Great podcast. For me, Canada faces a trilemma on the national unity front as it relates to Alberta. Canada can:
Reform the Constitution (ROC revolts Quebec wants out).
Let Alberta fragment the federation (economic/political chaos).
Force Alberta into submission (radicalizes Western separatism)
Alberta is not in a weak position, far from it. We can talk about "they don't leave with all that land' etc, another time or land locked until the cows come home. If they want out there is zero Canada can do about it. There is a reason, I think, why Smith is meeting American politicians and it has to do with US recognition.
Honestly, this is a ticking time bomb. At the very least, constitutional talks would have to occur. Again, if ROC says get stuffed, Albertans have a tough choice to make. Whatever happens, Canada needs to fix this, and I feel that we won't be able to do that. No idea where this goes, but as for Smith - she is a formidable politician with excellent communication skills, and pretty much unflappable. I think we underestimate at our peril. Also, any ideas to fix this so everyone loves Canada again, slap it in your reply.
I think the point was made in the podcast regarding tone, combined with walking back some of the unhelpful policies imposed by the Trudeau Liberals. I believe a good chunk of Albertan (and Saskatchewan) frustration and anger is the dismissive arrogance from Trudeau's Ottawa. Carney is not Trudeau, and his Liberal Government is not Trudeau's Liberal Government.
At least in tone.
So, there is some proof of the shift to come but I sense that is at least probable.
Couple of other points. Separation will give rise to huge problems in terms of mechanics and affordability. All the Federal functions will devolve on Edmonton and all the economies of scale disappear. Yes, it is doable but not cheaply. On top of that, you have a pissed off ROC to negotiate with and, as the UK has found with respect to the EU, spurned partners are disinclined to be helpful. Adding to the list is a completely hostile First Nations segment of the population that is totally intending to demand the honour of the Crown and will do their utmost to spike the entire programme. None of this is front and centre with independence proponents. Indeed, some of the sentiment that there will be no costs reminds me of similar fantasies expressed by Quebecers back in the day.
Lastly, the national and international discussion on energy and climate change needs to grasp the point that our entire standard of living is dependent on the consumption of energy. No one in the wealthy world is remotely prepared to sacrifice living standards to some future hoped for nirvana of no climate change - all very uncertain, you understand - and no fossil fuels. This has been the case since the tentative suggestions on the topic that fell out of the Rio Conference from 1990, lo these three plus decades ago. The transition period of using fossil fuels given the absence of any real likelihood of a speedy availability of the necessary technologies in terms of quantity and economics, means a few decades yet of fossil fuel extraction. And, even if energy is delivered via other mechanisms, we'll still need oil and gas for plastics and other chemical products forever (or a very long time). So, a more real discussion and analysis as to what a transition looks like globally is essential. Alberta roughnecks will not lack for work for the foreseeable future. The COP mechanism is a complete failure but it does at least provide a forum where, perhaps, a realistic approach can be contemplated. I understand that Greta will be disappointed. We need a far more 'doable' approach to the whole question and it absolutely needs to be global.
This is too long - regretted.
And now to the Oiler game - not confident it'll go their way, but am hopeful. I can be nothing but.
There will be a referendum on separation in 2026. The question will be blunt, not nuanced.
The federalists will win. By large margin, or small, Ms. Smith will be able to state that Alberta needs a strong leader to stand up to Canada. She will do a Ralph Klein on abortion when asked where she stands on sovereignty. Everyone must vote as their conscience dictates. After the dust has settled, she will call an election and beat the NDP led by the LPC Nenshi.
How badly Mr. Nenshi loses will be a function of how well Mr. Carney has carried the ball.
Just wanting to point out that negotiations between Alberta and the ROC have to occur before, and as a precondition, Canada’s Parliament will entertain a bill to sever Alberta from Canada. Such a bill will never pass unless Alberta offers to leave oil and gas royalties in the hands of Canada, in return for us granting Alberta its independence. Alberta’s people might want to be citizens of some county other than Canada, but the land is the sovereign property of Canada. The provinces are allowed to own the resources only as long as they remain provinces of Canada.
There is absolutely no chance that Canada will agree to secession on Alberta’s terms. What assets is Alberta proposing to give us to compensate us for our loss of you, and being left with all those treaty obligations you will want to abandon? ROC absolutely will tell you to get stuffed.
