~465,000 legally verified signatories to the federalist petition to declare Alberta permanently part of Canada
~360,000 status First Nations persons within Alberta
~330,000 legally unverified signatories to the separatist petition to hold a referendum to separate from Canada
First Nations have successfully argued in court that as consultations with them are required by the Canadian Constitution, no such consultations had even been suggested by separatists.
Apart from the fact that the Alberta population is ~4 million, it is difficult to see how separatists can figure they'd win a referendum to separate.
A related issue is whether, or to what extent, a seceded entity can itself be subject to secession. This concern came up in Quebec when Cree and other groups suggested they'd drop out of post-separation Quebec and ''rejoin'' Canada. Quebec separatists were outraged at the thought of First Nations and pro-Federalist geographical areas turning their new entity into ''Swiss cheese''. It is highly likely that Alberta separatists would face the same challenges and take an equally dim view.
Important context, this referendum isn't binding, but rather a referendum on whether a binding referendum should be held. Separation is deeply unpopular, but Smith has been putting her thumb on the scale every step of the way, and this non-binding referendum isn't subject to the Clarity act in the same way that a subsequent binding one would be.
Is there actually even a legal process for leaving Canada? I would assume you can't just decide to leave.
EDIT: oh, there is a process. thats the Clarity Act. This seems extremely surprising - I've never heard of this sort of thing before with any other country.
It's a result of the second Quebec referendum. The Clarity Act may appear like it facilitates leaving the federation, but many critics (among them federalist and sovereigntists) believe that the law is too vague as it give the House of Commons the responsibility to determine "whether a clear majority had expressed itself". What that means in numerical terms? Nobody knows. Further the House of Commons has the right to override the referendum if they deem it to contradict any of the under-specified tenets of the Clarity act. Finally, you need to amend the Canadian constitution to finally separate, which according to my understanding, requires the approval of all the (remaining) provinces.
So it can be argued that the Clarity Act is a way to legislate friction to defederation.
Of course Quebec (and like Albertan) separatists hold that all this is moot and that they can self-govern as they wish following a referendum. Others look at the "no-deal" Brexit as a template.
It was put into place after Quebec held a referendum that was close in 1995. Canada remedied the situation by making clear what it would take to leave.
Not a vote to separate. Quebec only tried to win a referendum giving the Province the authority from voters to approach the federal government with negotiations to achieve separation. Its more than a pedantic difference.
> Is there actually even a legal process for leaving Canada?
Does there need to be a legal process? If Albertans are willing to fight a war over it then all they need to do is declare that they don't recognize Ottawa's authority anymore and then go about trying to get other countries to recognize their independence.
If I recall correctly, the Brexit referendum wasn't binding either. When the result ended up the way it did, there was sufficient political capital to push it through without a follow up vote.
The Brexit referendum was non-binding for important constitutional reasons.
Legally, leaving required an Act of Parliament. To hold a binding referendum, they would have had to pass an Act that says "here are the exact details of how we'll leave the EU, coming into force if the referendum passes".
But that would have required them to figure out all the exact details of what it means to leave the EU, and they didn't bother - they just held the referendum and assumed they could figure out the details later if Leave won, which they didn't expect would happen.
We all saw how well that worked out.
> there was sufficient political capital to push it through without a follow up vote.
This seriously overstates how smoothly things went between 23/6/2016 and 31/1/2020
I don't get it. They're having a referendum on whether or not to have a referendum? Why bother with two steps?
I googled the Clarity Act and it appears to be recently-passed US (not Canadian) legislation about regulating cryptocurrencies or something. What's its relevance here?
I am not Canadian and know nothing about Canadian politics. Someone please enlighten me.
It's a very complicated situation in Alberta. There were basically two competing petitions. A "Forever Canada" petition which supported Alberta staying in Canada, however it was built to force the provincial government to hold a vote in parliament about separation, therefore forcing all representatives to show their true feelings on separation.
A second petition by "Stay Free Alberta" asked the government to hold a referendum on separating. However, it was blocked by a judge because a previously ruling basically said that separating would violate treaty rights of Indigenous peoples in Alberta. It's also fraught with controversy as the individuals running the petition were able to (likely illegally) obtain the voter rolls for every Albertan. They used it to build an online tool to track their progress. There is speculation (without evidence since the signatures on the petition is not public) that they simply used it to fill out the petition for people they knew. There are pieces of evidence that point to this being a possibility, for example, a Stay Free Alberta leader claimed that in some communities, nearly 98% of residents signed the petition. These are generally right leaning communities, however, getting 98% of people in a community to do a single thing would be incredibly hard.
> I don't get it. They're having a referendum on whether or not to have a referendum?
Exactly. Albertans are scratching their heads, wondering what on earth Premier Smith is trying to accomplish. Utterly ridiculous ''solution'' to some internal problems within her party, I'm guessing.
