Alberta separatists want to have their cake and eat it too

Yep, let's move fast and break things. 

This is NOT what Canada needs to deal with right now, but I guess we don't have any choice:

An Alberta separatist group released on Monday a referendum question on independence from Canada that it will petition to get in front of provincial voters — but only once it has garnered support from 600,000 Albertans.
That's more than triple the number of signatures the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) would need under a new United Conservative Party government bill that makes it much easier to force a referendum on the ballot.
The group also said it would push Premier Danielle Smith to allow a separation referendum later in 2025, instead of next year as she's suggested. They said a critical mass of separatist UCP members can persuade the premier to fast-track the referendum — and to join their cause as well....

Here's the discussion on Power and Politics:

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Hmmm...oh, you think that do you?

The separatists claim "residents of a breakaway Alberta republic would still keep their Canadian passports and Canada Pension Plan entitlements." www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

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— Simon Little 🍁 (@simonplittle.ca) May 12, 2025 at 4:56 PM

This kind of stuff is why I don't believe the separatists really want to be a truly independent nation, they just want to be able to ignore some parts of the constitution that they don't like. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

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— draglikepull (@draglikepull.bsky.social) May 12, 2025 at 1:26 PM

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— Occupy Calgary 🇨🇦 (@calgaryoccupy.bsky.social) May 7, 2025 at 6:05 AM

Where does Poilievre stand on all this separation talk? Does he think he can just lay low and grab an Alberta seat, use weasel words and placate the separatists? Will he risk alienating to defend Canada or will he do what he always does, morph into whatever helps his personal ambition? #cdnpoli

— Steve Valeriote (@stevev68.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 11:28 AM

The one thing about this mess that is amusing is that Poilievre will be running in a byelection in Alberta, where he will find himself between the devil and the deep blue sea. He will have to talk about Alberta separatism, but what the hell can he say?

I expect he'll just try to switch the conversation to plastic straws and trans bathrooms.

Here's some useful commentary: 

Corey Hogan 

Three Alberta separatism myths 

No, we wouldn’t be able to force the rest of Canada to build pipelines.

... MYTH 1: “If we were a separate nation, the rest of Canada would be OBLIGED to give us pipelines to the coasts under international law.” 

The belief that being a sovereign country would give Alberta unlimited ability to create pipelines to tidewater hinges on a read of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 1965 New York Convention on Transit Trade of Land-locked States. Under those treaties, landlocked countries have rights of access to and from the sea. But ask the oil-producing jurisdictions of South Sudan, Uganda or Kazakhstan how those treaties works for getting oil to market (spoiler: not well). The treaties guarantee rights of access but they do not guarantee the right to build infrastructure across another country’s territory. The right is a right to transit, not transit infrastructure. 

 ...MYTH 2: “If we were a separate nation, we’d have more money for ourselves.” 

...When it comes to cost, small countries have big disadvantages. Fixed costs of governance (e.g., a legislature, judiciary, ministries) are spread across fewer people, so per capita costs tend to be higher. Canada is the 8th largest economy and 37th most populous country in the world. Alberta would be the 125th. Instead of 41 million people paying for 270 diplomatic offices across the globe, 5 million people would be doing it. The same level of service would cost the average taxpayer 8 times as much. 

This ties into the concept of economies of scale and the de-risking that occurs the larger and more diversified an economy is. We see it most prominently with the Canada Pension Plan - which gets greater returns than the smaller Quebec Pension Plan. We also see it with spending on armed forces, innovation, trade, housing and agriculture. Fixed costs for smaller countries are a bigger percent of spending - and more limited dollars go less distance. There’s every reason to believe Albertans would spend more on a sovereign Alberta than what Albertans currently spend on a sovereign Canada. 

MYTH 3: “If we were a separate nation, my party/conservatives could always win.” 

Gang, the NDP were in power provincially as recently as six years ago. But for a couple thousand votes in Calgary last election, they would be in power right now. This is not ancient history. At this point you could easily make the case Alberta is more likely than Ontario to vote for a non-conservative government....

David Climenhaga / Alberta Politics 

Some thoughts on that shocking 36% of Albertans we’re told by a pollster would like the province to separate from Canada 

Where there’s smoke … there’s often a smoke-making machine 

 ...Whatever can be said about the accuracy of the notorious Angus Reid Institute poll that purports to show 36 per cent of Albertans would like to separate from Canada – a percentage that defies credulity no matter how much a majority of Albertans hate having a Liberal government in Ottawa – smoke-making machines are working overtime nowadays to ensure we know all about it.
... even given the conservative movement’s national temper tantrum, it’s hard to believe that even 10 per cent of Albertans, let alone 36 per cent, would think it’s a good idea to risk our Canadian rights, pensions, passports, bank accounts, health care and freedom to travel for the satisfaction of owning the Libs....
Be that as it may, I am prepared to stand corrected if more polls show the same thing. But whatever happened, the poll’s results certainly benefit the operators of the various smoke-making machines who hope to persuade Albertans and other Western Canadians that being part of a landlocked petro-republic, or worse a United States edging steadily toward a civil war, is somehow in their best interests.
Hard to believe anyone in full possession of their faculties would fall for that, but persuading people to do things that aren’t in their own interests are why we have disinformation campaigns.
The United Conservative Party Government led by Premier Danielle Smith certainly has plenty of good reasons to start generating some smoke. ... 

Danny I. P. 

Treason in a Cowboy Hat: Alberta’s Separatist Insanity Must Be Stopped 

...These aren’t freedom fighters — they’re political arsonists. They’re hijacking frustration, fanning the flames of discontent, and turning grievance into a weapon of mass division. And in doing so, they are playing with the lives, futures, and rights of millions of Canadians — including the very Albertans they claim to represent.
Let’s talk about who gets erased if this goes forward:
Indigenous peoples. Treaty holders. Land protectors.
Immigrants. Refugees. Workers who came here under the promise of peace and democracy.
The poor. The disabled. The queer. The marginalized — all of whom will be crushed under the boots of a so-called “sovereign Alberta” run by the far-right.
And let’s be honest, bestie: this isn’t about sovereignty. It’s about supremacy.
It’s about building a pipeline to power for white nationalism, American-style theocracy, and corporate authoritarianism.
Because if Alberta leaves? They don’t drift. They fall — straight into the orbit of Trump’s fascist America. Right-wing billionaires are licking their lips. Oil lobbyists are lining up their cheques. And hate groups are already drawing the borders of their dream country.
... Let’s stop pretending this is just another “debate.”
This is the Canadian version of January 6th — only slower, slicker, and with a prairie accent....

And remember this? 

All those lies....but Britains believed them It didn't work out so well, did it: