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| "Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair." |
Like everyone else, I am bad at predicting the future. But I think Alberta will vote to separate from Canada this fall. Chaos will ensue.
The Canadian government, and the majority of Canadians, have been indulging in the deadly sin of pride. They have made concessions to Quebec to dampen down separatist sentiment; but consider Albertans beneath their notice. How should this make Albertans feel? They are not being taken seriously. Ottawa seems to consider Alberta a colony. Central Canada is taking advantage of Alberta’s resources, while at the same time hobbling Alberta’s economy for the benefit of the rest of the country. And they fairly openly flaunt their view that Alberta has no right to complain. Prime Minister Carney has been quoted as saying, if Alberta votes to separate, he will declare the Emergencies Act.
That sounds like a dare. Under these circumstances, it seems to me that Albertans will vote for independence purely for self-respect, quite aside from the practical benefits. Which are fairly obvious: the ability to keep the oil revenue locally, the ability to sell more oil to the US, the ability to escape the huge transfer payments to the rest of Canada—Alberta is demonstrably getting less than it pays for—and the ability to pass the legislation the people of Alberta want. They are politically significantly to the right of the rest of Canada.
It is shockingly prideful of the central government, and eastern Canadians, to assume they will not. It is as if the feds are just demanding submission.
Albertans have a strong bargaining chip. If Ottawa refuses to negotiate separation, with Trump is still in office, or with a MAGA successor, the Americans are likely to back the separatist movement, for the sake of access to Alberta’s oil. If the central government moves against them, America would have the green light to intervene, as when Russia moved against an independent Ukraine, or as if China moved against Taiwan.
And if Alberta goes, the temptation will be strong for Saskatchewan to go as well. And without big transfer payments, perhaps Quebec as well...and then the impoverished Maritimes might feel the need to petition the US for annexation.
This involves another example of Canada’s current arrogance: Canadians and the Canadian government act as though they can stand up to the USA, “elbows up,” as though the two countries are roughly equals in economic and in military power. This is tragicomic. Again, they are as much as daring the US to prove them wrong.
This arrogance is not new. Canada’s foreign policy in the last decade and more, under Justin Trudeau, has been recklessly arrogant; under Trudeau, and now under Carney, Canadian governments have lectured and picked fights with the US, India, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. They have acted as though Canada were a world power. Carney has now actually declared his readiness to take over leadership of the free world.
Nor can I blame the government alone. Canadians elected them. Ordinary Canadians too seem supremely confident that their current prosperity and personal freedoms is simply deserved, inalienable, and cannot possibly be lost.
If there is justice on the earth and in the heavens--and there is--Canada is heading for disaster.