This is truly trolling escaping the Internet. It's by no means the first instance; "The future is already here—it's just not very evenly distributed". The best time to have started taking this seriously was probably October 2015 or something. The next best time is now. These performative fits by thoughtless Adult Children get backed by real money, for purposes mysterious to me, but they seem purposes dark enough it would be nice to have a working system that would investigate deeply and make illustrative examples out of the benefactors. Oh but for a working democracy or a healthy journalism, what might we find? Carve "Cui bono?" on my tombstone so when they plow the place over for tract housing to cram their useful fools into, maybe the rubble will catch a person's eye and make them wonder.
No, as the subthread starter points out it is about paid influencers and not about heretical opinions. Bessent and Bannon overtly want the oil and Alberta as a 51st state:
The U.S., as you very well know, has a long history of influencing foreign separatist movements for its own benefit. It even has overt organizations like the NED, which had a DOGE defunding theater but is still funded and deleted its detailed activities from its website. There are many other ways of funneling influencer money.
When the Soviet Union did similar things to the U.S., that activity was called "treason", as you also very well know.
> it is about paid influencers and not about heretical opinions
This makes sense. If she took money from Americans agitating for separatism in Canada to promote separatism in Canada, and that violates Canadian law, I can see a legitimate path for investigating and imprisoning.
"Wrongthink". Lol man, if you think that taking money from a country whose head of state has recently said that they may need to forcibly annex your own country, and then using that money to illegally obtain the personal information of citizens so you can attempt to break your country apart is merely "wrongthink" then you need to completely recalibrate yourself.
The really galling thing here is that as an American you would absolutely never tolerate a country like, say, China, supporting, both monetarily and otherwise, a group agitating for California to leave the union. You'd all call that treason loudly and proudly, but now that your country is doing it to someone else suddenly we have to slow-roll this.
> you would absolutely never tolerate a country like, say, China, supporting, both monetarily and otherwise, a group agitating for California to leave the union
No. But I don’t think we’d put people in jail for it unless they were ready to overthrow the government. (Hell, we didn’t even charge the actual people trying to violently overthrow the government with treason.)
I know of two people that moved away from Canada and consider themselves refugees for various reasons. It seems... a little out there. But it is a thing.
Anyone can claim refugee status. That doesn’t make them refugees.
Being a refugee requires showing persecution that one can’t find relief for within the country’s own system [1]. Given Canada has a functioning court system, the second part of the definition is failed.
I want to agree, and I do in part, but I don’t believe Smith is a particularly democratic actor and there’s more happening here that shouldn’t occur in a democracy.
With all the turmoil in US and other parts of the world I was completely unaware Albertans want to leave.
> Smith acknowledged some of those concerns on Thursday, arguing that the federal government has tried to "move towards a more centralised American-style system" and is infringing on provincial jurisdiction.
Ah interesting. I always thought US is rather decentralized with each state with its own government and laws and such. But I guess that's when compared with individual European countries, not Canada.
Then, I wonder if they would like to still have a king https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada as a new country, or would they drop that as well? If they want to drop that, that faction could lean into the current US current protest movement and put up "No Kings" signs and hold rallies and such. It would be good enough for a chuckle at least.
Few Albertans. The Forever Canada petition got over 10% of the entire population to sign it. Considering that it was a grassroots effort and that you had to sign in person, meaning you had to go out of your way to sign an entirely optional petition, really shows how much support there is in Alberta to remain.
TLDW: There are some Dutch guys hiring Americans to pretend to be Canadians to put out YouTube slop videos to make money via AdSense on the political-idiot-doomer niche on YouTube (and at least 1 is selling a "make quick money" guide to the scheme). Whether they're just a grifting pyramid or if there are other sources of income driving it is not made clear. Though they insist its entertainment and not paid-for political motivated content (note had they admitted that they'd be in breach of various laws and ToS')
While I appreciate the sentiment, that would be condemning a great many Albertans who want nothing to do with separation to a fate I would rather not see a fellow Canadian faced with.
That would be very interesting. I would love to see how that would play out (particularly with California and DC), but it would kill the political balance in both countries. I think having to consider opposing viewpoints is probably paramount to how we have both flourished historically.
Related: Alberta Voter Data was leaked to an American Company by the separatist movement. Also, the question right now is if there will be a referendum proposal.
This is clear foriegn political interfierence. It's like mini-brexit. We have a weak, incompitent leader in Alberta who is giving in to her right-wing base so she can stay in power. It's David Cameron all over again.
Mini Brexit in the sense that a foreign entity is working to destabilize another.
Russia and its proxies ran an active measures campaign in the UK. If the US government isn’t doing something similar, the toxic soup of the maga-sphere definitely is.
> A province seceding from Canada is way bigger than the UK leaving the EU
Genuinely debatable. The total economic destruction of Brexit has been far higher than anything Alberta would suffer. And geopolitically, Alberta wouldn’t take itself off the table the way the English have basically rendered the UK irrelevant.
> Lorne Gibson, former Election Commissioner at Elections Alberta: “The data is worth probably millions of dollars. It's probably worth at least $3 million.” “It’s the largest data breach in Canada. I haven’t heard of anything that surpasses that scale,” he added.
