Meet the potential 51st state: Alberta
I don’t think Alberta will actually secede from Canada. But it’s being seriously considered, at least by some people:
Alberta doesn’t belong in this Canada.
That’s not treason. It’s not even radical. It’s a simple observation of cultural, economic, and political reality — a reality growing starker by the year. Albertans have known for decades that something is deeply broken in the Confederation they were born into. But it’s only recently, as Ottawa’s indifference curdled into hostility, that many have begun asking the inevitable question: What if we left?
Not just to form a new nation. But to join one that already reflects their values. A nation that respects liberty, rewards hard work, and doesn’t treat resource-producing states or provinces like piggy banks and political afterthoughts. A nation that — however imperfect — still believes in the rule of law, in constitutional government, and in the right of free people to govern themselves.
That nation is not Canada. That nation is the United States.
From the moment Alberta entered Confederation in 1905, it was treated as an afterthought — an imperial holding ruled from the East. The so-called “national interest” always seemed to mean Quebec’s interest. And while Alberta built the pipelines, powered the economy, and filled the federal coffers, Ottawa wielded its power like a colonial governor, redistributing wealth and writing laws with no regard for the West’s values or prosperity. …
In 1998, Canada’s Supreme Court issued its landmark Secession Reference. The Court ruled that if a province were to vote clearly and decisively for independence, the federal government would be constitutionally obligated to enter into negotiations.
The union, in other words, rests on consent — and consent can be withdrawn.
Much much more at the link.
There is certain irony in the fact that, by exercising their right to secession, they are joining a nation that’s killed a million people only to forbid its exercise.
No objections in the short term, but perhaps we should set our standards straight.
(And then, let California go.)
Hello, Neo. It happened that I had read the article that you mention here just a few hours before you posted. I would have felt better about it had it been written by a Canadian, especially and for obvious reasons an actual Albertan. As it was, I was not terribly impressed with it.
Philip Sells:
Well, the pro-secession forces say they have enough votes to at least have a referendum on the subject.
LXE:
Apparently, Canada has provisions for legal secession. The US does not.
@neo
That’s exactly what I said. And, like it or not, I’d call it a double standard problem if it ever comes to actual secession of Alberta from Canada to join the US.
The fact that Russia has a similar problem (accepting and encouraging neighbors’ breakaway provinces but treating its domestic secessionism as high treason) doesn’t really help, either.
Either we allow “competition of sovereign powers”, or we don’t. There is no honest way to reap the benefits while hedging off the costs.
If you want Alberta to join, allow Hawaii and California to leave.
LXE:
It can be like the Hotel California: “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
@LXE
We “killed a million people” because a conspiracy of separatist pro-slavery hardliners unilaterally declared secession after losing a national election, sponsored paramilitary terrorism and violence against their fellow citizens (US interpretation now)/ citizens of neighboring states and their own internal dissidents (US Interp then),/ citizens of a foreign nation without provocation (legal reality of the Confederste POV), shunned all talk of negotiation or compromise as the situation grew worse, and then bombarded U.S. troops when they could not defend themselves. Before promptly moving to violently suppress attempts by their own people to exercise secession like in West Virginia and even invading neutral states like Kentucky.
That’s unfortunate because of the taint it has cast over separatism and secession as a whole, since it was associated not with negotiated settlements or a peaceful velvet divorce but with violent terrorism and treason. But West Virginia remains in existence and the HS pointedly allows open, legal talk of secession and even votes to that effect like with Puerto Rico and Hawaii. So the U.S. does have precepts for legal secession, albeit in a much more ad hoc fashion
Ultimately we fought the Civil War because the Confederates waged war on and attacked us and unless we were going to sanction the violent takeover of unwilling states like Kentucky, we would have to fight and even some precedent for legal secession would not have changed that. I have no reason whatsoever to believe Canada would have acted substantially differently under similar circumstances.
Fair, though the issue is whether they want to vote for it. And what they consider doing or do in the meantime.
Not really. The US can simply point to the likes of Puerto Rico and the actual details of 1860-1. If the Alberta separatists acted like the CSA did the U.S. would simply reject them.
That has more to do with the Kremlin being the Kremlin and rule of law being at best weak and usually nonexistent, as well as not being good at squaring the circle or at least l putting on a good show that it does.
Again, we allow Hawaii and California to leave or at a minimum agitate to leave legally and peacefully, though those are extreme minorities even within their states. We outright have had Puerto Rico vote on independence, statehood, or its current status multiple times over, with a not so veiled “pleeaaase pick something else than what you are now!” Only for that to not work as Puerto Rico prefers its current situation.
What the U.S. cannot and will not allow is for a sub-polity of its territory to levy war on it by things such as violently seizing control of shared resources and assets, firing artillery on Federal troops, and invading other parts of sovereign U.S. territory. Which was the real problem the Confederates were.
Alberta really does have much more in common with its neighbors to the south, ie the American West. Lots of cowboys in Alberta. They even have a great rodeo in the Calgary Stampede. And with the economics, Alberta leaving Canada would be a huge blow to their economy and a boon to ours.
I understand that the premier of Alberta said she would hold the referendum even though she opposes secession.
