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The union, in other words, rests on consent — and consent can be withdrawn.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…
California leaving the US would devastate US military power and would be catastrophic for the world. Alberta leaving Canada not so much.
In Alberta, the support for Separation is geographically and demographically broad.
In California, anti-US feelings and therefore any specific support for some sort of separation is very concentrated geographically. California separation would guarantee the creation of the State of Jefferson.
The Canadian electorate has sat on their hands while their political class sold them down the river. There aren’t many occidental countries wherein this elite behavior has provoked less of a public reaction. Any place in Canada where the electorate is not pathologically passive should secede. They might be best off with some associative agreements with the United States rather than joining the United States.
California leaving the US would devastate US military power and would be catastrophic for the world.
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It wouldn’t and it wouldn’t.
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.
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Mr. LXE fancies the Confederate forces did not have live ammunition.
Art Deco:
The Confederate forces also used Nerf bayonets and water balloons. Their battle song was “Killing Me Softly.”
While a good practice to never say “never”, after the rhubarbs with Quebec and the last go-round of potential western successions, the Canadians altered the confederation agreement to make it much harder for a province to break away.
probably so, the tradeoff with California’s remaining in the Union vs not is almost a washout, because of the current make up of California, which is largely a viceroy of China,
as to the other thing, we saw in the subsequent generation, what a free state, and a vassal state looks like in practice, the New Confederacy under jim Crow, that lasted 75 years and still has grave consequences to this day,
now the interval between Alaska and Hawaiis acquisition and their statehood was
90 and 60 years respectively, of course Alaska was largely unpopulated, there were some indigenous but few in the scheme of things, and Hawaii was less so, the latter was considered a conquest, of the kingdom,
there was a recent steven berry novel about bavarian claims on hawaii or some such,
California separation would guarantee the creation of the State of Jefferson.
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California would be agreeably reconstituted as a confederation of four components. Each component could have its own legislature and it’s own governor. You might have a residual common government with a spare menu of functions the legislature of which would a common meeting of the component legislatures proceeding by weighted voting and the executive an appointed board. Statewide contests could be limited to occasional referenda and U.S. Senate races. Component 1 could consist of the southern geographic half of Los Angeles county, all of Orange County, the northwest corner of Riverside County, and the southwest corner of San Bernardino County. Component 2 could consist of the seven of the eight counties around San Francisco Bay, but with the peripheral rural zones clipped. The rest of the state could be bisected somewhere around Madera, California.
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Art Deco “It wouldn’t and it wouldn’t.”
Yes it would.
miguel cervantes, Bavarian claim to Hawaii? Wow, that would be a gas. 🙂 Not that I would be averse to seeing the Blau-weiss flying there, but the territory could hardly be more different from the old country…. Suddenly Bavaria as a naval power! The mind boggles.
Re: Ian & Sylvia
Gringo:
Thanks for reminding us of the greatest forgotten 60s folk duo!
Here’s my fave Ian Tyson composition.
_______________________________
Think I’ll go out to Alberta
Weather’s good there in the fall
I got some friends that I can go to workin’ for
Still I wish you’d change your mind
If I asked you one more time
But we’ve been through that a hundred times or more
Four strong winds that blow lonely…
–Ian & Sylvia, “Four Strong Winds”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGpE02q1GpM
_______________________________
Speaking of horses… Ian Tyson rode the rodeo in his youth. He was injured and thus learned to play guitar. Here’s his version of that story covered lovingly by Judy Collins:
_______________________________
There’s a young man that I know, his age is twenty-one
Comes from down in southern Colorado
Just out of the service and he’s looking for his fun
Someday soon, going with him someday soon
–Judy Collilns, “Someday Soon” (by Ian Tyson) (Smothers Brothers) (1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70-1b9SCj0
_______________________________
Cheers to Ian & Sylvia!
And all the Canadian folk talent, including Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, who enriched our lives.
While there is far less active military in California than there used to be, losing most of the West Coast would be a significant strategic blow to the US regardless of how loony the state’s current politics are.
There are nine counties surrounding San Francisco Bay. If you don’t count its arm San Pablo Bay there are only six.
OK, nine. The continuous urban settlement along the coast does not extend to Napa or Sonoma counties (each of which has a discrete city-settlement disconnected from the rest). There are two sets of settlement running through Contra Costa and Alameda County. These are separated by intervening parkland.
California alone represents 15% of US GDP and if it were an independent country, would rank with France or the UK on a PPP basis.
California’s an increasingly stupid place but the numbers are what they are. It’s the #3 oil producing state and the #1 agriculture and manufacturing state. There is no question that the US would be seriously weakened by the loss of California, no matter how much we dislike the Dems running it.
For context, the 5 biggest US states (CA, TX, NY, FL, IL) are 41% of US GDP, and the 10 biggest are 56%.
As for Canada, it does not have a written constitution and so questions like “is secession legal” are not simple to answer. (I’ve mentioned before here that nowhere are the powers of the Prime Minister clearly defined.)