I don’t see Alberta as having a strong hand at all, simply because, unlike the UK and Brexit, Alberta doesn’t have the sovereign power to dissolve Confederation. Only Canada does. (I don’t mean Ottawa. I mean Canada as a country, which Alberta is a part.
There is lots Canada can do to keep its sovereign land intact. Individuals can leave, with their chattels, for whatever country will take them. But the land stays. If you declare independence unilaterally, Canada will freeze all your bank accounts to make sure you keep paying your federal taxes. What foreign country will recognize an independent nation that can’t collect taxes to service its debt? And then Canada will arrest the provincial government in Edmonton and, I dunno, hang them for sedition or insurrection. Staring with Premier Smith if she really is trying to do a Vikud Quisling on us, betraying Canada to a foreign power. (Just kidding, we no longer hang rebels.). We don’t have much of an Army but we have more than Alberta does.
Why do you assume the law would be followed? What if Alberta says we're not sitting down to negotiate so good luck trying to stop us from leaving. Also, recognition from the oval office that Alberta is independent and it's all over.
Alberta’s not the only one who can ignore the law, and it’s the federal government who has a strong military and federal police force presence in the province. Yeah, sure - the UCP and Danielle Smith decide to declare unilateral independence. The lieutenant governor dissolves their government, and if they don’t comply, they’re removed physically.
The *only* way Alberta could get away with anything like that is with a supermajority of the population on a referendum with a clear question. That’s fantasy land: even Quebec’s close call in 1995 fell short after decades of agitation, setting the conditions, and a deliberately vague question. Instead, it’d at best be a Parizeau-style misleading question with a slender majority of a disinterested electorate. And before you say “But Quebec could get away with it!”, keep in mind we’ve never seen what the federal government had planned in response. Some reporting indicates they would’ve pursued an approach that Quebec itself was divisible.
The beauty is that Canada would be fully within the law in using the federal power to crush the illegal secession by a province. It wouldn’t be a matter of “Canada can break the law, too.” An uncompromising response by Canada would have the virtue of being fully legal and therefore both politically and diplomatically popular. Canada would be seen as guaranteeing aboriginal treaty rights against a rebel republic seeking to degrade them which would win us brownie points, maybe even among the aboriginals themselves. (Imagine that!) The Crown could try the arrested rebel ringleaders for sedition if it chose to and imprison them if a jury in ROC convicted them. The 13 Colonies got away with it because they were able to defeat Britain militarily, with a lot of French help. (The bromance didn’t last long. The Americans were fighting the French by 1792.)
IF you seceded unlawfully, CRA would freeze your bank accounts no matter who recognized you. Then Alberta wouldn’t be able to collect taxes because it would be shut out of the country’s financial payments system. Credit cards wouldn’t work. Electronic deposits of paycheques wouldn’t work. Point of sale terminals wouldn’t work. Paper cheques wouldn’t clear. You’d be reduced to a cash economy but there wouldn’t be any cash because Ottawa would freeze whatever was in the bank vaults (which isn’t much these days.).
Canada collects taxes for all the provinces and then remits them back to you from Ottawa. You wouldn’t even get your provincial taxes. Recognition doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. Recognition is a collective conclusion by the world’s countries that the new state functions like a state: it has borders it can defend and it can collect taxes to run an independent government which includes paying interest on your debt.. Mere recognition by the U.S. State Dept., one country, doesn’t count for anything, unless it wants to bankroll you by promising to back your foreign debt. France did this for the 13 Colonies and it bankrupted the Court of Louis XV, which led to the French Revolution. America will provide all aid short of actual help because they will realize that good relations with Canada are more important to them than good relations with you. Oil is all you’ve got and the U.S. and Canada are the only customers you’ve got. The U.S. has you over a barrel. They don’t owe you any favours.
Illegal independence by Alberta would be an insurrection, a legitimate emergency. As we know, the federal government has extraordinary powers to deal with an emergency, even without resorting to military force.
Better grow lots of turnips. You’ll be living on them if you go unilateral. I’m not meaning to insult you. But this is what ROC is going to do if you try it.