It’s a compelling read. So compelling one might be a little suspicious. Too good?
Some replies try to make the case that Alberta isn’t culturally North North Dakota. Much of Canada’s current leftist structure, some said, originated in the west, so we’re not getting non-Houston Texas.
If you search for “Per Capita GDP USD” for Alberta, you’ll find it’s not that rich. Whether that counts the amounts extracted by Ottawa before they leave, or what’s left afterward I can’t say.
Then ask the same question as regards Mississippi.
And have some fun with google earth on the place.
physicsguy
Alberta really does have much more in common with its neighbors to the south, ie the American West. Lots of cowboys in Alberta.
Such as Corb Lund – “Never Not Had Horses.” Corb Lund lives about 150 miles from my Montana cousin, which is in Big Sky terms, a hop, skip, and a jump away. My Montana cousin has likewise “never not had horses,” and looks a bit like Corb Lund’s mother.
Another Alberta singersongwriter: Ian Tyson- Top Songs
I knew a guy now living in Alberta who has a rather interesting history. His English parents were members of the Bruderhof, a pacifist British sect, who moved to Paraguay circa 1940. He spent most of his childhood in Paraguay, moved to a Bruderhof colony in the States, where he left them–Bruderhof were hoping he would go to medical school and become their physician. Spent some time in DC working for the likes of World Bank. Now in Alberta.
Ian & Sylvia – Un Canadien Errant
Though the first referendum probably won’t succeed, I think it a virtual certainty that in a just a few years, a majority of Albertans will vote to secede from the Canadian Federation. Simply because Ottawa will drive them to it. In the aggregate, Eastern Canadians desire that the extraction of fossil fuels be banned. So it’s a case of when not if. Alberta’s secession will trigger Saskatchewan’s. Once Ottawa can no longer bribe Quebec with its billions of appropriated Albertan dollars… Quebecans will vote for their independence as well. Canada’s woke liberal/leftists have turned Canada into a failed nation. Just as they’ve done in every polity where they call the shots. Denial of reality has consequences and the longer and deeper the denial… the graver the consequences.
Who is this “we” killed a million people in the LXE world? Those who misappropriate and misuse history for minor argumentation are to be pitied.
LXE:
620,000 KIA. Only exaggerated by 380,000.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/civil-war-casualties
Try harder.
Much of Canada’s current leftist structure, some said, originated in the west, so we’re not getting non-Houston Texas.
Tommy Douglas, the father of Canada’s socialized health care system and grandfather of Kiefer Sutherland, was from Saskatchewan. The NDP was born out on the prairies as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (so was the Social Credit Party, which eventually went on to be more conservative than the Tories, but was an expression of agrarian discontent in the beginning).
Historically, Saskatchewan has been friendlier to the NDP than Alberta, keeping Douglas as premier for 17 years. But when these parties were being founded in the Thirties, Oklahoma and the Dakotas were also hotbeds of rural agitation. Much has changed since then — but maybe not so much for Canadians to swap their National Health Service for what we have.
First, I am not Canadian, although I have spent a lot of time there- mostly BC, but some in Alberta (anybody else know where Didsbury is?), and even a smidgen in Saskatchewan, Ontario, and far enough up the St Lawrence that I got the stinkeye for not speaking Quebecois. And, “Some of my best friends are Canadians” tm.
In my experience, the old joke – How do you tell a Canadian from an American?* – holds, even for Albertans. Alberta, at least for the next ten years, will not join the Union.
However, I do think that Alberta will bail. They have been taking it up the shorts from Ottawa for the three decades that I have been observing, and probably more.
It’s interesting to watch the difference, Alberta vs Quebec, in the way the provinces have been treated, especially when you consider they have both have separatist factions. Alberta has been worse than ignored, viewed as a cash cow by Ottowa, while Quebec has been wooed, bribed to stay by huge amounts of national money. To add insult to injury, a lot of that largesse has been extracted from Alberta.
I think there will be a Republic of Alberta, but they won’t follow the path of the Republic of California or Texas. There will be “security arrangements” with the US, perhaps something like a protectorate, but definitely without the label.
*Punchline: Ask the question. The American will say “I don’t know,” while the Canadian will have a long list.
If you think Alberta will join the USA, remember that Congress has to approve it. Given its current composition I see no way the Senate would approve adding a state that would likely have two Republican senators and one or more Republicans in the House. Unless we admit them as a territory we would have to have a situation like before the Civil War, where each new slave state admitted was balanced by a free state.
The USA would certainly have a funny-looking new shape on the map.
My feeling, FWIW, is that for all this talk of secession, Albertans—generally—would far prefer that the Liberal Party and its friends STOP trying to destroy the country they’ve been running into the ground over the past decade.
(Not only Albertans, mind you.)
OTOH, what are the chances that the Liberals will reverse their globalist, WEF/WTF, Sinophilic agenda?
Though…perhaps after glimpsing the Trump-driven reality that China is currently—FINALLY—having to face, Carney and his “Liberal Party” circus act may decide to—conveniently—“forget” (or should that be “update”?) some of his recent campaign bluster.
Maybe…