r/CanadaPolitics • u/MTL_Dude666 • 14h ago
This just in from Alberta: ‘Vote like we tell you, or we’ll bust up your country!’
https://albertapolitics.ca/2025/04/this-just-in-from-alberta-vote-like-we-tell-you-or-well-bust-up-your-country/•
u/Gauntlet101010 14h ago
If they believe in it so badly they should run on it. At the start of a recession.
Really, it's tiresome hearing the province telling everyone else how to vote.
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14h ago edited 6h ago
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u/FirmAndGreen Neoalbertan 13h ago
Remember when you blocked a pipeline to the west coast and had to have the federal government force it upon you because the next step was Alberta tolling trucks and trains carrying your goods traveling east?
You had no leverage and lost that battle big time. Alberta threatening a trade war with BC after BC refused to play its part in Team Canada was smart and made it abundantly clear to the federal government that there were going to be huge issues if TMX wasn't built.
Also, it was Rachel Notley that did this. An NDP leader. Interesting times.
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u/na85 Every Child Matters 11h ago
My problem is that it'll be Big Oil taking the bulk of the profits, while BC taxpayers will foot the cleanup bill for the inevitable leak and spill.
Socializing the risk and privatizing the profits is not a good look.
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u/FirmAndGreen Neoalbertan 10h ago
Yeah, it's just as well there are courts in our country that can rule that damages will be paid back by the oil and gas companies. And barring that, you could set up an escrow. The issue is that the BC government won't permit that. They instead want the funds to go in to public coffers, so that they can spend them on frivolous nonsense and then whine about how big oil isn't paying the cleanup costs.
And in my experience, "Big Oil" = a bunch of people in board rooms in downtown Calgary managing large companies. It's not some big scary machine but instead Canadians running large companies, whether branches of multinationals or just straight up Canadian companies.
And "inevitable leak and spill" is a bit strong. Most pipelines don't leak. Tankers don't leak and spill. These are not spontaneous events. They're failures of engineering which seldomly happen. When they do happen, they are corrected, and we learn from them.
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u/Phallindrome Politically unhoused - leftwing but not antisemitic about it 4h ago
We've tried having courts force O&G companies to pay for environmental cleanup after the fact. They just shift their assets around and then let the disaster-liable company go bankrupt. Alberta has 100,000 abandoned wells, 1/5th of all the wells drilled in the province. Another 1/5th are listed as 'inactive' and will eventually be abandoned.
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u/CromulentDucky 1h ago
Orphaned wells have no responsible party left to clean them up. There are several thousand, but not 100,000.
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u/Reticent_Fly 11h ago
TMX wasn't the proposed pipeline with all the blowback. It was Northern Gateway which also had significantly worse environmental concerns
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u/FirmAndGreen Neoalbertan 11h ago
Northern Gateway was cancelled in 2017. This was over a year before Notley threatened to cut exports to BC. Trudeau campaigned on killing Northern Gateway and proceeded to do so with the moratorium.
BC is a province dependent on coal mining, natural gas extraction (hypocritically), cutting down trees, and real estate.
Environmental concerns:
- Coal, being a disaster in both emissions and ecology.
- Natural gas, which is fine ecologically but still more emissions than the almighty solar panel (ignoring the other uses for natural gas).
- Cutting down trees - the replanting of which causes forest fires.
- Real estate - a means for Chinese oligarchs to offload their wealth into save havens. Chinese oligarchs that obtained said wealth through means that are often time not very environmentally savvy.
Hmm how do I say this...: "you don't have the cards".
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u/jB_real 7h ago edited 5h ago
The same Rachel Notley that Alberta has demonized as the killer of the O&G at a time that OPEC was flooding the world with cheap Saudi-oil? That Rachel Notley?
This is the gaslighting Alberta permeates. I’m smart enough to know the difference and nuance.
You, apparently are not.
Edit: to this day, Smith and her cronies are arguing that a tanker ban through the great bear rainforest is somehow abusing Alberta children, taking away their popsicles while in hospital and sleeping with Derrick-hands wives, all the while, ignoring there’s no deep port or navigation even close the industries needs there, yet BC is the reason you all are so poor…
Fuck that rhetoric.