What Canada has in place of a written constitution is a set of written documents and unwritten understandings which are considered to add up to a constitution if interpreted correctly. I do not think that Alberta or any other province can legally and unilaterally secede, as Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled in 1998 that unilateral secession is not a right under the “Canadian Constitution”, but the real question is (as always) if Alberta decided to, what the rest of Canada would do about it.
As for Canada, it does not have a written constitution
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Canada made a big show of ‘patriating’ their constitution (formerly the British North America Act) back in 1982. One of the downstream consequences of having done so was wild judicial activism. Canada’s appellate courts are properly told to piss off.
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Have a gander at Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s ‘Charter of Rights’. It’s a most inelegant document.
He did not say, ‘weakened’ or even ‘seriously weakened’. He said ‘devastated’ and ‘catastrophic’.
Niketas C. mentioned:
#1 manufacturing as well?!? Yikes. That would seem to have a certain problematic aspect, no? Would be worth digging into that ranking and what it means, how one is classifying manufacturing activity as far as inputs into that ranking go, etc. Agriculture #1 rank I can imagine, but the same for manufacturing category is a surprise to me. As for oil, I guess really there also is a bit of a surprise. I suppose I would have figured Louisiana or something would have been third.
When Chases Eagles initially brought up the point about the military effect of removing California from the Union, my first thought naturally went to the bases and deep-water ports there; but Niketas’ addition certainly adds some weight in another direction.
@Phillip Sells:As for oil, I guess really there also is a bit of a surprise. I suppose I would have figured Louisiana or something would have been third.
It was to me when I visited Long Beach and saw oil pumps in Safeway parking lots, and that’s how I found out.
Would be worth digging into that ranking and what it means, how one is classifying manufacturing activity as far as inputs into that ranking go…
All the states get rated the same way. You’re not going to find meaningfully different results by jiggering the definition of “manufacturing”; you might swap #37 and #38 maybe, but you’re not going to make California #3, it’s too huge.
Economically speaking California is #1 and bigger than #3 and #4 (NY & FL) added together.
Interestingly the source neo quoted used selective quotation of the 1998 Canadian Supreme Court secession reference that I also quoted to make it seem like unilateral secession is allowed:
Which is true, but the rest of Canada can say no, and then that’s it for legal secession (I already quoted the part that ruled unilateral secession to be illegal and addresses what happens then). I’ll quote the full context:
Rod Martin’s elisions had to do a lot of lifting there.
If Quebec or Alberta vote for secession, what the appellate judges have to say isn’t worth squat. What will matter is if military discipline holds and politicians are willing to use force.
@ Gringo & huxley > the two Ian & Sylvia recordings linked herein have been favorites of mine for a long time, but I haven’t listened to them for years. Thanks for the reminder!
Martin’s essay is interesting, to say the least. But he ideaizes some kind of industrial/rural culture as if it represents all of the province. But Edmonton is a pretty big city with the cultural and political issues that presents.
I wonder if one could do the same thing about, say, Illinois if you left out Cook County. I’ve done a lot of miles downstate, and it’s a different world starting maybe thirty miles south of Cook County. Fat, flat, black soil farm country. Small towns which seem reasonably prosperous. Well-kept farm houses. In fact, you might do one of those calendars with a new one for each month.
Winters are moderate, compared to Alberta, reducing costs for heating compared to further north, and extending the growing season. They lack cowboys, since the farmland was/is too valuable to have cows wandering about awaiting the roundup.
Check election results by county. Several years ago, the legislature introduced some stupid anti-gun bills. One hundred of one hundred and two county sheriffs announced they’d not enforce those bills.
Might make a similar case. And that stands for a good number of states. To no purpose at all, in current circumstances.
Just don’t look north, over your shoulder.
om,
There’s evidence that Civil war deaths were considerably higher.
LXE,
I doubt Alberta will join the US if it leaves Canada. But I don’t see a contradiction in it joining the US if it did. It was the South that started the war in the first place, and in any case that was long ago.
scaled up to today, it’s 6 million dead, they should retire the phrase civil war, because it’s the most savage war, take Spanish Russian Lebanese as examples,
even when you win, like Franco is it really a win, the reverse of course is
also true, there was no good end to the street fighting in 1932 stahlmann the communist would have followed his best leninist practices,
doesn’t always work, Horthy vanquished Bela Kun after the brief instance of power
@Don: There’s evidence that Civil war deaths were considerably higher.
It’s not just soldiers who die in war. Total number of deaths due to the war, including both soldiers and civilians, is probably under a million though not by so much as to be worth the amount of work needed to establish exactly how different it is. Somewhere in 750K – 1 million.
Re: Alberta secession
The Donald isn’t the only party capable of a Threat and a Big Ask then settle for half.
miguel cervantes, the US Civil War was actually remarkably civil despite the intensity and span of the conflict. At the end leading Southerners like Jefferson Davis not only kept his life but most of his property as well, obviously slaves excluded.