If unicorn farts smelled like expensive French perfume, the Alberta Republic as imagined by the so-called “Alberta Prosperity Project” would be the sweetest smelling place on earth!
Alas, there are no unicorns, and the fairy tale published by the separatist group so carefully nurtured by Premier Danielle Smith smells more like the kind of garden-variety agricultural output you’d expect from the hind end of a bog-standard male bovine ungulate.
We all know what folks say about sales pitches that appear to be too good to be true. They usually are. “The Value of Freedom, a draft fully costed fiscal plan for an independent Alberta” qualifies for this traditional folk wisdom.
If you buy the authors’ fantastic claim that by separating from Canada the new “Commonwealth of Alberta” could realize an immediate fiscal surplus closing in of $50 billion, I’m sure they’ve also got a beautiful bridge over the Bow River they’d be delighted sell you.
If you think it’s a great idea to peg your new Alberta pension to a sovereign Bitcoin reserve – I’m not making this up, it’s on Page 22 of the 44 page document – you are a sheep waiting to be sheared.
I know it’s a lot to ask serious economists take the time to debunk drivel based on such preposterous predictions as 100 to 150 per cent increases in oil and gas production over a couple of decades, creating up to 450,000 new jobs in an electrifying world, being able to leverage “Alberta’s vast natural landscapes to mitigate concerns regarding carbon dioxide levels” (say what?), and how getting “free from external climate agendas” will ensure “a sustainable, self-determined future for Alberta.”
But it needs to be done. After all, there’s obviously a sustained, well-financed disinformation campaign under way to persuade Albertans and other Canadians that this nonsense reflects reality. (And just watch the comments section of this post if you doubt plenty of Albertans have downed the Kool Aid.)
And shame on Alberta’s credulous media for treating this as if it were a serious and well-researched proposal.
Once upon a time, University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe would have been the go-to expert to consult. Unfortunately, he has tied himself to the Alberta Next Panel set up by Premier Danielle Smith, the province’s No. 1 enabler of separatist sentiment. Sadly, that exercise is unlikely to end well for the reputation of anyone involved, including the professor.
Consider the Value of Freedom’s treatment of the supposed benefits of an Alberta pension.
Noting Dr. Tombe’s past criticism of the absurd June 2023 Lifeworks estimate that Alberta would be entitled to 53 per cent of the Canada Pension Plan investment fund, and the chief actuary of Canada’s similar critique, Parkland Institute research fellow and former senior civil servant Robert Ascah dismissed the document’s methodology.
“The $334-billion or selectively chosen 50 per cent thereof (we are being cheated but we’ll take $167-billion) is a lazy analysis of how a pension fund would be divided,” Dr. Ascah observed in an email yesterday.
Dr. Ascah noted that the paper’s pension analysis is rife with misleading assumptions about the liability of the imagined plan (“many of the CPP payments are made to non-residents who worked their lives in Alberta but have retired somewhere”), underestimation of the cost of administering an Alberta fund, and overestimation of its likely rate of return.
The strangest and ugliest part of this paper, though, is contained in its final seven pages, where in the authors spin out their creepy fantasy of Trump-style mass deportations to ensure an ideologically and culturally pure Alberta Republic.
In a recent Substack, University of Calgary political science professor Lisa Young called Premier Smith’s use of immigration as a grievance against Ottawa, and the draft of a virtual ethnic cleansing campaign in the APP document, “the ugly underbelly of Alberta separatism.”
Under the heading “Immigration and Deportation Plan,” the paper declares that “natural born Canadians “will be given preference if they want to move here.”
“First of all,” the authors declare, “we want to give our like-minded Canadian brothers and sisters the easiest possible option to be part of an independent Alberta. Secondly, they will fit easily into the Albertan culture. Thirdly, they understand Canada and its winters and have at least a fighting chance of being able to drive acceptably on snow and ice.” (Emphasis added.)
I’m not making this up. It’s on page 29 if you doubt me. (No more immigrants from Vancouver island, I guess, if you need to know how to drive on snow. As for “Albertan culture,” I have no words to define it.)
“The remainder of Canada is required to accept individuals who are ineligible under the new Alberta policies,” the document continues breezily, “whereupon they can deal with them within the Canadian immigration policy.
“This is obviously a point of negotiation with Canada, but it is backstopped by Alberta’s intent to deport ineligible people directly itself,” it adds. Straight to Ottawa Airport, the brainiac authors seem to have decided.
Given this, one has to wonder when the Alberta nation’s new governors would decide to start expelling natural-born Albertans who didn’t support Alberta separation, continued to call themselves Canadians, or chose to resist this kind of MAGA fascism. Not long, one imagines.
I am personally persuaded a lot of the presumed support for Alberta separation in this province would disappear in a flash if some pollster would simply ask respondents if they’d vote for an independent Alberta and remain there if it were guaranteed they’d lose their Canadian passport.