Not gonna lie, the Commissioner’s remarks and the general tone wouldn’t be out of place in a South Park episode about Canada, hah.
U.S. wants more oil and pays influencers. Even if anyone is a legitimate Albertan separatist, voting in favor of it in this political climate is self-destructive.
Misleading: not a direct referendum but a ballot question in the upcoming election on whether the government and entities should pursue the process to separate.
And do what? There is no 'Albertan' national identity, like there is in Quebec, or Ukraine, or Taiwan or Ireland. You can't build an independent nation around something that is only wanted by a single political party, who have no fucking idea of how to include everyone who isn't a Tory on board with their project.
Trace it back a bit, and you'll find that there's nothing to this that isn't driven by the Department of State.
Québécois separatism is also driven by a single party with no plan for what to do with all the other groups. I also don’t think that an independent Quebec would be a good idea, but they have leveraged the idea to get equalization payments and increased voting rights. These concessions largely come at the expense of Alberta, so it shouldn’t be hard to see why people would be frustrated without any cia operations.
Can't avoid gloating over this one. Just like the Palestinian identity was created and weaponized against Israel by the Arab world, now Canadians will get a taste of their own medicine courtesy of the Trump admin.
You got the sides wrong unfortunately, one of the states you are mentioning was literally created in the last century and is now doing the same thing that prompted its creation. But it must be nice living in ignorance and buying the propaganda.
But why gloat? What are you winning? Even if there were prizes here (spoiler: all the loot boxes are empty in this game), do you perceive yourself better off because of this?
>now Canadians will get a taste of their own medicine courtesy of the Trump admin.
Ah so no, you're just in the higher end of the sinking canoe laughing at the people who are drowning.
Whether Palestinians have a national identity or not, driving them out of their homes at gunpoint and settling in is a war crime.
Albertans, while obviously the most disadvantaged and persecuted Canadians in recorded history, have not yet had anyone commiting genocide or war crimes against them.
Albertan/Western Canadian identity is totally a thing, and has been around for a lot longer than this latest round of separatist sentiment. The west has been griping about unfair treatment from the federal government for over a century now, so 1) this isn't primarily driven by foreign interference and 2) it's not coming out of nowhere.
Whether it's a good idea is a different question. I doubt most Albertans want to be independent. I also think being a landlocked country with a resource economy means that you will always be subject to outside control, whether that be parliament in Ottawa or corporate offices in Dallas. It remains unclear if being independent will solve the issue of Alberta being land-locked.
Former Albertan here. Alberta even griped about unfair treatment when their conservative party had a majority in Ottawa for almost a decade. It’s just what people have learned to say.
> Alberta was created out of several divisions of the NWT barely over 100 years ago, formed by the federal government of Canada
The relevant timeline is about 25 years, or a generation. Plenty of people are willing to spill blood over identities that didn’t exist fifty, let alone a hundred, years ago.
If you don't think it's a thing then you're either not from here, or haven't been paying attention. The average Canadian's opinion of Alberta is also very telling, with most of the rest of the country seeming to despise the province, or think it's some sort of regressive backwater.
No, it's not proving anything of the sort. You're trying to claim that the average canadian despises alberta, and that's simply not a thing. It is in fact invented whole-cloth.
According to this poll (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/poll-canadians-living...), nearly half of Canadians think that:
1) Alberta is not a welcoming place
2) Albertans don't care about other Canadians
3) Alberta is not a place they would feel comfortable living
And noticeably, the opinions of the Albertans are generally different from the rest of the country! How curious for a place without an identity of its own, as you claim.
If you want to understand why Alberta is holding a referendum on whether they should hold another separate legally-binding referendum in the future, you have to look at the recent court case where a judge in Alberta ruled that one of the two main petitions wasn’t allowed to proceed (The one that specifically called for a legally-binding referendum). The judges stated reason is that First Nations were not adequately consulted (interesting how this never came up in the Quebec referendums). As a result, the premier of Alberta suggested that until they appeal that court case that they cannot have a legally binding referendum. As such, for now, all they cannot do is a non-legally binding referendum on whether they should hold a legally binding referendum once they court case becomes resolved.
"Consistent with this long tradition of respect for minorities, which is at least as old as Canada itself, the framers of the Constitution Act, 1982 included in s. 35 explicit protection for existing aboriginal and treaty rights, and in s. 25, a non-derogation clause in favour of the rights of aboriginal peoples. The "promise" of s. 35, as it was termed in R. v. Sparrow, [1990] 1 S.C.R. 1075, at p. 1083, recognized not only the ancient occupation of land by aboriginal peoples, but their contribution to the building of Canada, and the special commitments made to them by successive governments. The protection of these rights, so recently and arduously achieved, whether looked at in their own right or as part of the larger concern with minorities, reflects an important underlying constitutional value."
