasons for Alberta to stay, but it would require changes that Canada won’t do or acknowledge. If Alberta is to stay in Confederation long-term, it won’t be because it’s ‘scared to leave’, it will be because it sees meaning, fairness, and opportunity in staying. It would mean going to the brink to get Canada to acknowledge that, but if you are already there, why would you want to try and drag people along who want things to stay the same?
What on earth are you on about? Alberta has 39% of Canada’s remaining conventional oil reserves, followed by Newfoundland at 28% (all offshore) and Saskatchewan at 27%. That leaves 6% for the other provinces, and most of that will be in BC. But the oil sands dwarf all of that, constituting 20x the conventional reserves, and it’s all in Alberta. So if we’re talking total reserves, it’s more than 95% Alberta, small single digits for SK and NF, and fractions of a percent for the others. And if you look at natural gas instead, BC and Alberta have over 90%. Note: the other named provinces are all also net contributors to equalization.
There’s nowhere else in the country you can just pump money out of the ground like that. Could Ontario get more mining going? Sure, I suppose, and they are, but mines take for fucking ever to get off the ground even when they’re not ludicrously remotely located, which the Ring of Fire is. If you think other regions of Canada could simply activate a resource money hose similar to Alberta’s if only they were more innovative and entrepreneurial, you’re completely delusional.
Mining can be as profitable as Oil and gas.
Do you understand that Oil Sands are very expensive to build and produce? It does open the door for innovation to make it more efficient, but capital costs are huge and investors want as much certainty as possible.
The time to build these projects is ridiculous. 9-36 years for oil and gas, 20-30 years for mines. ‘Give me a dollar and in 30 years, I’ll give you a 40% return’ is not a huge selling feature. Do the same and say that some guy 500km away from your project thinks he has a say because his ancestor may have camped nearby can make you not want to put that dollar in and put it somewhere else.
The Ring of Fire hasn’t put a shovel in the ground after 20 years, afaik. So, don’t talk to me about how Alberta is lucky and some other province isn’t.
I’m somewhat sympathetic to Alberta’s grievances. I do think collecting modest provincial taxes and diversifying their economy a little would be good ideas, and they would do well to better emulate Norway with regards to reserved funds.
I don’t like that there may be more cases of measles in Alberta than in the United States. If you don’t throw in your buck-o-five who will? There are more intelligent causes to support.
Following Canada’s 100% tariff on Chinese-made EVs (with additional 25% on Chinese steel and aluminum), China retaliated in March 2025 with prohibitive tariffs of:
100% on canola oil, canola meal, peas, and rapeseed oil and meal
75.8% on canola seed
Plus 25% on certain seafood and pork products
This effectively shuts Canada out of what was a $5 billion annual market for canola exports to China.
Canola
Canola: A resilient, globally competitive agricultural sector crucial to Western producers, no government handouts required.
EV industry in Ontario: Supported by massive subsidies — up to $52.5 billion in federal + provincial support for $46 billion in announced investments since 2020. Many of the subsidies are sunk costs.
And just recently, Honda postponed its $15 billion Ontario EV project for two years due to weakening market conditions. That project had $5 billion in pledged government subsidies.
Everyone saw this coming, and it could have been prevented if Ottawa cared about Western farmers instead of buying votes in Ontario.
The canola industry is globally competitive, profitable, and always in demand without subsidies. Farmers succeed because they produce something the world actually wants and sell globally.
Meanwhile, Ottawa is pouring billions into a nascent EV industry in Ontario. An industry with no proven market, built on subsidies and mandates, with no guarantee of profitability. We’re told it’s “the future” — but with Trump pushing to build entirely within the US, any integrated supply chain is already in jeopardy. Why would American automakers integrate with Canadian firms if the US no longer needs EV imports? Europe? They’re busy protecting their own industries from foreign competition.
Instead of backing what works, Ottawa bankrolls what might work someday, if everything breaks just right while sacrificing proven industries, not just canola. This isn’t about strategy. It’s about politics. Western producers are left exposed, while central Canada enjoys endless government support for industries that can’t stand on their own.
This comes at the direct expense of real, proven Canadian success stories like canola. The government should not be picking winners and losers. They should be creating an environment where companies want to invest in Canada and not drive out investment with bad laws and regulations.
The tariffs on Chinese EVs and steel/aluminum were at the behest of the US and implemented to protect that trade relationship, not to buy votes in Ontario, but you knew that.
Given that China’s a more reliable trade partner than the US these days, there’s a strong case for dropping the Chinese tariffs IMO.
Okay, maybe not so much for votes, although to think any government doesn’t think about the ballot and where they get their power from is somewhat naive, but to protect its own investment in the EV industry.
That or an editorial one OR most likely just trying to cover all specific bases.
For those not in the know generally canola oil = more marketable name for human-grade rapeseed oil. From “Canadian oil.” Technically canola is a subtype of rapeseed oil. All canola is rapeseed, but not all rapeseed is canola and that’s probably where that wording comes from. The non-canola stuff is usually referred to as High Erucic Acid Rapeseed (high-EA or HEAR), usually bred for industrial usage. But the great bulk of most rapeseed production these days is low-EA canola (I saw one cite for Canada being 98-99%), to the point where they are becoming virtually synonymous in naming usage.
About half a million Albertans signed up for the “Forever Canadian” petition. Impressive showing. A lot of Albertans were activated to show their Canadian pride.
They needed 294,000 signatures in 90 days. They got 456,000.
To add context, the Alberta Conservatives recently lowered the threshold for signatures needed to 177,000 signatures within 120 days. But this was AFTER this particular campaign started. It was widely seen to be trying to make it easier for the Alberta separatists to gather signatures.
However, it was ruled that one cannot have two similar campaigns going at the same time. The “Forever Canadian” (anti-separatist) petitin was first, so they got first crack at it, albeit under the old rules of 294,000 signatures in 90 days.
Back at the end of June, Mitch Sylvestre said he “believes Lukaszuk’s petition effort might delay the push for Alberta independence but believes it will fail to gather so many signatures within the old threshold of 90 days.”
Mitch is completely out of touch with the people of Alberta. He’s been too busy huffing his own farts.
There are no “Alberta major newspapers”. They were bought by a US company, hollowed out and basically merged. They will report on it but it might take awhile. But not on Monday. There’s no news on Monday for . . . reasons. I’m sure Don Braid will write a column. He is decidedly unfriendly to separatists.