But that’s the thing about the lads at the APP. They’ve got a fantastic story to tell about the benefits of separation – at least if you don’t worry too much about accuracy and happen to meet their definition of a pure laine Albertan if you plan to stick around.
They don’t seem to have thought about the costs of their scheme.
Considering that these guys can’t even get the proper paperwork filed for a ballot question on this issue, it stands to reason that they have no intention of putting the issue to a vote. Queen Danielle will just assume her imaginary authority and declare unilateral independence for Alberta.
In that instance, I have no problem with an armed force seizing the premier and the entire UCP caucus, taking them to a secreted location, and subjecting them to immediate execution for treason, recorded for public viewing later, of course.
Watching Smith plead for her innocence to no avail would be a joyous experience.
10 4!
Minimum tarred and feathered and run on a rail to the US border
Now now there, Just You. This is not going to be a maga moment. We are Canada after all and we will stick to the rules, you know: arrest them, have the magistrate decide whether they are granted bail or not. (I’d vote not–they are trying to over throw the government) Then they go to trial where facts have to be provided, jury makes the decision and then if guilty off to jail they go. Canada does not have a. death penalty. Now is not the time to start it up again.
When trump and sons started the business of crypto did wonder how they were going to make money from the faithful magas, their friends in various industries. Yes, mixing it up with pension plans would work nicely and in the process will bankrupt provinces, states, countries. And then trump will hive off to some other location.
Trump and his off spring can do what they want but they are never going to make the grade. They’re never going to be smarter, nicer, better looking, better at anything. they’re just the boers they have always been. Lets not forget who their farther and grandfather was/is. A man who moved to Canada and ran a bar and bordello, who tried to return to Germany and was turned away., returned to the U.S.A. and went on to produce a son who became a land lord who wasn’t keen on renting to people of colour, had a son who turned out to engage in fairly “interesting” behaviour, a man who committed seexual assault, tried to over throw his own country, the list goes on,
Perhaps the lot of them ought to be sent out to help farmers in working their fields, for perhaps 4 hrs a day–they are not used to actual work.
Just imagine if all the horses from the Calgary Stampede were unleashed on Alberta children at summer day camps in public parks by Alberta Prosperity Project agents and Alberta Sheriffs. Is Alberta going to be turned into MacArthur Park of the north in this nightmare?
Are “natural-born” Albertan-Canadians going to be stripped of their citizenship and left stateless by these thugs in black cowboy hats? What about sending us to Rattlesnake Ranch in a river valley during spring floods?
Ads running for Son of a Critch..
Son rummaging through fridge
‘Dad’ I thought you’d moved downstairs…?
Son making a sandwich
‘Dad ‘ fridge broken?
Son, no
‘Dad’ freedom, independence, great?
Son-yup !
—————————
The wingnuts must have been taking notes watching Thomas on Alberta Prime time., lol. And I suppose when they watch Danielle on Juno news pulling the immigration** buffalo cookies this is the result. But , but, she sounds so sincere , and her wanting to to push the population of Alberta to 10 million by 2030 ,well only if they were the right people–you know, the one’s with the white-gold visa cards.,hmmm? might have been titanium, too much flotsam.
Natural born Canadians– I’m guessing that they don’t mean the Indigenous peoples
” Mikisew Cree First Nation ”
Mikisew win against Jeffery Rath at Alberta Court of Appeal.
Treaty no.8 territory- May 4 2025
…the court of appeal unanimously held that Rath’s contingency fee agreements were unenforceable.
….for example under similar agreements ,Rath received $11 million and $28 million from Tallcree FN and Sturgeon Lake CN once their Treaty agricultural claims benefits were settled with the federal government between 2016 and 2018.
In 2019 and 2020 a quorum of Chief and counsel purportedly entered into two contingency agreements with Rath concerning Treaty annuities and Treaty Right to Education.
This could have entitled Rath to 15% of the claim…
No wonder he said something like we’ll just give them some money and that will be it.
…sought to seek return of all or some of the $28 m fee.
As far as the ” free from external climate agendas” that is straight out of the P-25 handbook for getting rid of NOAA, and the weather networks, because they are just trying to stifle capitalism.
(receipts =MT / referencing the flooding in Texas and all the cuts) Sounds like JK’s war room deals, and Dani’s war moratorium on solar etc.
—————-
**Ironically, on July 3 ,in France a large mural was unveiled….
Dutch artist Judith de Leeuw told Storyful it was meant to reflect shame for the current US immigration policy….it’s called the Statue of Liberty’s silent protest….
If I remember right, a French politician was talking about getting the statue back, something to do with d’rump signing an executive order on the anniversary of “Lady Liberty “…
(Google, sorry I can’t provide the links)
Reality-challenged idiots funded by entitled, whiney oil patch oligarchs who don’t know how to properly paddle a canoe when travelling alone.
Le sigh.
A 44 page report, total BS or not, took significant time, resources and money. Who paid and how, to whom?