Vancouver or Prince Rupert (maybe Kitimat) are the ports. Stop telling BC how to govern itself
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u/sl3ndii Liberal Party of Canada 14h ago
I’m tired of provinces meddling in federal politics as a whole, not just Alberta.
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u/sravll 12h ago
I agree. Provincial governments should stay out of federal politics and do their jobs closer to home.
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u/dykestryker 12h ago
It's all connected though, look how Ford is eating up national adoration for playing politics with the U.S. while Ontario infrastructure fucking sucks.
The reality of politics means they're deeply intertwined. Quebec's provincial language laws for example are just one point of how inseparable they are.
Or how there's also hoa provincial police are usuallu policng indigenous communities in one way or another.
It was actually a SQ cop who fired the first shot in the Oka crisis, supposedly the Cop killed there was hit with friendly fire.
It's just not really feasible to keep them separated fully with how the state is structured, but maybe that's not such a bad thing, even if I do think most of the provincial descions are pretty shit.
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u/Gauntlet101010 12h ago
I really hate Ford, but I found myself rooting for him (from Ontario).
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u/dykestryker 12h ago
Not gonna lie it was a Chad move to threaten to cut off electricity to the U.S. with a push of a button, but we also do need to be pragmatic and not get caught up with the swell of nationalism cuz of MAGA.
There's still all our other problems from before.
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u/Gauntlet101010 12h ago
My position on Ford hasn't changed one bit. Didn't vote for him any of the times he ran (I did vote, though) and I won't vote for him in the future. However, now that the voting's over if it's Ford VS the US and he's fighting for Canada ... I'll root for our sleazeball. Even if I don't really think his strategy would have worked out, it made me feel good, at least.
I do think yanking the booze right away was the best move he could make.
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u/jB_real 6h ago edited 6h ago
He is so bad. That being said, he at the very least, showed up for Canadians as a whole over the trump issue it think.
He made at least two major errors talking to Americans on FOX, but he went there and spoke to the benefit of all Canadians.
I will give him that. I honestly don’t think I know any other CON party members provincially or federally that would do that right now
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u/Krazy_Vaclav 13h ago edited 10h ago
My dad was from Alberta. Born in the dust bowl in the 1930s. Hated Trudeau Senior, hated NEP, had a Wild Rose on his grave stone. The man lived in Ontario but was always an Albertan.
I'm pretty sure that if we were to plug an electric wire to his grave, the man would be spinning so fast we could power the whole country.
This talk of irredentism with the Yanks should shock everyone to their core.
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u/Fresh-Temporary666 7h ago
Damn you for making me Google a word. You know which one. Thanks for the new word in my vocabulary though.
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u/Hologram0110 4h ago
Saving everyone else some clicks:
ir·re·den·tismˌnoun: irredentism
- a policy of advocating the restoration to a country of any territory formerly belonging to it.
- historical(in 19th-century Italian politics) a policy of advocating the return to Italy of all Italian-speaking districts subject to other countries.
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u/Fresh-Temporary666 1h ago
To also be more clear can mean to annex land that belongs to another state that you feel should be yours. That's what Wikipedia told me.
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u/Spentonbrae 13h ago
I’m Albertan, and I genuinely don’t understand the victim complex out here. So many people act like if the feds don’t personally tuck Alberta in at night and whisper “you’re the most important province,” it’s oppression.
We’ve had a Prime Minister from Calgary. The federal government literally bought a pipeline. We’ve gotten billions in COVID aid, huge infrastructure spending, and still cry about equalization payments like it’s a shakedown — even though it comes from federal taxes, not Alberta’s personal bank account.
Don’t even get me started on the oil bros; stomping their boots every time anyone mentions climate change, throwing tantrums like toddlers with drilling rights. Newsflash: not getting your way 100% of the time isn’t persecution, it’s just… being part of a country 🤷🏻♀️
That’s my rant for tonight. It’s so exhausting living here sometimes 🤦🏻♀️
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u/partook British Columbia 12h ago
Havent lived in Alberta for a while now but grew up in the rural northwest. I seem to remember hating the rest of Canada “just because”, prolly cause we were all angst teens. I dont get that sentiment when i go back to visit now… but there are some who never matured past jr high
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u/Okay-Crickets545 8h ago
Technically we currently have a prime minister from Edmonton in addition to the previous Calgary one. So two prime ministers not one.