95% of Alberta is unceded First Nations land. It is not a valid country without it - without the consent of the relevant First Nations, a separated Alberta would be a few municipalities enveloped by... Canada.
This is not a concern in Quebec, because the overwhelming majority of it is ceded land.
If ducks had two wheels, they'd be bicycles, and if there was anything in common between the two provinces, you might have a point.
As far as I know, First Nations lands in Alberta are indeed ''ceded'' under Treaties 6, 7, and 8 with the Crown. British Columbia is a province with a huge proportion of unceded land, but not Alberta.
The treaties with the crown require the crown consult with them before adjusting them. This means that Albertan secession can't happen without their consent, as it would by definition, completely and unilaterally adjust the terms of those treaties.
The treaties were made in perpetuity, and if you are going to not hold up the crown's end of the promises, the FN's side - giving the crown and Alberta governance over the land - needs to be reverted as well.
10% of the population produces nearly 20% of the country's GDP. That kind of lopsided representation is dangerous breeding ground for contempt, so this kind of thing is not really surprising. Will be interesting to see where it goes.
Nobody thought there was any realistic chance of the UK leaving the EU either...
Legal precedent doesn't really matter here. If Alberta wants to leave and they're willing to fight a war over it, then that's up to them. USA already went through this once.
I mean.. it's not like it's Alberta that produces the oil. Oil is concentrated in smaller places than that, so why shouldn't those places then separate from Alberta?
From this article it sounds like it's the people of Alberta that want to vote on succession. Including the ones that don't literally live on an oil field.
Speaking as an Albertan, it's only a very loud and vocal minority. The UCP government has seen that the premier only stays in power if they cowtow to the fringe crazies in the party, and that's what she's doing.
I met a Québécois woman years ago that said their own independence movement was shut down in part because of new immigrants to Canada not wanting to leave the commonwealth. No clue if that’s right or not. But given how much of a cash cow the western provinces are for Canada, and the mega spike in immigration it makes me wonder
Alberta separating from Canada and splitting the country in half geographically would be the funniest thing. The idea of a judge blocking a referendum because they didn't consult indigenous groups enough is absurdity to the nth degree. I hope Alberta secedes, they would be welcome to join the USA, or just be independent.
> blocking a referendum because they didn't consult indigenous groups
The requirement to do so is in our constitution, the Charter. It's not optional and not absurd to anyone with proper historical understanding of Canadian history.
Some numbers to consider:
~465,000 legally verified signatories to the federalist petition to declare Alberta permanently part of Canada
~360,000 status First Nations persons within Alberta
~330,000 legally unverified signatories to the separatist petition to hold a referendum to separate from Canada
First Nations have successfully argued in court that as consultations with them are required by the Canadian Constitution, no such consultations had even been suggested by separatists.
Apart from the fact that the Alberta population is ~4 million, it is difficult to see how separatists can figure they'd win a referendum to separate.
A related issue is whether, or to what extent, a seceded entity can itself be subject to secession. This concern came up in Quebec when Cree and other groups suggested they'd drop out of post-separation Quebec and ''rejoin'' Canada. Quebec separatists were outraged at the thought of First Nations and pro-Federalist geographical areas turning their new entity into ''Swiss cheese''. It is highly likely that Alberta separatists would face the same challenges and take an equally dim view.
Important context, this referendum isn't binding, but rather a referendum on whether a binding referendum should be held. Separation is deeply unpopular, but Smith has been putting her thumb on the scale every step of the way, and this non-binding referendum isn't subject to the Clarity act in the same way that a subsequent binding one would be.
Is there actually even a legal process for leaving Canada? I would assume you can't just decide to leave.
EDIT: oh, there is a process. thats the Clarity Act. This seems extremely surprising - I've never heard of this sort of thing before with any other country.
It's a result of the second Quebec referendum. The Clarity Act may appear like it facilitates leaving the federation, but many critics (among them federalist and sovereigntists) believe that the law is too vague as it give the House of Commons the responsibility to determine "whether a clear majority had expressed itself". What that means in numerical terms? Nobody knows. Further the House of Commons has the right to override the referendum if they deem it to contradict any of the under-specified tenets of the Clarity act. Finally, you need to amend the Canadian constitution to finally separate, which according to my understanding, requires the approval of all the (remaining) provinces.
So it can be argued that the Clarity Act is a way to legislate friction to defederation.
Of course Quebec (and like Albertan) separatists hold that all this is moot and that they can self-govern as they wish following a referendum. Others look at the "no-deal" Brexit as a template.
EU famously has one. Of course you might not consider it a country.
It was put into place after Quebec held a referendum that was close in 1995. Canada remedied the situation by making clear what it would take to leave.
It's a thing because Quebec has tried to separate before.
Not a vote to separate. Quebec only tried to win a referendum giving the Province the authority from voters to approach the federal government with negotiations to achieve separation. Its more than a pedantic difference.
It should be the least surprising thing about Canada - it has been dealing with separatist referendums for decades.
One such referendum, in 1995, was preceded by decades of discussion in Quebec of the pros and cons that triggered a 1980 referendum.