The US recognized Taiwan as the legitimate government of China until 1979 - how'd that work out? No, it's not sufficient, even if it did happen. You're engaged in some pretty desperate cope.
Interesting. Why not use a referendum to force a constitutional renegotiation. Smith does not have a choice but to try to play both sides, its the only way to hold the coalition together.
Alberta should be more independent, as in attempting to implement the Firewall components. We do need to have all be equal. I believe Alberta is the embarrassing cousin in Canada, and always will be unless we can get better equality in the House of Commons and the senate!!!
But how can the provinces be equal in the House when Alberta is much smaller in population than Ontario or Quebec? Your ridings are about the same number of population as everywhere else in Canada. You aren't under-represented. There just aren't enough of you to make your voice heard. (Electing some Liberals might help because they are going to be the governing party forever now with the NDP wiped out.) Saskatchewan is over-represented. PEI famously is over-represented because of the terms Canada offered to get PEI to join Confederation but they have only four seats.
In your view, how many more seats should Alberta have in the House in order to be "equal"? Why would Ontario and Quebec consent to Alberta then having an outsized share of the House seats relative to its population?
Representation where all provinces have true representation by population which we do not have at the moment. Alberta has nearly 5 million population with 37 seats, Atlantic Canada has 2.5 million population with 33 seats, See the problem? An equal and elected senate would somewhat smooth out the House advantage of the more populous provinces, much like the USA house and senate.
The solution there is to make the House ridings closer to equal. Atlantic Canada has more seats than it should for its population, yes, and that should be fixed. But if you went to an equal Senate with actual legislative power, like the U.S., the four Atlantic Provinces would have four times as many Senators as Alberta does, and you would complain about that, too.
The Americans set up their Senate that way to make sure that the more populous north couldn’t vote democratically to abolish slavery in the less populous south. As America expanded and added new states before the Civil War, they always made sure that free States didn’t outnumber slave States. (The Missouri Compromise was about this.). Canada would have no reason to agree to give Alberta artificial dominance in the Senate just because it has oil. Fundamentally if you want more influence in Confederation you’re going to have to increase your population AND elect more Liberal MPs, like Ontario does.
We’re not going to let Alberta be like a big dog dragging a little boy around. We’ll need to train you to heel. Either that or emigrate to some country where you’ll have even less national influence than you do here. Maybe be like Oklahoma with its two Senators, same as California..
An equal and elected senate is a line in the sand for me, I will support Alberta separation if we cannot achieve that goal, It would make a significant difference to the current untenable situation we are enduring. Quebec and Ontario control this country which should be untenable to everyone else. Quebec never signed on to the current constitution and likely would NOT sign on to another either!
Ultimately, it is my opinion that NO PM wants to preside over the demise of the confederation and would likely move heaven and earth to come to some agreement. If that fails all bets are off.
We could see 3 separatist referendums within the next 4 years...If I'm those premiers I'd time them together and ensure all of Canada and the federal government understands what's at stake here!
Well, Ms. Gerson interviewed Ms. Gerson on the subject of Alberta separatism and the podcast was remarkably similar to the monologue Ms. Gerson had previously provided on the subject.
Mr. Nenshi is studying the RGB Colour Palette and trying to figure out how to hide the fact that within purple, LPC red is a lot closer to NDP orange than CPC blue. And he will be coloured Trudeau red.
Alberta’s been suffering from poor governance for years largely because of UCP’s internal issues with a right wing populist minority. The UCP can’t hold their coalition together without them, but the policies the populists have pushed make it difficult to win the general elections. The wishful and fantastical thinking that characterizes their notions of an independent Alberta is present in other areas too. They’ve got a general sense of an idea, and they run with it because it feels good without figuring out whether it’s actually workable in any real implementation.
Great podcast. For me, Canada faces a trilemma on the national unity front as it relates to Alberta. Canada can:
Reform the Constitution (ROC revolts Quebec wants out).
Let Alberta fragment the federation (economic/political chaos).
Force Alberta into submission (radicalizes Western separatism)
Alberta is not in a weak position, far from it. We can talk about "they don't leave with all that land' etc, another time or land locked until the cows come home. If they want out there is zero Canada can do about it. There is a reason, I think, why Smith is meeting American politicians and it has to do with US recognition.