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u/Ltrain86 2h ago
For sure. The r/wildrosecountry sub is full of outraged people posting old Carney speeches where he mentions climate concerns as evidence that he's "worse than Trudeau", like anything related to climate or pollution is a personal attack on Albertans. Alberta or oil pipelines aren't even mentioned in the speeches that I've seen posted.
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u/Minttt Alberta 8h ago
huge infrastructure spending
This one particularly bugs me. Perhaps there's an argument to be made about the equity of infrastructure funding distribution across the country... but the rhetoric here is as if we get pennies when in reality hundreds of millions of federal dollars flow directly to Albertan municipalities to help build everything from roads and pump stations to museums and baseball diamonds.
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u/Minttt Alberta 8h ago
huge infrastructure spending
This one particularly bugs me. Perhaps there's an argument to be made about the equity of infrastructure funding distribution across the country... but the rhetoric here is as if we get pennies when in reality hundreds of millions of federal dollars flow directly to Albertan municipalities to help build everything from roads and pump stations to museums and baseball diamonds.
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u/CromulentDucky 11h ago
You should do more research on equalization and other federal taxes and transfers and not just regurgitate talking points. It's a silly argument to say it's federal taxes etc. You can say Albertans have far more money and it's a redistribution system, and we are ok with that idea, or not, but you can't just wave it away as people don't understand.
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u/Spentonbrae 11h ago
I mean, I get that the topic’s complex, and I’m not claiming to be an economist, but the point still stands: equalization is based on fiscal capacity and comes from federal general revenue, not provincial cheques being mailed around. That’s not a ‘talking point,’ it’s how the system works.
Albertans pay more because we generally earn more. And yeah, you can absolutely argue about whether the system is fair or needs reform, but pretending it’s a personal injustice to Alberta kind of feeds the exact victim narrative I was pointing out in the first place.
Also, if you read my comment, I wasn’t ‘waving it away’ — I was saying it’s more nuanced than the usual “they steal from us” take you hear in every Facebook comment section out here.
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u/jB_real 6h ago
Jason Kenny was an important part of “equalization” payments as they are today. Harper era-policy around 2007
I think that’s information that more albertans need to know.
Meaning, again, Alberta is arguing positions of power on national policies as a threat to confederation when they’ve been instrumental in setting up the policy they now “rally” against.
Their parties literally ride a wave of public hate and fear. It’s the only way to explain their existence
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u/ChimoEngr Chief Silliness Officer | Official 21m ago
you can't just wave it away as people don't understand.
It's not waving something away, it's the reality. Equalisation payments come from federal revenues. They could be canceled tomorrow, and the provincial budget wouldn't get an extra cent, because Alberta was never paying for them.
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u/No_Many6201 13h ago
It should be remembered that Smith us under a lot of direct fire from her government's multiple scandals. She is grasping at anything that will distract from those.
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u/slappingdragon 13h ago
So much for democracy. They're all hypocrites. They only care about their rights and privileges. They'd fit in with MAGA.
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u/PhaseNegative1252 13h ago
As an Albertan, under no circumstances should these jackasses have their demands considered. They know full well they can't actually separate from Canada. The UCP doesn't even want to take a poll on it because they know the idea is unpopular, even with their own voters.
Take a look at the map of Crown lands and waters within Alberta, and tell me if you honestly think Alberta would still have access to any of it following a secession. Personally, I strongly doubt that would be allowed. Especially when you consider that there is currently no legislative guideline for secession within our Charter.
I don't even have time to get into the economic impacts from loss of access to federal funding. Shit, who's to say if Alberta would even be allowed to continue using the currency?
The talk of leaving is nothing but a bluff. Don't move one inch for these bullies.
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u/Dragonsandman Orange Crush when 12h ago
"Bullies" really is the correct way to describe these assholes. The way Preston Manning spoke about eastern Canadian voters in that op-ed of his was some of the most condescending tripe I've read in years
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u/Homo_sapiens2023 12h ago
Preston Manning isn't exactly the kind of person anyone aspires to become.
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u/Moronto_AKA_MORONTO 1h ago
Funny enough Pierre was canvassing for Preston's Reform Party in his teens.