> Is there actually even a legal process for leaving Canada?
Does there need to be a legal process? If Albertans are willing to fight a war over it then all they need to do is declare that they don't recognize Ottawa's authority anymore and then go about trying to get other countries to recognize their independence.
If I recall correctly, the Brexit referendum wasn't binding either. When the result ended up the way it did, there was sufficient political capital to push it through without a follow up vote.
The Brexit referendum was non-binding for important constitutional reasons.
Legally, leaving required an Act of Parliament. To hold a binding referendum, they would have had to pass an Act that says "here are the exact details of how we'll leave the EU, coming into force if the referendum passes".
But that would have required them to figure out all the exact details of what it means to leave the EU, and they didn't bother - they just held the referendum and assumed they could figure out the details later if Leave won, which they didn't expect would happen.
We all saw how well that worked out.
> there was sufficient political capital to push it through without a follow up vote.
This seriously overstates how smoothly things went between 23/6/2016 and 31/1/2020
It is technically possible to separate legally, but there are so many intentional roadblocks that it is effectively impossible to do so.
I don't get it. They're having a referendum on whether or not to have a referendum? Why bother with two steps?
I googled the Clarity Act and it appears to be recently-passed US (not Canadian) legislation about regulating cryptocurrencies or something. What's its relevance here?
I am not Canadian and know nothing about Canadian politics. Someone please enlighten me.
It's a very complicated situation in Alberta. There were basically two competing petitions. A "Forever Canada" petition which supported Alberta staying in Canada, however it was built to force the provincial government to hold a vote in parliament about separation, therefore forcing all representatives to show their true feelings on separation.
A second petition by "Stay Free Alberta" asked the government to hold a referendum on separating. However, it was blocked by a judge because a previously ruling basically said that separating would violate treaty rights of Indigenous peoples in Alberta. It's also fraught with controversy as the individuals running the petition were able to (likely illegally) obtain the voter rolls for every Albertan. They used it to build an online tool to track their progress. There is speculation (without evidence since the signatures on the petition is not public) that they simply used it to fill out the petition for people they knew. There are pieces of evidence that point to this being a possibility, for example, a Stay Free Alberta leader claimed that in some communities, nearly 98% of residents signed the petition. These are generally right leaning communities, however, getting 98% of people in a community to do a single thing would be incredibly hard.
> I don't get it. They're having a referendum on whether or not to have a referendum?
Exactly. Albertans are scratching their heads, wondering what on earth Premier Smith is trying to accomplish. Utterly ridiculous ''solution'' to some internal problems within her party, I'm guessing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarity_Act
Bill C-20 passed in 2000. It's not so much effort to type "canadian clarity act" into a search engine or wikipedia.
Investigate and imprison the people who are pushing this because of money received from the US.
This is truly trolling escaping the Internet. It's by no means the first instance; "The future is already here—it's just not very evenly distributed". The best time to have started taking this seriously was probably October 2015 or something. The next best time is now. These performative fits by thoughtless Adult Children get backed by real money, for purposes mysterious to me, but they seem purposes dark enough it would be nice to have a working system that would investigate deeply and make illustrative examples out of the benefactors. Oh but for a working democracy or a healthy journalism, what might we find? Carve "Cui bono?" on my tombstone so when they plow the place over for tract housing to cram their useful fools into, maybe the rubble will catch a person's eye and make them wonder.
> This is truly trolling escaping the Internet
The referendum? Or calling for imprisoning people for wrongthink?
No, as the subthread starter points out it is about paid influencers and not about heretical opinions. Bessent and Bannon overtly want the oil and Alberta as a 51st state:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/analysis-alberta-sepa...
The U.S., as you very well know, has a long history of influencing foreign separatist movements for its own benefit. It even has overt organizations like the NED, which had a DOGE defunding theater but is still funded and deleted its detailed activities from its website. There are many other ways of funneling influencer money.
When the Soviet Union did similar things to the U.S., that activity was called "treason", as you also very well know.
> it is about paid influencers and not about heretical opinions
This makes sense. If she took money from Americans agitating for separatism in Canada to promote separatism in Canada, and that violates Canadian law, I can see a legitimate path for investigating and imprisoning.
"Wrongthink". Lol man, if you think that taking money from a country whose head of state has recently said that they may need to forcibly annex your own country, and then using that money to illegally obtain the personal information of citizens so you can attempt to break your country apart is merely "wrongthink" then you need to completely recalibrate yourself.
The really galling thing here is that as an American you would absolutely never tolerate a country like, say, China, supporting, both monetarily and otherwise, a group agitating for California to leave the union. You'd all call that treason loudly and proudly, but now that your country is doing it to someone else suddenly we have to slow-roll this.
> you would absolutely never tolerate a country like, say, China, supporting, both monetarily and otherwise, a group agitating for California to leave the union
No. But I don’t think we’d put people in jail for it unless they were ready to overthrow the government. (Hell, we didn’t even charge the actual people trying to violently overthrow the government with treason.)
