Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the separatist discourse in Alberta is that no one seems willing or capable of articulating a clear argument for why it is good to remain in Canada.
I want to be very clear: I’m NOT waiting for arguments about why separatism is bad or expensive, I want to know why the Dominion is worth saving. This podcast does a lot of the former, almost none of the latter. The best that Dave could say was “Canada isn’t that bad.” Persuasive.
Because I hate myself, I’ve listened to several years of The Line podcast, where Gerson and Gurney repeatedly discuss how Canada is broken. I agree. We are broken, in many ways. And we continually choose mediocrity instead of having frank conversations about what we want to be as a country.
THAT, to my mind, is the obvious missing piece.
Because the “expense” arguments are, frankly, very weak! And none are unique to Alberta. Everything is expensive, everything has tradeoffs. We make tradeoffs to be part of the Dominion. It’s the cost of state building. It’s like saying “why do we need to spend money on national defence” - well, if you want to be a country, then there are certain things you have to spend money on. And if a majority of Albertans what to separate, then they aren’t going to care about an extra billion on X, because it’ll be in pursuit of the larger goal that they’ve deliberately chosen.
To the separatist inclined Albertan, just yelling at them that separatism is bad or has consequences is really, really dumb, no matter how true it might be. Because that Albertan sees a broken Canada, an Alberta with legitimate grievances, and thinks “there’s not much worth saving here and the rest of the country doesn’t even want us anyways. Sure there are downsides, but status quo isn’t perfect either.”
If Canada were worth being a part of, and I genuinely think it is, then that’s the argument to make. If you talk about “well if you become a country then you’ll have to pay for a military, isn’t that just stupid” then, well, Alberta’s gone.
I also want to be clear that this isn’t a defence of the fantastical assumptions of the average Alberta separatist. But the separatists will win if the statists can’t form and defend the basic argument that Canada is worth saving. Because no one is making that argument right now.
Jen, I have just paused the video to respond to one of your points. Well two.
You mention that Danielle Smith is avoiding having a referendum on various topics - you specifically use the proposed Alberta Pension Plan as a f'r instance - and you find that an example of anti-democratic practice.
Wellllll.... perhaps. But, then, perhaps not.
The proponents of separation have to get signatures to force a referendum on that issue. There is nothing to prevent the proponents of either an APP or of retaining the CPP from also raising sufficient signatures to force a referendum.
As a final (well, perhaps not final, final) point you note that Kenney held a referendum on equalization a few years ago (three years, coming up four years, I seem to recall) and you assert that that vote simply sank out of sight and was never heard from again. You are both correct and incorrect.
Yes, that vote sank out of sight but please recall that Kenney was not at all a fan of that referendum (yes, he called the referendum but he didn't want to) and he never pressed the feds on the point afterwards. Further, there was no legislation that required the feds to address it. By contrast, the Clarity Act asserts that Canada must negotiate in good faith in the event of a clear decision on a clear question, etc., etc. Is that a sufficient difference? I don't know, but the asserted formality is certainly different from the earlier referendum; whether Otterwer would react differently I cannot say.
I voted no on that equalization referendum, but my understanding of it at the time was that it was more citizens registering a protest rather than something that would require Kenney to act. I also think most people completely misunderstand what equalization means and where the money actually comes from. (No Albertans aren’t paying more to Ottawa because of equalization - federal taxes are equal. But the province doesn’t get back a portion of those federal taxes in AB and they’d sure like to change that.)
I think the separatist movement is largely uneducated and full of wishful thinking. But haven’t actually finished listening to the podcast so that’s just me sharing an opinion out of context. lol
I agree that many voters in that referendum were - and are - not familiar with the FACT that Alberta does not actually send equalization money to the feds (or to Quebec, for that matter). Of course, equalization comes out of federal monies that are collected across the country; it just happens that Alberta sends much more money to the feds than we actually receive back in services, etc.
I further agree that many separatist supporters do not have any real idea of the difficulties in actually separating. I speak not of the political difficulties but of the issues of actually creating a new country. It seems to me that there are some very practical ways to accomplish many of those things - but there will be significant gaps.
Jen talks about creating this or that service to replace the feds and she is right to do so. But. She says, for example, that it would be costly for us to collect our own taxes and that is why we don't do it. Well, we already pay the feds to do that so if we were not part of Canada we would save that money and could allocate it to beef up our existing tax collection agency, Alberta Tax and Revenue Administration. Would it be a wash financially? I am quite certain not. On the other hand, we wouldn't be contributing to various other federal services that we won't need, for example, the coast guard, so perhaps there would be savings.
The ultimate point, though is that the idea of a shiny new country called Alberta might be attractive to some (I confess to being intrigued but not yet convinced) but proponents of separation need to understand that it is COMPLICATED.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the separatist discourse in Alberta is that no one seems willing or capable of articulating a clear argument for why it is good to remain in Canada.