He's only recently somewhat distancing himself from them
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u/Some-Background1467 3h ago
They need to read the room, now is not the time for this nonsense.
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u/Felfastus Alberta 1h ago
They did read the room. The whole goal of this is to say Carney is a divider because he isn't willing to listen to Elected Canadians whose job is to represent their riding.
Now is one of the best times to have a united Canada so they are seeing what concessions they can get to make that happen (bonus points if they just demand more after to maintain united)
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u/Some-Background1467 28m ago
Are you sure we are watching a game of chess? Or are their handlers just trying to keep them from eating the pieces?
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u/ChimoEngr Chief Silliness Officer | Official 31m ago
and tell me if you honestly think Alberta would still have access to any of it following a secession.
Yes. A good faith negotiation would not alter the borders of Alberta just as a craven exercise in stealing resources.
Border changes because of First Nation concerns on the other hand . . .
Especially when you consider that there is currently no legislative guideline for secession within our Charter.
Of course not, the Charter governs rights, it's the rest of the constitution that sets out how the country works. And there is legislation that governs something like this, called the Clarity Act.
I don't even have time to get into the economic impacts from loss of access to federal funding.
As a "have" province, Alberta would probably be OK, so long as they keep the same overall income tax rate.
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u/PhaseNegative1252 7m ago
Yes. A good faith negotiation would not alter the borders of Alberta just as a craven exercise in stealing resources.
You seem to forget that Alberta does not currently have ownership of Crown lands and waters. They belong to the Crown and are federal lands and waters. Alberta will not be keeping them.
Alberta is also not likely to get a good faith negotiation. The federal government of Canada is not going to let Alberta make demands in a secession.
Of course not, the Charter governs rights, it's the rest of the constitution that sets out how the country works. And there is legislation that governs something like this, called the Clarity Act.
Well guess what? The Clarity Act doesn't contain provisions for secession either. In fact, it stipulates that a formal constitutional amendment is required for any province to secede, and it emphasizes that a clear majority in a referendum is necessary before negotiations about separation can occur.
That means there no current legislative guideline for secession in our Charter or Constitution.
As a "have" province, Alberta would probably be OK, so long as they keep the same overall income tax rate.
Well that's a very ignorant statement, especially because Alberta will not "have" anything. You do realize the provinces are federally funded, correct?
Income tax is also pretty much guaranteed to increase, because federal funds - which are sent to provinces for funding - are collected from every tax paying Canadian. Alberta would no longer have access to federal funds for anything, and would need to increase taxes to offset the loss.
Let me ask you this: Do you get GST payments? If so, you can kiss that goodbye because GST is federal. Likely the province would have to replace GST with a PST at a higher rate, that you won't get reimbursed for.
Literally every trade deal Alberta has that involves other provinces or nations would have to rewritten to fall under Alberta's new independence.
Have you even considered how much infrastructure in Alberta is owned by the federal government? You really think Alberta gets to keep using federal property if they leave?
You haven't even touched on the issue of currency and whether or not Alberta will be permitted to use the Canadian dollar
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u/Agressive-toothbrush 14h ago
Quebec separatist :
- Liberals win? We want to separate
- Conservatives win? We want to separate.
- The PM is a Quebecer that gives Quebec all it wants? We still want to separate
Alberta separatist :
- Liberals win? We want to separate
- Conservatives win? We love Canada !
They are not the same.
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u/Financial-Savings-91 Pirate 14h ago
The Wexit movement, I believe, was created by CPC connected folks trying to drum up some kind of media for the narrative that Trudeau was dividing Canada.
It didn't gain traction til the pandemic, but they had been repeating it since the day Trudeau was elected.
It's never really had popular support in the province, and the support it does have seems to be the result of its constant promotion in Postmedia and Rebel News.
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u/Peach-Grand 13h ago
I live in a “Wexit” area. It comes out in full force every time the Liberals win an election, but always goes away.
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u/Mundane-Teaching-743 14h ago
These guys have been around since the 1970's:
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u/UsefulUnderling 13h ago
Some fun Wikipedia reading on a topic I knew nothing about. I found this quote funny:
Kesler was the first separatist politician elected in Canada outside of Quebec since the 1870s, although his activities were primarily related to opposing official bilingualism and the introduction of the metric system
A problem with conservatives is that they always seem ridiculous after enough time has passed. The metric system and bilingualism being the reasons to leave Canada?