Honestly, this is a ticking time bomb. At the very least, constitutional talks would have to occur. Again, if ROC says get stuffed, Albertans have a tough choice to make. Whatever happens, Canada needs to fix this, and I feel that we won't be able to do that. No idea where this goes, but as for Smith - she is a formidable politician with excellent communication skills, and pretty much unflappable. I think we underestimate at our peril. Also, any ideas to fix this so everyone loves Canada again, slap it in your reply.
I think the point was made in the podcast regarding tone, combined with walking back some of the unhelpful policies imposed by the Trudeau Liberals. I believe a good chunk of Albertan (and Saskatchewan) frustration and anger is the dismissive arrogance from Trudeau's Ottawa. Carney is not Trudeau, and his Liberal Government is not Trudeau's Liberal Government.
At least in tone.
So, there is some proof of the shift to come but I sense that is at least probable.
Couple of other points. Separation will give rise to huge problems in terms of mechanics and affordability. All the Federal functions will devolve on Edmonton and all the economies of scale disappear. Yes, it is doable but not cheaply. On top of that, you have a pissed off ROC to negotiate with and, as the UK has found with respect to the EU, spurned partners are disinclined to be helpful. Adding to the list is a completely hostile First Nations segment of the population that is totally intending to demand the honour of the Crown and will do their utmost to spike the entire programme. None of this is front and centre with independence proponents. Indeed, some of the sentiment that there will be no costs reminds me of similar fantasies expressed by Quebecers back in the day.
Lastly, the national and international discussion on energy and climate change needs to grasp the point that our entire standard of living is dependent on the consumption of energy. No one in the wealthy world is remotely prepared to sacrifice living standards to some future hoped for nirvana of no climate change - all very uncertain, you understand - and no fossil fuels. This has been the case since the tentative suggestions on the topic that fell out of the Rio Conference from 1990, lo these three plus decades ago. The transition period of using fossil fuels given the absence of any real likelihood of a speedy availability of the necessary technologies in terms of quantity and economics, means a few decades yet of fossil fuel extraction. And, even if energy is delivered via other mechanisms, we'll still need oil and gas for plastics and other chemical products forever (or a very long time). So, a more real discussion and analysis as to what a transition looks like globally is essential. Alberta roughnecks will not lack for work for the foreseeable future. The COP mechanism is a complete failure but it does at least provide a forum where, perhaps, a realistic approach can be contemplated. I understand that Greta will be disappointed. We need a far more 'doable' approach to the whole question and it absolutely needs to be global.
This is too long - regretted.
And now to the Oiler game - not confident it'll go their way, but am hopeful. I can be nothing but.
Spot on. Sorry about the Oilers….
Nobody said it wouldn't be painless. It's going to be interesting to see where this goes.
Ms. Smith is nothing if not wily.
There will be a referendum on separation in 2026. The question will be blunt, not nuanced.
The federalists will win. By large margin, or small, Ms. Smith will be able to state that Alberta needs a strong leader to stand up to Canada. She will do a Ralph Klein on abortion when asked where she stands on sovereignty. Everyone must vote as their conscience dictates. After the dust has settled, she will call an election and beat the NDP led by the LPC Nenshi.
How badly Mr. Nenshi loses will be a function of how well Mr. Carney has carried the ball.
Sounds like you have it figured out.
Just wanting to point out that negotiations between Alberta and the ROC have to occur before, and as a precondition, Canada’s Parliament will entertain a bill to sever Alberta from Canada. Such a bill will never pass unless Alberta offers to leave oil and gas royalties in the hands of Canada, in return for us granting Alberta its independence. Alberta’s people might want to be citizens of some county other than Canada, but the land is the sovereign property of Canada. The provinces are allowed to own the resources only as long as they remain provinces of Canada.
There is absolutely no chance that Canada will agree to secession on Alberta’s terms. What assets is Alberta proposing to give us to compensate us for our loss of you, and being left with all those treaty obligations you will want to abandon? ROC absolutely will tell you to get stuffed.
I don’t see Alberta as having a strong hand at all, simply because, unlike the UK and Brexit, Alberta doesn’t have the sovereign power to dissolve Confederation. Only Canada does. (I don’t mean Ottawa. I mean Canada as a country, which Alberta is a part.
