"Wars are unpredictable” is something you say when you don’t have a military plan. Having served I have enough respect for the people still wearing the uniform not to volunteer their lives to prove an armchair warrior’s patriotism in a futile attempt to defend whatever Canada has become as a ‘post national’ state.
What concrete right or institution would Canadians actually lose under the proposed alternative, and is preserving that difference worth the human cost of military resistance?
This is but another reason that Alberta needs to separate. We live in reality.
Well, I have heard in this thread that if Alberta leaves Canada the US will take us over and make us a colony with no rights, etc queue apocalypse scenario.
And now we have Carney trying to make Canada a colony of Europe again. Associate member of the EU. Essentially all the regulations of the EU without a vote. Oh, we can object, but we’ll have as much chance if changing anything as Alberta has now in Canada. Heh. We’ll see how you like it!
But as Carney’s ultimate goal is president of the EU commission, sacrificing Canada’s sovereignty on that altar is worth it.
What happens after Alberta possibly gets independence is so far enough in the future that the crystal ball gets pretty hazy. Maybe the far right will be in power in the U.S., but it could just as easily by the far left. I guess Hong Kong could be a model for what happens to Albertans.
Albertan independence is high risk for little benefit.
Transition costs would be considerable – Canada would make sure of it. Whose currency do you want to be under?
Not to beat around the bush, this nastiness, vindictiveness, or threat, that is implied about how Canada will react is transparent in how it is dealing with the US right now. It is not something that Albertans, or myself, find compelling let alone an actual threat. Rather it is more elbows up theatre and rhetoric from people who don’t want to take the concerns of Albertans seriously.
And if I’m wrong, transition cost would still be high.
Is there discussion or evidence of what is the optimal currency zone for Alberta? Whatever you went with (Alberta’s own currency or the yankee dollar would seem available), there are costs and disadvantages.
Reconsidering my last post, of course you should have your own currency. If someone doesn’t love Alberta enough to be willing to pay a few currency exchange fees, they don’t love it enough to go through the costs and risks of independence.
Sure there is! Become a traitor and successfully vote for Alberta secession. Whether the citizens of Albertastan retain their Canadian citizenship would be up to the Government of Canada, not Albertastan.
Interesting perspective. Apparently you believe that every European country is a colony of itself. Or something.
It’s all about trade and military cooperation, nothing more.
I don’t know where you get this bullshit or why you keep repeating it. We’re seeing the best leadership from Mark Carney in these difficult times than we’ve seen from any Prime Minister in decades. I don’t envy his difficult job but the Orange One will be gone in just two more years, and hopefully brought under control in just a few months.
Everything related to transition is known. It is very clear what the federal government does and what Alberta does. The cost difference is the cost of transition and as Alberta is already fully paying for federal services at a premium those costs should be less than now to manage on our own. Few of the services that the feds provide don’t have a provincial counterpart that can’t be extended during the transition.
First of all, there is a legal pathway to independence, so following the law doesn’t make one a traitor.
Secondly, you have proven my point. Other Canadians don’t care about the concerns of albertans and would demonstrate their vindictiveness if Albertans use their legal vote and rights to decide their fate. You really don’t see what you’re doing?
Yes, I do. I’m standing up for my country, for the strength inherent in its unity, not for renegade whiners with totally misplaced and discredited crazy beliefs who think they’ll be better off in an isolated tiny society. It reminds me of the plans of a bunch of far-right American lunatics to establish a walled community with its own laws where, for instance, gun ownership and regular target practice would be mandatory. It’s the same kind of sociopathic insanity.
Damn good thing it will never happen, but it’s amusing to see various far-right lunatics wearing out their brain cells working on it.
We would be better off. All the numbers prove it. It certainly won’t be isolated and it certainly won’t run by a bunch of far right lunatics, you’re denigration of conservative people is noted, unlike similar on the left who have run Canada into the ground for the last decade and are continuing to do so.
Standing up for the continued money that Alberta generates and sends to Ottawa, I bet. The left doesn’t care about the 60+ of Albertans who have already voted to stop the practice. Democracy is only relevant, like MP’s votes, when if benefits the left’s agenda.