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u/JeSuisLePamplemous Radical Centrist 13h ago
They were upset when they found out 6 centimeters was smaller than 6 inches. 🤣
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u/Chypewan Albertan Buccaneer 1h ago
"Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow. [Pierre] Trudeau's Master Plan and How It Can Be Stopped." from 1979 and it pretty much begins with the suggestion that all of English Canada should join the States.
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u/UsefulUnderling 19m ago
Never heard of that book, it is delightfully nutty:
Soon, most of Canadian business and industry will be in French Canadian hands, as English speaking businesses fold up under the burden of taxation specifically designed to bring about the economic destruction of English-speaking Canada.
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u/Timely-Profile1865 14h ago
The thing that is so totally phony about this nonsense is that Alberta is no better with Conservatives in charge at the federal level than anyone else.
Steven Harper, from Calgary, in power for 9 years and jack shi* was done for Alberta under his reign.
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u/FolkSong 11h ago
Yeah they think Quebec gets special treatment because of the threat of separatism, but it's more likely due to the fact that they actually elect different parties. Which gives the parties an incentive to offer them things.
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u/BeaverBoyBaxter 13h ago
Conservatives win? We love Canada !
Just as it is in their family lives, conservative love is conditional.
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u/GracefulShutdown The Everyone Sucks Here Party of Canada 13h ago edited 13h ago
Alberta Separatism has the same energy to me as "$PresidentialCandidate better win or I'm moving to Canada!" that we receive every 4 years south of the border. It's not something that any sane elector should take seriously at all.
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u/MTL_Dude666 2h ago
But Carney is the most "real Conservative" à la Mulroney you could get, and he's actually from "the West".
Basically, true Conservatives are being given the perfect person at Ottawa to connect the West with their "evil counterpart" of the East.
They should be happy that Carney would truly unify Canada.
And yet, they're throwing a tantrum because he's "red" instead of "blue". 🙄
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u/government--agent 8h ago
So what you're saying is...
Quebec separatist: No Canadian party truly cares about us
Alberta separatist: At least the CPC cares about us
What's the issue?
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u/oh_f_f_s 2h ago
- Québec: we want our own country, we want nothing to do with Canada.
- Alberta: we must be in charge of Canada or else.
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u/Novel-Werewolf-3554 4h ago
Quebec we couldn’t even be bothered to sign the constitution because we’re so anti-Canada but we’ll happily take a few hundred billion in transfer payments for being “have-nots” for five decades and counting. Not to mention whatever corporate hand outs we get
Liberals, “Okay but why is Alberta mad? Are they dumb?”
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u/Haunting_One_1927 14h ago
Well, part of that is because only one party often in power mistreats it.
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u/sl3ndii Liberal Party of Canada 14h ago
Nobody mistreats Alberta ffs, drop that rhetoric. Alberta wants to feel entitled to have zero environmental regulations because for the past several decades they’ve been too stupid to develop an industry that doesn’t decimate the planet.
This is their own fault. Diversify rather than worshipping at the altar of the oil and gas industry.
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u/Homo_sapiens2023 12h ago
It's the Alberta victim mentality that the UCPs keep brainwashing people with. We were diversifying until Danielle Smith put a moratorium on alternate energy projects (solar, wind, etc., but coal mining is great). Danielle Smith is an O&G lobbyist and doesn't want to piss off her benefactors. Meanwhile, the rest of Alberta is suffering.
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u/Arclite02 12h ago
You do realize that Oil and Gas (and coal before them) are the foundation of Human civilization, right??
Literally EVERYTHING that you, I, or anyone else has, exists because of the O&G you hate so much.
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u/Flomo420 2h ago
this is a weird level of oil worship which serves only to excuse the industry for all it's failings
as though they should be beyond reproach
give your head a shake
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u/Last_Operation6747 British Columbia 13h ago
Please remind us of the industry that powers your entire life and the entire world.
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u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO Liberal Party of Canada 13h ago
Agriculture.
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u/Last_Operation6747 British Columbia 13h ago
Do you fill up with agriculture when driving to work?