You misspelled “treason”
> You misspelled “treason”
Wrongthink (well, technically, crimethink) is canonically treason. Nutters on Reddit calling everything treason isn’t new.
In this case, I’m failing to see how someone—who, granted, appears to be a nutter—following a lawful process is treason.
For what crime?
Wrong think obviously.
[dead]
Treason
Sedition, technically.
A referendum is neither of those.
I know of two people that moved away from Canada and consider themselves refugees for various reasons. It seems... a little out there. But it is a thing.
> it is a thing
Anyone can claim refugee status. That doesn’t make them refugees.
Being a refugee requires showing persecution that one can’t find relief for within the country’s own system [1]. Given Canada has a functioning court system, the second part of the definition is failed.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Relating_to_the_Sta...
Iran also has a functioning court system w/ both qadi & mufti offering opinions.
> Iran also has a functioning court system
Fair enough, I should have said credible.
Such a waste of time, money, media space, human hours on useless thing.
This is part of Democracy.
I want to agree, and I do in part, but I don’t believe Smith is a particularly democratic actor and there’s more happening here that shouldn’t occur in a democracy.
She may just be happy that MHCare is out of the news. However, I'm not sure if this is any better.
> This is part of Democracy
It doesn’t need to be. 10% of the population being able to put major policies to a referendum is a bit silly.
Don’t look at our Swiss system, you won’t like what you see
> Don’t look at our Swiss system, you won’t like what you see
I vote in Zurich :). Our system has cooling-off features that Alberta does not.
Hey, mind getting in contact? :) See my profile for my info
Not like this it isn't.
Smith and the UCP have not been acting democratically whatsoever. Trying to paint it that way is either ignorant or deliberately malicious.
She was openly going around all standard democratic and diplomatic protocols and holding private meetings with the American executive in Florida.
That is not part of democracy, unless you are simply calling it the corrupted part.
With all the turmoil in US and other parts of the world I was completely unaware Albertans want to leave.
> Smith acknowledged some of those concerns on Thursday, arguing that the federal government has tried to "move towards a more centralised American-style system" and is infringing on provincial jurisdiction.
Ah interesting. I always thought US is rather decentralized with each state with its own government and laws and such. But I guess that's when compared with individual European countries, not Canada.
Then, I wonder if they would like to still have a king https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada as a new country, or would they drop that as well? If they want to drop that, that faction could lean into the current US current protest movement and put up "No Kings" signs and hold rallies and such. It would be good enough for a chuckle at least.
Some Albertans.
Few Albertans. The Forever Canada petition got over 10% of the entire population to sign it. Considering that it was a grassroots effort and that you had to sign in person, meaning you had to go out of your way to sign an entirely optional petition, really shows how much support there is in Alberta to remain.
I've put up some basic numbers in another comment that foreshadow what a futile exercise this is likely to be for the separatists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXafC7tlqt0
TLDW: There are some Dutch guys hiring Americans to pretend to be Canadians to put out YouTube slop videos to make money via AdSense on the political-idiot-doomer niche on YouTube (and at least 1 is selling a "make quick money" guide to the scheme). Whether they're just a grifting pyramid or if there are other sources of income driving it is not made clear. Though they insist its entertainment and not paid-for political motivated content (note had they admitted that they'd be in breach of various laws and ToS')
As a Minnesotan I would gladly trade Alberta for Minnesota and become Canadian.
While I appreciate the sentiment, that would be condemning a great many Albertans who want nothing to do with separation to a fate I would rather not see a fellow Canadian faced with.
I think most of Canada (and probably America) would be okay with trading all the great lakes touching American states + the US west coast for Alberta.
Albertans are Canadians, and no, we're not going to condemn them to becoming americans or face dislocation over the actions of some loud idiots.
That would be very interesting. I would love to see how that would play out (particularly with California and DC), but it would kill the political balance in both countries. I think having to consider opposing viewpoints is probably paramount to how we have both flourished historically.
Related: Alberta Voter Data was leaked to an American Company by the separatist movement. Also, the question right now is if there will be a referendum proposal.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2026/05/20/investigations/a...
This is clear foriegn political interfierence. It's like mini-brexit. We have a weak, incompitent leader in Alberta who is giving in to her right-wing base so she can stay in power. It's David Cameron all over again.
Mini brexit? A province seceding from Canada is way bigger than the UK leaving the EU.
Mini Brexit in the sense that a foreign entity is working to destabilize another.
Russia and its proxies ran an active measures campaign in the UK. If the US government isn’t doing something similar, the toxic soup of the maga-sphere definitely is.
> A province seceding from Canada is way bigger than the UK leaving the EU
Genuinely debatable. The total economic destruction of Brexit has been far higher than anything Alberta would suffer. And geopolitically, Alberta wouldn’t take itself off the table the way the English have basically rendered the UK irrelevant.