There is lots Canada can do to keep its sovereign land intact. Individuals can leave, with their chattels, for whatever country will take them. But the land stays. If you declare independence unilaterally, Canada will freeze all your bank accounts to make sure you keep paying your federal taxes. What foreign country will recognize an independent nation that can’t collect taxes to service its debt? And then Canada will arrest the provincial government in Edmonton and, I dunno, hang them for sedition or insurrection. Staring with Premier Smith if she really is trying to do a Vikud Quisling on us, betraying Canada to a foreign power. (Just kidding, we no longer hang rebels.). We don’t have much of an Army but we have more than Alberta does.
Why do you assume the law would be followed? What if Alberta says we're not sitting down to negotiate so good luck trying to stop us from leaving. Also, recognition from the oval office that Alberta is independent and it's all over.
Alberta’s not the only one who can ignore the law, and it’s the federal government who has a strong military and federal police force presence in the province. Yeah, sure - the UCP and Danielle Smith decide to declare unilateral independence. The lieutenant governor dissolves their government, and if they don’t comply, they’re removed physically.
The *only* way Alberta could get away with anything like that is with a supermajority of the population on a referendum with a clear question. That’s fantasy land: even Quebec’s close call in 1995 fell short after decades of agitation, setting the conditions, and a deliberately vague question. Instead, it’d at best be a Parizeau-style misleading question with a slender majority of a disinterested electorate. And before you say “But Quebec could get away with it!”, keep in mind we’ve never seen what the federal government had planned in response. Some reporting indicates they would’ve pursued an approach that Quebec itself was divisible.
Alberta is not Quebec
The beauty is that Canada would be fully within the law in using the federal power to crush the illegal secession by a province. It wouldn’t be a matter of “Canada can break the law, too.” An uncompromising response by Canada would have the virtue of being fully legal and therefore both politically and diplomatically popular. Canada would be seen as guaranteeing aboriginal treaty rights against a rebel republic seeking to degrade them which would win us brownie points, maybe even among the aboriginals themselves. (Imagine that!) The Crown could try the arrested rebel ringleaders for sedition if it chose to and imprison them if a jury in ROC convicted them. The 13 Colonies got away with it because they were able to defeat Britain militarily, with a lot of French help. (The bromance didn’t last long. The Americans were fighting the French by 1792.)
Yes - the whole Alberta separatist project is shot through with fantastical, poorly informed, flawed assumptions.
IF you seceded unlawfully, CRA would freeze your bank accounts no matter who recognized you. Then Alberta wouldn’t be able to collect taxes because it would be shut out of the country’s financial payments system. Credit cards wouldn’t work. Electronic deposits of paycheques wouldn’t work. Point of sale terminals wouldn’t work. Paper cheques wouldn’t clear. You’d be reduced to a cash economy but there wouldn’t be any cash because Ottawa would freeze whatever was in the bank vaults (which isn’t much these days.).
Canada collects taxes for all the provinces and then remits them back to you from Ottawa. You wouldn’t even get your provincial taxes. Recognition doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. Recognition is a collective conclusion by the world’s countries that the new state functions like a state: it has borders it can defend and it can collect taxes to run an independent government which includes paying interest on your debt.. Mere recognition by the U.S. State Dept., one country, doesn’t count for anything, unless it wants to bankroll you by promising to back your foreign debt. France did this for the 13 Colonies and it bankrupted the Court of Louis XV, which led to the French Revolution. America will provide all aid short of actual help because they will realize that good relations with Canada are more important to them than good relations with you. Oil is all you’ve got and the U.S. and Canada are the only customers you’ve got. The U.S. has you over a barrel. They don’t owe you any favours.
Illegal independence by Alberta would be an insurrection, a legitimate emergency. As we know, the federal government has extraordinary powers to deal with an emergency, even without resorting to military force.
Better grow lots of turnips. You’ll be living on them if you go unilateral. I’m not meaning to insult you. But this is what ROC is going to do if you try it.
Okay. For mef the USA recognized it, that's all she wrote.
The US recognized Taiwan as the legitimate government of China until 1979 - how'd that work out? No, it's not sufficient, even if it did happen. You're engaged in some pretty desperate cope.