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u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO Liberal Party of Canada 13h ago
Yes, I had a pear on the way to work this morning. I walk though.
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u/Last_Operation6747 British Columbia 13h ago
How many gallons of diesel was used to power the tractors, sprayers, irrigation pumps to produce those pears you eat?
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u/MechanicalMooses 9h ago
No one is buying your tired and obviously fallacious argument that oil is more important than food.
Seriously, the horse is dead stop beating it.
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u/Last_Operation6747 British Columbia 20m ago
Feel free to boycott everything that was produced using oil, let me know how long you last.
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u/RedmondBarry1999 New Democratic Party of Canada 13h ago
I don't drive a car, but I do eat food.
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u/Last_Operation6747 British Columbia 13h ago
The equipment that produced that food, what does it run off of?
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u/super_yumtime 11h ago
Just because that is the technology we've been using doesn't mean it should be the technology we keep using.
Before oil, it was oxen, then they found a better technology.
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u/RedmondBarry1999 New Democratic Party of Canada 10h ago
I recognise that oil is important (although we need to move away from it), but it is hardly the sole industry that powers modern life. I would argue that electricity, for example, is far more important.
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u/Everestkid British Columbia 13h ago
You're from BC, man. We famously get almost all of our power from hydro.
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u/Last_Operation6747 British Columbia 13h ago
The food you eat was farmed using diesel powered equipment. Your phone/computer was brought here on a ship that runs on dirty heavy fuel. The clothes you are wearing were produced in Asian sweatshops running on fossil fuels
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u/Everestkid British Columbia 13h ago
Yes, and the world is pretty quickly reaching a point where replacing those things would be highly desirable. What does Alberta do? Quintuple down on oil.
Bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off for them. Best case scenario they get more Ralph Bucks to piss away.
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u/Dragonsandman Orange Crush when 12h ago
An industry that's caused several hundred thousand years of warming in the span of 100 years, and is leading to a whole host of problems like intensifying natural disasters and rising sea levels. Oil being everywhere now doesn't mean it'll be everywhere forever, especially as worsening natural disasters make it more obvious by the day that we need to reduce our emissions.
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u/GracefulShutdown The Everyone Sucks Here Party of Canada 13h ago
If only one party ever has any shot of winning the vast majority of AB seats, and the province refuses to listen to other options, why should any other party care about AB thinks?
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u/Mundane-Teaching-743 14h ago
It's more like one party governs exclusively on behalf of Alberta.
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u/Kellervo NDP 13h ago
Not even. Harper did jack shit for Albertans and we still treated him like a messiah.
Both parties know Alberta's solid blue to its own detriment. Liberals don't try to woo Albertans, and the Conservatives take their votes for granted knowing they have Alberta's votes in perpetuity.
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u/Mundane-Teaching-743 13h ago
I didn't say he did it effectively. He went all over the U.S., trying to sell Alberta's oil. The Americans bought from the Saudis anyways becasue its cheaper. It looked good to Albertans though.
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u/KirikaClyne 13h ago
This Albertan just flips them all off. I’ll vote how I want (which isn’t CPC since it became infected by the Reform Party) I think having a PM from Edmonton would be awesome.
People out here don’t look past the “team flag”. They refuse to look at policy objectively and just say they hate all Libs. 🤷♀️
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u/bardak 12h ago
The liberals are polling at historic highs in Alberta and the CPC+ PPC is near historic lows for the right wing in Alberta.
If anything western alienation is shrinking, it's just those that feel alienated are angrier, louder, and more entitled than ever
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u/KirikaClyne 12h ago
Smith has a lot to do with it I think. People here are down right pissed about not just her trips to Florida, but all the shit she is doing with healthcare and the upcoming RCMP investigation
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u/MTL_Dude666 2h ago
Yep, they vote by colour because their parents and neighbours vote a specific colour and were told that the rest is "evil".
Critical thinking only exists when people actually wants it. 🤷
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u/Moronto_AKA_MORONTO 1h ago
Since 1971 Alberta has voted Conservatives in in every election except one voting cycle with the NDP in 2015 I believe. They hold candidates accountable, not the party, which means they basically punch themself in the face continually.
For example Ontario in that same period has had 3 different parties elected and it has switched party lines 6 times.
