Our local radio talk-show has a very interesting question today - if your province wasn’t a member of Canadian Confederacy and they held a referendum on whether or not to join Canada, how would you vote?
I thought about this. I am a proud Canadian, but if given a choice, as an Albertan, I would reluctantly have to vote for not joining. There is not enough benefit to offset the cost of joining Confederacy for this province.
Depends, are we talking Ontario or Toronto?
Because I totally support the Province of Toronto movement.
Ontario is so big and diverse that if we were starting all over, the existing provincial boundary lines don’t really make sense.
I can definitely see why Alberta wouldn’t want to join, though.
What are the other options? If I were living in Alberta, at this point I probably wouldn’t want to join either, but then what? Alberta as an independant country or part of the US?
Join the Confederacy? Why would we in the Great White North have wanted to join a bunch of breakaway American states in the 1860s, rather than starting our own country, as we did?
Oh, you mean Confederation! Well, that’s a different matter.
If a referendum were held today, I’d have to vote in favour of Alberta joining Confederation. Yes, Alberta (where I live) is rich in resources, but until we diversify the provincial economy a little more, I doubt very much that we could go it alone. For example, we’d probably need to have a varied manufacturing sector in place on the same scale as Ontario or Quebec currently do, and plenty of head offices in industries other than oil and gas. With what we have right now in economic terms, I don’t believe we could compete by ourselves in a global market.
I know a number of Albertans are disgruntled with the way Ottawa and eastern Canada regards us. But I don’t think that level of disgruntlement is at the point where the majority of Albertans would vote against joining the Canadian Confederation. It isn’t with me, anyway. Yes, there may be a few changes we in Alberta would like to see made; but overall, I think we’ve got it pretty well in Canada. It’s worth staying in Confederation.
Yes no questions asked. After living and working in four different provinces over 6 years (I get around) ranging from the richest to one of the poorest, I would want to join no matter which province I was in during the vote. It is the diversity that makes it great. It is amazing how proud Albertans are of their economy and how proud Maritimers are of their culture. I wouldn’t want to the country to miss out on any of it.
Would some of the smaller provinces (PEI, Nova Scotia) really have a choice? Could they survive on their own?
Long live the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island! Easterners begin at Tswassen!
(But, I guess since we accepted the railroad and the big graving dock, we pretty much swallowed the confederation bait.)
Although…we could always approach Alaska, Washington State and Oregon about forming Pacifica, or somesuch. Between the natural resources and tourism, we’d make out all right. Hemp-flavoured postage stamps for all!
Oops.
You know, Rodd, that makes a lot of sense. Pacifica, eh? I like the sound of that.
I think the federal government is going to have to wake up and realize that it needs to renegotiate with the provinces (all of them, not just Alberta). It’s become a situation like parents with adult children at home, and the parents just aren’t willing to see that their babies are all growed up, and things are going to have to change.
Yes, I would. Without hesitation. And yes, I’m from western Canada and have lived my entire life here. And yes, I’m alternately annoyed and amused by some provinces being “more equal than others” and by Toronto’s definition of “The Rest of Canada” being everything other than Toronto rather than everything other than Quebec. But I consider myself a Canadian, before any other definition, and on the whole consider myself a federalist in favour of a strong national government.
Then again, I’d probably vote to keep the monarchy too, if asked.
And note to self, stop automatically ticking the “quote message in reply?” box in the quick reply screen.
As an Albertan, I’d say no.
I don’t think we have that much in common with the rest of Canada any more. Every time there’s an opinion poll, Albertans wind up way off on their own. If you look at everything from tax policy to social policy, Albertans just seem very different from the rest of Canada.
How is that different from the situation with Quebec? They’ve been claiming that they are “different” for a number of years without much success but an arguably better case.
We don’t speak French here.
Oh, you want a germane argument? 
Ha! Double Ha!
I simply don’t believe that any single province could make it on its own. I would vote to join, even though I am an Albertan.
Of course.
Canada is probably the most decentralized nation on earth; the provincial governments bitch endlessly (embarassingly, even Ontario has been bitching about a variety of wholly fictional numbers lately) and will never be satisfied, but truth is, the country works well.
If the country were to break up, ten years later, they’d be trying to put it back together again.
Let’s put it this way; if the country of Canada existed without Ontario as part of it, would you vote for Ontario to join Confederation?
Have to agree. Canadians, as a group, are too wrapped up in a national identity to go falling apart.
I wonder how anxious the Albertan separatists would have been to go it alone prior to the discovery of Leduc #1? It’s easy to claim no use for the rest of the country when you are (“temporarily”) ROLLING in dough.
These two things are why I have been saying, for several years now, that Canada should let Quebec go if they really want to. In a few years they would realize how much they rely on the rest of the country and be begging to come back.
Sure, but Ontario, at least the Premier, seems to feel threatened by Albertas current influx of money - why else would he make that “elephant in the room” comment?