You are comparing Taiwan with Canada?
Lot more realistic that out friend Leslie's far too elaborate view.
Interesting. Why not use a referendum to force a constitutional renegotiation. Smith does not have a choice but to try to play both sides, its the only way to hold the coalition together.
Alberta should be more independent, as in attempting to implement the Firewall components. We do need to have all be equal. I believe Alberta is the embarrassing cousin in Canada, and always will be unless we can get better equality in the House of Commons and the senate!!!
But how can the provinces be equal in the House when Alberta is much smaller in population than Ontario or Quebec? Your ridings are about the same number of population as everywhere else in Canada. You aren't under-represented. There just aren't enough of you to make your voice heard. (Electing some Liberals might help because they are going to be the governing party forever now with the NDP wiped out.) Saskatchewan is over-represented. PEI famously is over-represented because of the terms Canada offered to get PEI to join Confederation but they have only four seats.
In your view, how many more seats should Alberta have in the House in order to be "equal"? Why would Ontario and Quebec consent to Alberta then having an outsized share of the House seats relative to its population?
Representation where all provinces have true representation by population which we do not have at the moment. Alberta has nearly 5 million population with 37 seats, Atlantic Canada has 2.5 million population with 33 seats, See the problem? An equal and elected senate would somewhat smooth out the House advantage of the more populous provinces, much like the USA house and senate.
The solution there is to make the House ridings closer to equal. Atlantic Canada has more seats than it should for its population, yes, and that should be fixed. But if you went to an equal Senate with actual legislative power, like the U.S., the four Atlantic Provinces would have four times as many Senators as Alberta does, and you would complain about that, too.
The Americans set up their Senate that way to make sure that the more populous north couldn’t vote democratically to abolish slavery in the less populous south. As America expanded and added new states before the Civil War, they always made sure that free States didn’t outnumber slave States. (The Missouri Compromise was about this.). Canada would have no reason to agree to give Alberta artificial dominance in the Senate just because it has oil. Fundamentally if you want more influence in Confederation you’re going to have to increase your population AND elect more Liberal MPs, like Ontario does.
We’re not going to let Alberta be like a big dog dragging a little boy around. We’ll need to train you to heel. Either that or emigrate to some country where you’ll have even less national influence than you do here. Maybe be like Oklahoma with its two Senators, same as California..
I think that would be desirable, but for me, I can't see it happening because we know how well constitutional talks went last time we tried it.
An equal and elected senate is a line in the sand for me, I will support Alberta separation if we cannot achieve that goal, It would make a significant difference to the current untenable situation we are enduring. Quebec and Ontario control this country which should be untenable to everyone else. Quebec never signed on to the current constitution and likely would NOT sign on to another either!
Ultimately, it is my opinion that NO PM wants to preside over the demise of the confederation and would likely move heaven and earth to come to some agreement. If that fails all bets are off.
We could see 3 separatist referendums within the next 4 years...If I'm those premiers I'd time them together and ensure all of Canada and the federal government understands what's at stake here!
Triple E is DOA unfortunately. But who knows what's going to happen next?
So I've listened to the first half of this podcast, and so far Naheed Nenshi hasn't even been mentioned.
Does that answer the rhetorical question in the headline....?
Well, Ms. Gerson interviewed Ms. Gerson on the subject of Alberta separatism and the podcast was remarkably similar to the monologue Ms. Gerson had previously provided on the subject.
Mr. Nenshi is studying the RGB Colour Palette and trying to figure out how to hide the fact that within purple, LPC red is a lot closer to NDP orange than CPC blue. And he will be coloured Trudeau red.
I love this comment.
First Nenshi mention ended up being at the 58 minute mark….
Alberta’s been suffering from poor governance for years largely because of UCP’s internal issues with a right wing populist minority. The UCP can’t hold their coalition together without them, but the policies the populists have pushed make it difficult to win the general elections. The wishful and fantastical thinking that characterizes their notions of an independent Alberta is present in other areas too. They’ve got a general sense of an idea, and they run with it because it feels good without figuring out whether it’s actually workable in any real implementation.
Dave Cournoyer is a concise observer of Alberta politics and as always I appreciate the conversation