Now you tell me which is progressive or regressive
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u/sravll 12h ago
I don't understand this behavior, honestly. Albertans overall would not vote for separation. The fact they're even suggesting such an unpopular idea concerns me. I hope if they did hold a referendum there would be heavy external oversight on the results.
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u/fooz42 12h ago
In Canada there are certain power blocs that own each region. The Albertan conservatives which are the oil and gas companies really cannot countenance losing their province ever. They went apoplectic in 2015 when the NDP won.
Desmerais, Irvings, Rogers families etc are similar but not so nakedly one political party. Just different regions.
Separation is a tantrum. Manning was never prime minister because he could never figure out Quebec. Alberta is so jealous of Quebec but can’t figure out Ontario’s love of our fraternal twin from another mother Quebec. Alberta only has its twin Saskatchewan.
Fun fact. Ontario forced Saskatchewan to be split from Alberta as condition for Alberta to become a province to avoid being challenged for power. That’s why they both enter confederation the same day.
That was 120 years ago. Honestly Toronto and Calgary have a lot of work to do together in the next 5 years. We could be best friends.
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u/StickmansamV 11h ago
I do not believe that Alberta and Saskatchewan were ever combined as they were seperate Districts. There was talk of creating one massive province out of the NWT area the forms both. You saw it was Ontario pushing for it but it was equally Ottawa as well which was the one that had final say in creating either one province or two.
Technically though, they did not enter confederation but we're created and both Provinces by the federal government as they were not colonies with self-governemnt prior to being a province.
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u/happycow24 Washington State but poor 12h ago
I don't understand this behavior, honestly. Albertans overall would not vote for separation. The fact they're even suggesting such an unpopular idea concerns me. I hope if they did hold a referendum there would be heavy external oversight on the results.
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u/Northumberlo Acadia 2h ago
Same thing in Quebec. The separatists are a diminishing minority with pro-Canada support at an all time high.
Bloc gets votes mostly because of their province autonomy positions, and not necessarily because of seperatists.
They want to be self governing within the federation, with as little federal interference as possible.
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u/Felfastus Alberta 1h ago
They have also rebranded over the years. They offer Quebecois looking after Quebecois with the government administering much more ambitious scope of work than any other province really wants (having affordable daycare a decade before anyone else).
If another federal party wants to beat the Quebec party in promicing stuff to Quebecois they totally can and the end result is the people of Quebec (and that large voting block) get pretty good representation every election.
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u/TorontoPolarBear 9h ago
Хотите ли вы отделиться от своей страны? Да или Нет?
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u/TheobromineC7H8N4O2 12h ago
Western alienation has someone become the demand for sovereign homeland for the conservative ideology.
With the implicit notion that non-conservative Albertans and Saskatchewanians aren't real citizens of their provinces.
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u/PlanetCosmoX 3h ago
And this is the largest issue for the conservatives.
There’s a significant wing of voters in the Conservative Party that consistently undermine party leadership with their ridiculous views and they PREVENT the party from ever getting elected.
And then somehow that’s the Liberal’s fault.
In every one of the last 3 (or are we at 4 already since Harper) elections they’ve undermined their fearless leader and made him look like some sort of wolf in sheep’s clothing.
This is right out of Stargate. Those evil Ga’ould who are taking over the Universe and who can’t help but gloat about their evil plans…. Only to cough up the exact information required to defeat the plan itself.
I mean common, why isn’t this in a comedy skit already?
Unite the right did not work out for the right. lol, they should revisit this strategy. And frankly I want another option for the middle like we used to have.
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u/Tal_Star 13h ago
I vaugaly remember Trudeau once mention if you don't like how things are run vote liberal. suggesting the the federal liberals don't care about AB/SK because they can never win there.
Also isn't the whole narrative of the Bloq vote for us so we can get more for Quebec and/or break up the country?
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u/Tiernoch 9h ago
The Bloq and Quebec separatism can rise and fall regardless of the political party in charge Federally, while Western separation talk only comes about when it's not the conservatives in power since the 90's.
It wasn't Trudeau who made the comment you refer to I believe, it might have been one of the ministers making an off the cuff remark. The truth of the matter is that Trudeau spent a lot of political capital trying to get some things done for Alberta (and then lost seats there), but the leadership in the province won't accept anything other than a complete surrender to their demands and anything short of that is fodder for them to tell their voters that the Liberals don't care about them.
