Alberta Political Traffic Report: Watch out for flaming clown cars on the right

I lived in the province of Quebec a couple of times, Quebec and Montreal, during the heady days of separatism (I was also lying on the couch watching —english— live TV coverage of the Clark government’s loss of parliamentary confidence when my squeeze wondered from the kitchen what I was cheering about; it was the first time I ever heard the expression “Joe who?”—and, I believe, it was impeccably sincere because many Québécois like her were as ignorant of the RoC as it was of La Belle Province). Naturally I’d come to appreciate that Quebec really is like another country, not simply in language, either. Just as naturally I asked what “sovereignty association” was supposed to mean; it sounded to me something like having its cake and eating it, too ( the french connection being completely coincidental).

But political education about my country (which is how well-wishers called it whenever I departed back to BC, then the land of easy income: “Bon Voyage a ton pays.”) was, as yet, incomplete—as it will probably remain since, at this point in my life, I don’t figure I’ll ever visit the Arctic or East Coast to witness their respective politcs first-hand: I have eventually come to understand that each province is sovereign even as each has rescinded the bare minimum of sovereign authority needed to run a federated state. Thus, I might have also asked mes amis back in those heady days (and, believe me, they really were, not least in Alberta where I’ve also lived from time to time, and during the Quebec separatism days where two Québécois chatting to each other in an Edmonton bar would likely get told to “talk white!”—or else!) why Quebec was demanding what it already had? In the fullness of time I came to realize that a not-inconsiderable minority of Québécois really wanted back most of the sovereignty the province relinquished in order the federated state functions—all except for benefits conferred by confederation with nine other provinces, a demand so hackneyed that, as soon’s Manning stopped inciting self-serving anti-francophone panic on the Prairies, this Independitiste minority became a considerably less, not-inconsiderable minority in Quebec.

Quebec independence has always existed, ever since the French Crown’s perennial neglect became de facto abandonment of the colony’s rustic Habitants back in the 1740s, but the demographics have obviously changed a great deal in the meantime. It was overtly impotent for much of this time, mustering not much more vocal support than modern separatist movements found in other provinces do, but certainly more than the oft-unrecognized ‘separatist’ movements within many provinces such as Vancouver Island from BC, Labrador from Newfoundland, Acadia from New Brunswick, and the perennially ignored northern portions of provinces that have them (only a couple don’t—and the three Territories don’t count because, of course, they are not sovereign, although the carving of Nunavut out of the old Northwest Territories is a fascinating tale in itself). In my Quebec days (late 70s and early 80s), separatism was supported by an old-guard of Creditistes (french for Socreds) and Conservatives, and an idealistic van-guard of post-“Quiet-Revolution” intellectuals, academics and youth who were largely socialistic. Today attrition has eliminated much of the former, growing up most of the latter, with discontent now more manifest as mostly-federalist, centre-leftists versus far-right, anti-immigrant racists.

Which hardly makes Quebec as “distinct” as it used to say it wanted to be: the politcal-right everywhere in the West has availed the din of dissatisfaction rising around an increasingly unfair and polluted world to admit bigots of all kinds in order not to be drowned out by the racket. What passes these days as news-journalism focuses on the squeaks of pips present, perhaps more sensationally with snippets of pips past and prognosticated but, probably, presenting them as more weighty than reality supports, much to the satisfaction of La Meute (french for “wolf-pack”) whose cavalcade police had to corral into an underground parkade for its own protection where, handily, it could affect a more favourable photo-shoot while, out of camera-shot, cops were attacking an overwhelming horde of ordinary citizens protesting La Meute’s racist sloganeering for, of all reasons, not first obtaining the necessary permit to assemble like the cowering “wolf-pack” had. Everyone, racist paramilitants, their Surite du Quebec protectors, anti-racist protestors, and news-casters went home enjoying, each in their own way, some degree of self-satisfisaction. But is this what’s become of Quebec separatism? Has it been replaced or has it morphed into the anti-immigrant mainstream now spearheaded by the newly-elected, right-wing Legault government which wants all the benefits of sovereign association, just without the feds interfering by retaining immigration authority instead of relinquishing it to, y’know, La Meute. The reality is that a not-inconsiderable minority of Québécois —which could be, taking electoral turnout into account, an actual majority—is willing to take the time—and to brave police aggression—to protest phoney “separatists” who really just want to single-out people they don’t like for ‘special treatment.’

Every province, not only Quebec, has such “separatists” either latently or chasing politcal ambulances hopeful of media coverage like so-called “Sons-of-Dead-Norse-God” wankers so helpfully do for the most likely far-right party to win seats in, say, Alberta— or BC’s hitherto barely-known Libertarian Party recently hooking its wagon to the provincial electoral systems Referendum and getting a thousand-fold more recognition than it ever could have otherwise, just like the goofy Vancouver Island Party did in the last BC election, winning no seats but successfully putting the separatist bug in everybody’s ears.

But the real news, whether or not it gets fully covered, selectively covered—or even covered at all—by MSM, is that ordinary citizens s are remarkably ready to mobilize against, among other things, racism and, yes, when it comes to that, separatism, too.

Now let me remind The Freedom Con F—K-ups: Alberta, like every other province, is already sovereign—but the tiny bit it relinquishes, like all other provinces, to the feds makes it stronger and probably more free than it might be otherwise.

So, yeah, if it’s the fact that Alberta’s politcal right is, like everywhere in the Western World, fragmenting factionally that needs to be hidden, you couldn’t use a much worse distraction than separatism: we’ve already seen this before and, despite MSM’s attempts to make it bigger than it really is, most people recognize the tactic for what it is because, frankly, it’s just a stupid idea—perhaps never more so than for Alberta (okay, okay, maybe Saskatchewan or PEI…)

Keep Alberta sovereign! Hmmm, gotta nice ring to it, don’t you think?