> The origins of the data are not yet known
> The addresses of around 2,000 Albertans
> Lorne Gibson, former Election Commissioner at Elections Alberta: “The data is worth probably millions of dollars. It's probably worth at least $3 million.” “It’s the largest data breach in Canada. I haven’t heard of anything that surpasses that scale,” he added.
Not gonna lie, the Commissioner’s remarks and the general tone wouldn’t be out of place in a South Park episode about Canada, hah.
U.S. wants more oil and pays influencers. Even if anyone is a legitimate Albertan separatist, voting in favor of it in this political climate is self-destructive.
There's, sadly, been a significant uptick in self destructive voting tendencies for certain voting demographics as of late.
Mainly UK and her former colonies.
Misleading: not a direct referendum but a ballot question in the upcoming election on whether the government and entities should pursue the process to separate.
isn't this more about alberta to hold referendum on whether or not to hold a referendum on whether to remain in Canada
And do what? There is no 'Albertan' national identity, like there is in Quebec, or Ukraine, or Taiwan or Ireland. You can't build an independent nation around something that is only wanted by a single political party, who have no fucking idea of how to include everyone who isn't a Tory on board with their project.
Trace it back a bit, and you'll find that there's nothing to this that isn't driven by the Department of State.
Québécois separatism is also driven by a single party with no plan for what to do with all the other groups. I also don’t think that an independent Quebec would be a good idea, but they have leveraged the idea to get equalization payments and increased voting rights. These concessions largely come at the expense of Alberta, so it shouldn’t be hard to see why people would be frustrated without any cia operations.
[flagged]
Strange how that independent Albertan national identity consists of immediately begging to be annexed by the United States.
It's almost like it's entirely driven by foreign influencers and their puppets.
Can't avoid gloating over this one. Just like the Palestinian identity was created and weaponized against Israel by the Arab world, now Canadians will get a taste of their own medicine courtesy of the Trump admin.
You got the sides wrong unfortunately, one of the states you are mentioning was literally created in the last century and is now doing the same thing that prompted its creation. But it must be nice living in ignorance and buying the propaganda.
But why gloat? What are you winning? Even if there were prizes here (spoiler: all the loot boxes are empty in this game), do you perceive yourself better off because of this?
>now Canadians will get a taste of their own medicine courtesy of the Trump admin.
Ah so no, you're just in the higher end of the sinking canoe laughing at the people who are drowning.
There's a minor difference.
Whether Palestinians have a national identity or not, driving them out of their homes at gunpoint and settling in is a war crime.
Albertans, while obviously the most disadvantaged and persecuted Canadians in recorded history, have not yet had anyone commiting genocide or war crimes against them.
> Albertans, while obviously the most disadvantaged and persecuted Canadians in recorded history
Um what?
(The author is complimenting us on our ability to recognize sarcasm in the wild, don't ruin it)
[dead]
Albertan/Western Canadian identity is totally a thing, and has been around for a lot longer than this latest round of separatist sentiment. The west has been griping about unfair treatment from the federal government for over a century now, so 1) this isn't primarily driven by foreign interference and 2) it's not coming out of nowhere.
Whether it's a good idea is a different question. I doubt most Albertans want to be independent. I also think being a landlocked country with a resource economy means that you will always be subject to outside control, whether that be parliament in Ottawa or corporate offices in Dallas. It remains unclear if being independent will solve the issue of Alberta being land-locked.
Former Albertan here. Alberta even griped about unfair treatment when their conservative party had a majority in Ottawa for almost a decade. It’s just what people have learned to say.
Alberta was created out of several divisions of the NWT barely over 100 years ago, formed by the federal government of Canada.
It's not a thing.
Hatred or criticism of Toronto and Ontario at large is a thing. But that's a thing everywhere. It's a fundamental part of the Canadian identity.
> Alberta was created out of several divisions of the NWT barely over 100 years ago, formed by the federal government of Canada
The relevant timeline is about 25 years, or a generation. Plenty of people are willing to spill blood over identities that didn’t exist fifty, let alone a hundred, years ago.
If you don't think it's a thing then you're either not from here, or haven't been paying attention. The average Canadian's opinion of Alberta is also very telling, with most of the rest of the country seeming to despise the province, or think it's some sort of regressive backwater.
Meanwhile our Prime Minister was raised in Edmonton...
No, it's not a thing.
That doesn't make any sense, that's like saying because Trump was raised in New York and he's now president, that New York identity isn't a thing.
I think the dismissive attitude here is proving my point.
No, it's not proving anything of the sort. You're trying to claim that the average canadian despises alberta, and that's simply not a thing. It is in fact invented whole-cloth.
According to this poll (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/poll-canadians-living...), nearly half of Canadians think that: 1) Alberta is not a welcoming place 2) Albertans don't care about other Canadians 3) Alberta is not a place they would feel comfortable living
And noticeably, the opinions of the Albertans are generally different from the rest of the country! How curious for a place without an identity of its own, as you claim.
You said “despises”. Your evidence falls wide of the net.