How many embassies Alberta needs to buy, build, or rent is known.
How many border control points need to be staffed is known – assuming no Schengen Agreement, which seems an obvious need at least until there is a handle on how much of problem smuggling will be.
It’s known that five national parks need to be staffed – at least until your parliament decides if you want more or less than now.
It’s not known how much foreign currency debt Alberta would assume. See:
Sure there would be some savings. No Navy. But I do not see this being powered by a positive love of Alberta that would get you through inevitable rough times.
None of this will occur over night after a leave vote, so planning will occur. Hiring, or transferring, employees for parks etc will occur after negotiated and agreed time frames.
We already have the debt being part of Canada. Taking whatever our negotiated share, which won’t be more than a per capita amount, is expected.
Hiring, or transferring, employees for parks etc will occur after negotiated and agreed time frames after negotiations break down.
How about making it proportional to your GDP, plus adjustments for Canada having to pay for military defense, and other costs, of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut to your north?
Could Alberta just walk away and assume zero of the national debt? When Canada has an army and you as yet have none? I don’t think so. The only way Alberta has power in the negotiations is if a bigger nation is on its side. And the price we’d ask for supporting Alberta would be for Alberta to team up with us.
P.S. I did not mean to imply that Canada would physically invade Alberta, or break out of its bases already there. Unlike the U.S., Canada does not start invasions (which might just be a good reason for Albertans to love Canada). Canada would find more clever ways to make its superior power count unless and until Alberta got even bigger battalions behind it. That’s why the idea Alberta would last for at most a few years, as a nominally independent state, is realism.
That’s a negotiating position, not an established rule. The Clarity Act says assets and liabilities would have to be addressed in negotiations; it prescribes no GDP formula or northern-defence surcharge.
Could Alberta just walk away and assume zero of the national debt?
No. Alberta couldn’t simply dictate zero debt. But Canada couldn’t simply dictate whatever number it wanted either.
The Supreme Court was quite explicit: neither majority “trumps” the other, there are no predetermined conclusions on the terms of secession, and the result has to come through principled negotiation reconciling the interests of both sides.
When Canada has an army and you as yet have none? I don’t think so.
Then you’ve changed the argument from law and negotiation to coercion.
If, as you later say, Canada isn’t going to use its military against Alberta, the size of Canada’s army has nothing to do with determining Alberta’s share of the debt.
The only way Alberta has power in the negotiations is if a bigger nation is on its side.
Again, why? Alberta and Canada would have plenty to negotiate over: assets, liabilities, borders, trade, infrastructure and the continuing relationship between the two countries. Canada’s relative military strength isn’t a constitutional negotiating formula.
Canada would find more clever ways to make its superior power count…
This is the part I find remarkable. You started by arguing that Alberta should remain in Canada, but now your case seems to be that if Albertans democratically choose otherwise, Canada should use its superior power (in their minds) to make them regret it.
That’s not an argument about whether independence would work. It’s a prediction that Canada would deliberately make it harder even if it was ultimately detrimental to themselves. … hmmm, I definitely see a pattern there.
~$5B over three years to standup the equivalent services that the feds currently provide. As I understand it, this is not their operating costs. Those would be paid from the revenue currently going to Ottawa and to be kept within Alberta.
The most honest evaluation of the far right’s movement (taking over Alberta while breaking up Canada) that I have ever read in the national press.
“The Alberta separatist movement is a guerrilla faction of the global far right which is attacking open societies across the world, Patrick Lennox writes.”
Here. here. Finally good to read someone calling a spade, a spade.
The separatists seek not to make Canada a better place, but to tear it apart and to transform the province of Alberta into an untaxed, unregulated, “faith, family, and freedom” libertarian fantasyland.
Many of the leaders of the separatist movement are from the same cast of characters we first met during the “Freedom Convoy.” They failed to topple the federal government then but are engaged in a similar exercise now. What they are seeking is a coup by other means. This separatist movement is a guerrilla faction of the global far right which is attacking open societies across the world.
They have captured the province’s centre-right party, which has traditionally governed the province, and have now availed themselves of a direct democratic instrument which they intend to leverage to overthrow the duly elected federal government – at least within their own self-assumed territory.