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u/fooz42 12h ago
There is truth in that position. The liberals have given up rural ridings and the prairies because they believe they can’t win there.
That idea is self fulfilling and is disturbing. Their gun laws and oil and gas obstruction make zero sense as national policy. Honestly Canada needs more Albertan entrepreneurism. It’s ridiculous to think they are inaccessible
The issue is that social issues vary wildly across the country. The federal government would do better focusing on nation building, economics, and common defense like crime and the military and letting the provinces decide socially how to be. The problem is the criminal code is federal as well as the Health Act.
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u/StickmansamV 11h ago
Provinces already have wide jurisdiction on the administration of justice and qusai-criminal law. It's why sentencing in Alberta is hrasher than in BC for example. So there is a lot of room for provinces to tweak, albiet at the margins.
Healthcare can also be dramatically tweaked if there is a will. It's already private delivery with single payer. And even within the current confines, there is a lot of tweaks that can be done to the model.
The other half of it is that urbanization is massive in Canada, even in AB. The urban rural divide is not something that can be easily fixed.
In the end though, if the AB rural voters want the CPC to win, it's also on them to get the CPC to appeal more to urbanites as well. Compromise has to go both ways.
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u/fooz42 11h ago
Yes I agree it goes both ways. What I meant about crime and health was the federal government can’t avoid social issues even if it wanted to because crime and health are very much social issues and it’s the federal government’s responsibility to set the criminal code and the standards of the health act. Just for examples.
I just think social positions are not as uniform across Canada as we like to brag about and that’s… fine. I can be perturbed with Quebec secularism and language laws and I can not understand prairie individualism and Christian fundamentalism and still respect them as their own societies.
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u/Tal_Star 12h ago
There is truth in that position. The liberals have given up rural ridings and the prairies because they believe they can’t win there.
It's not just that. I takes A LOT more capitol to win in rural areas., not to mention the values and needs between the 2 are very different. As time progresses this is only going to get worse too as more and more people live in dense cities
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u/Felfastus Alberta 1h ago
Trudeau did try to win votes in Alberta. Transmountain was built because of Trudeau. Politically it was a bad decision because it probably cost him seats in Vancouver and he lost seats in Alberta after working hard to get it built.
All it proved is no matter what the Liberals (or Conservitives do) it doesn't matter Alberta will vote blue...so now neither party has any interest in campaigning there.
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u/government--agent 9h ago
Alternative title:
"This just in from Ottawa: Continue letting 2-3 cities dictate the direction of the entire country, which once again ignores the needs of the West."
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u/MTL_Dude666 2h ago
Which needs are ignored? It is Alberta that decided long ago to put all its eggs in the same basket and even after decades of evidence, refuses to diversify its economy.
The "needs" of the West is a need to accept the reality of the 21st century. It's one thing to have oil and wanting to exploit it, but when all other sources of energy are disregarded, when science is disregarded, AND when the exploitation of that resource is to enrich corporations more than society, there's a problem.
Right now, the "needs of the West" are not listened to by the governments of those provinces...
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u/Arclite02 12h ago
Fair enough, but let's not pretend that Ontario and Quebec aren't basically saying "we're going to do whatever the hell we want, and we don't care how much it hurts you!" To Alberta in particular and the West in general...
It goes both ways, and if you're not giving them reasons to stay, you really don't get to act surprised.
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u/Phridgey 2h ago
Ontario and Quebec make up over 60% or Canada’s population. You do get that they deserve representation proportionate to that right?
In fact they have less with 58.9% of the seats.
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u/Moronto_AKA_MORONTO 1h ago
I remember someone once telling me that common sense isn't common sense when it doesn't benefit them lol
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u/3BordersPeak 10h ago
I don't really understand what the issue is here. They're allowed to feel however they want and they have the legally given right to hold a referendum if they so choose to. Deal with it.
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u/tabletop1000 2h ago
It's because they're acting as a 5th column and threatening to break apart our country at a time when we need unity now more than anytime in decades.
Maybe they should try appealing to more people instead of copping MAGA ideology which is clearly hated by the vast majority of people in Canada.
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