I want to be very clear: I’m NOT waiting for arguments about why separatism is bad or expensive, I want to know why the Dominion is worth saving. This podcast does a lot of the former, almost none of the latter. The best that Dave could say was “Canada isn’t that bad.” Persuasive.
Because I hate myself, I’ve listened to several years of The Line podcast, where Gerson and Gurney repeatedly discuss how Canada is broken. I agree. We are broken, in many ways. And we continually choose mediocrity instead of having frank conversations about what we want to be as a country.
THAT, to my mind, is the obvious missing piece.
Because the “expense” arguments are, frankly, very weak! And none are unique to Alberta. Everything is expensive, everything has tradeoffs. We make tradeoffs to be part of the Dominion. It’s the cost of state building. It’s like saying “why do we need to spend money on national defence” - well, if you want to be a country, then there are certain things you have to spend money on. And if a majority of Albertans what to separate, then they aren’t going to care about an extra billion on X, because it’ll be in pursuit of the larger goal that they’ve deliberately chosen.
To the separatist inclined Albertan, just yelling at them that separatism is bad or has consequences is really, really dumb, no matter how true it might be. Because that Albertan sees a broken Canada, an Alberta with legitimate grievances, and thinks “there’s not much worth saving here and the rest of the country doesn’t even want us anyways. Sure there are downsides, but status quo isn’t perfect either.”
If Canada were worth being a part of, and I genuinely think it is, then that’s the argument to make. If you talk about “well if you become a country then you’ll have to pay for a military, isn’t that just stupid” then, well, Alberta’s gone.
I also want to be clear that this isn’t a defence of the fantastical assumptions of the average Alberta separatist. But the separatists will win if the statists can’t form and defend the basic argument that Canada is worth saving. Because no one is making that argument right now.
Jen, I have just paused the video to respond to one of your points. Well two.
You mention that Danielle Smith is avoiding having a referendum on various topics - you specifically use the proposed Alberta Pension Plan as a f'r instance - and you find that an example of anti-democratic practice.
Wellllll.... perhaps. But, then, perhaps not.
The proponents of separation have to get signatures to force a referendum on that issue. There is nothing to prevent the proponents of either an APP or of retaining the CPP from also raising sufficient signatures to force a referendum.
As a final (well, perhaps not final, final) point you note that Kenney held a referendum on equalization a few years ago (three years, coming up four years, I seem to recall) and you assert that that vote simply sank out of sight and was never heard from again. You are both correct and incorrect.
Yes, that vote sank out of sight but please recall that Kenney was not at all a fan of that referendum (yes, he called the referendum but he didn't want to) and he never pressed the feds on the point afterwards. Further, there was no legislation that required the feds to address it. By contrast, the Clarity Act asserts that Canada must negotiate in good faith in the event of a clear decision on a clear question, etc., etc. Is that a sufficient difference? I don't know, but the asserted formality is certainly different from the earlier referendum; whether Otterwer would react differently I cannot say.
I voted no on that equalization referendum, but my understanding of it at the time was that it was more citizens registering a protest rather than something that would require Kenney to act. I also think most people completely misunderstand what equalization means and where the money actually comes from. (No Albertans aren’t paying more to Ottawa because of equalization - federal taxes are equal. But the province doesn’t get back a portion of those federal taxes in AB and they’d sure like to change that.)
I think the separatist movement is largely uneducated and full of wishful thinking. But haven’t actually finished listening to the podcast so that’s just me sharing an opinion out of context. lol
I agree that many voters in that referendum were - and are - not familiar with the FACT that Alberta does not actually send equalization money to the feds (or to Quebec, for that matter). Of course, equalization comes out of federal monies that are collected across the country; it just happens that Alberta sends much more money to the feds than we actually receive back in services, etc.
I further agree that many separatist supporters do not have any real idea of the difficulties in actually separating. I speak not of the political difficulties but of the issues of actually creating a new country. It seems to me that there are some very practical ways to accomplish many of those things - but there will be significant gaps.
Jen talks about creating this or that service to replace the feds and she is right to do so. But. She says, for example, that it would be costly for us to collect our own taxes and that is why we don't do it. Well, we already pay the feds to do that so if we were not part of Canada we would save that money and could allocate it to beef up our existing tax collection agency, Alberta Tax and Revenue Administration. Would it be a wash financially? I am quite certain not. On the other hand, we wouldn't be contributing to various other federal services that we won't need, for example, the coast guard, so perhaps there would be savings.
The ultimate point, though is that the idea of a shiny new country called Alberta might be attractive to some (I confess to being intrigued but not yet convinced) but proponents of separation need to understand that it is COMPLICATED.