If you want to understand why Alberta is holding a referendum on whether they should hold another separate legally-binding referendum in the future, you have to look at the recent court case where a judge in Alberta ruled that one of the two main petitions wasn’t allowed to proceed (The one that specifically called for a legally-binding referendum). The judges stated reason is that First Nations were not adequately consulted (interesting how this never came up in the Quebec referendums). As a result, the premier of Alberta suggested that until they appeal that court case that they cannot have a legally binding referendum. As such, for now, all they cannot do is a non-legally binding referendum on whether they should hold a legally binding referendum once they court case becomes resolved.
>interesting how this never came up in the Quebec referendums
It did come up. It's referenced in the Supreme Court of Canada case on secession. https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1643/in...
"Consistent with this long tradition of respect for minorities, which is at least as old as Canada itself, the framers of the Constitution Act, 1982 included in s. 35 explicit protection for existing aboriginal and treaty rights, and in s. 25, a non-derogation clause in favour of the rights of aboriginal peoples. The "promise" of s. 35, as it was termed in R. v. Sparrow, [1990] 1 S.C.R. 1075, at p. 1083, recognized not only the ancient occupation of land by aboriginal peoples, but their contribution to the building of Canada, and the special commitments made to them by successive governments. The protection of these rights, so recently and arduously achieved, whether looked at in their own right or as part of the larger concern with minorities, reflects an important underlying constitutional value."
Why not just wait until the court case is resolved?
It might take years. Once it's solved, Smith, Trump and the americans financing this BS might be gone.
95% of Alberta is unceded First Nations land. It is not a valid country without it - without the consent of the relevant First Nations, a separated Alberta would be a few municipalities enveloped by... Canada.
This is not a concern in Quebec, because the overwhelming majority of it is ceded land.
If ducks had two wheels, they'd be bicycles, and if there was anything in common between the two provinces, you might have a point.
As far as I know, First Nations lands in Alberta are indeed ''ceded'' under Treaties 6, 7, and 8 with the Crown. British Columbia is a province with a huge proportion of unceded land, but not Alberta.
The treaties with the crown require the crown consult with them before adjusting them. This means that Albertan secession can't happen without their consent, as it would by definition, completely and unilaterally adjust the terms of those treaties.
The treaties were made in perpetuity, and if you are going to not hold up the crown's end of the promises, the FN's side - giving the crown and Alberta governance over the land - needs to be reverted as well.
Contracts require both sides to adhere to them.
> 95% of Alberta is unceded First Nations land
That is wrong. You were probably thinking of British Columbia, where no such grand Treaties were ever enacted.
[dead]
10% of the population produces nearly 20% of the country's GDP. That kind of lopsided representation is dangerous breeding ground for contempt, so this kind of thing is not really surprising. Will be interesting to see where it goes.
Nobody thought there was any realistic chance of the UK leaving the EU either...
By that framing you are saying that Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver should also all seek secession.
Likewise, you could say that NYC and LA should singularly secede from America by that same logic.
It doesn't track. There is no legal precedent. Alberta as an entity did not exist beyond Canada.
> There is no legal precedent.
Legal precedent doesn't really matter here. If Alberta wants to leave and they're willing to fight a war over it, then that's up to them. USA already went through this once.
I mean.. it's not like it's Alberta that produces the oil. Oil is concentrated in smaller places than that, so why shouldn't those places then separate from Alberta?
From this article it sounds like it's the people of Alberta that want to vote on succession. Including the ones that don't literally live on an oil field.
Speaking as an Albertan, it's only a very loud and vocal minority. The UCP government has seen that the premier only stays in power if they cowtow to the fringe crazies in the party, and that's what she's doing.
I met a Québécois woman years ago that said their own independence movement was shut down in part because of new immigrants to Canada not wanting to leave the commonwealth. No clue if that’s right or not. But given how much of a cash cow the western provinces are for Canada, and the mega spike in immigration it makes me wonder
Thats not hard to believe. An immigrant wouldnt be a part of some native separatist movement.
Maybe look for information instead of sharing uninformed opinions on a random anecdote?
Blaming immigrants … never gets old, does it?
The part about immigration and Quebec is right though, doesn't mean the immigrants are to blame.
Fwiw my only familial connection to Canada is my Levantine immigrant cousins in Quebec
Net federal tax by province for 2024:
To call the west a “cash cow” is just a bit misleading, even if you grant the separatists British Columbia, which is frankly a laughable notion.Alberta separating from Canada and splitting the country in half geographically would be the funniest thing. The idea of a judge blocking a referendum because they didn't consult indigenous groups enough is absurdity to the nth degree. I hope Alberta secedes, they would be welcome to join the USA, or just be independent.
> blocking a referendum because they didn't consult indigenous groups
The requirement to do so is in our constitution, the Charter. It's not optional and not absurd to anyone with proper historical understanding of Canadian history.
Americans may have trouble understanding that the constitution means something given what is going on there right now.
Either this is sarcasm or you’re not old enough to use Internet.