The last I heard (a few years ago), was that an organisation could purchase a study from the Fraser Institution[sic] on any topic, confirming the buyer’s highly subjective opinions and preconceptions, for the low, low price of $28,000 CA.
But only if they were the “Right” sort of opinions. The Fraser Institute is a prime producer of research that starts with the desired conclusion and works backward to find “facts” that support it.
My thoughts exactly. In particular, I’d like to know if there is any foreign money involved.
Albertan culture, for 52 percent of the voting population is nothing more than whining at a pitch and volume that would drown out an F1 engine. That and dressing up like a wannabe cowboy for a few days every year.
I am surprised that the report’s detention and deportations did not include tearing the children away from their parents.
that will be the surprise for them at the end and they don’t want to spook the population they are going to have to deal with all these children or of course they could sell them off, we all remember what slavery was don’t we. Looks like the U.S.A. will try to return to it and given Alberta loves what the Americans do, expect Alberta to want to do the same. O.K. we can invade now. No executions though, we’re Canadian
“Natural-born Canadians”, eh? So I guess those who were born as a result of medically-assisted reproduction aren’t welcome either?
But seriously, the racist xenophobia is strong with these whackos. How much would you wager that they might have different attitudes towards second-, third- and later generations of Canadian- born people of colour, versus white refugees from war zones like Ukraine.
And let us not forget that the only people living in Canada that are not descended from immigrants are Indigenous people.
So indigenous folks are not descended from people who migrated to the territory currently known as Canada? What would be the last common ancestor of both Homo sapiens and indigenous Canadians?
Murphy– maybe a moot point, but impo ,the indigenous people having a minimum 15,000 yrs of history and lineage in North America , supersedes the 300-400 yrs of Europeans ** .The fact that the alt-right/white do not acknowledge this history ,imo shows the typical notion of their selective “reasoning” or justification for their actions.
**Vikings
{“What” would be the last common ancestor ? I assume you meant to say ‘who’}
More performative BS. The only separation happening is rubes from their money.
“….being able to drive on ice and snow….”: About 8 years ago, my wife and I, just before Christmas, were driving from Calgary to Edmonton after a snowfall; the temperature was about -10. The freeway was very slippery.
We saw a lot of accidents that had happened, and we saw accidents happening. The plates were all Albertan. It was clear to us, those drivers ending up in the ditch either did not know or did not care about speed.
We did not stop to check if these drivers were immigrants or recent transplants from Coastal BC.
PS We live on Vancouver Island, but truly learned to drive on ice and snow while living in northern BC for over 25 years.
I live by the motto: Timing is everything. If i knew for sure Batshit was going to be our premier after the next election, I would move. However, I am waiting to see if Albertans will make the same mistake twice. Right now, (timing) I don’t think is the right moment to move. I don’t think she pull off separation, nor the CPP heist – ever. But I am getting weary of all this extremist nonsense in Alberta. I’ve lived here 45 years. It may be time…
Rural-Albertan-born myself. Been there. Seen that.
50% of the entire country’s pensions?
STOP RIGHT THERE.
Ontario is the engine of capitalism here. Someone needs to point that out to Dixie Dani.
How about *this* Dani? You get nothing. Nothing. You want a divorce? YOU pay for it. It can come out of Alberta’s pension plan portion.
Native folk aren’t giving you their land, so what are you left, with?
Enough already. Enough.
Either join Canada full-heartedly or be reverted into one large First Nations’ Province so we can have sensible people to deal with after they turf you lot, out.
APP represents a combination of the classic bait and switch fraud and the old shell game using three cups and a pea that should prove appealing to the greed of the perennially gullible.
All of the players operating the long con of Alberta separation are intimately related and work closely together:
“Alberta Premier Danielle Smith attended a leadership debate hosted by the Alberta Prosperity Project and Ezra Levant’s Rebel News in August 2022. “So part of when I decided I wanted to run [for Alberta premier], I knew how important it was to make sure that we addressed the issues of autonomy,” Smith said at the event. “And I talked to Dr. Modry as one of my first steps. I said, ‘let’s try this together.’””
https://www.desmog.com/alberta-prosperity-project/
As the old saying goes, you do not need to be a weatherman to know who has been blowing who in little Alberta’s separatist Whoville. It’s a small world, after all, that includes the usual cast of characters: vaccine sceptics, human caused climate change deniers, conspiracy theorists, ect., ect. And when in doubt, always advocate for more growth, more extraction, more profit, and more consumption, because enough is never enough.
And what does this motley crew-d have in common? A conscious or semi-conscious commitment to the values of capitalism, which is the now the most divisive and destructive economic system in recent history.
Forget about “human nature” and look at what (and who) is driving the bus off the cliff…..
In rural Alberta we are now seeing the third generation of farm boys who dropped out of school and ran off to the rigs. They are facing the reality of being unemployable in their late 40s and early 50s. Many of my contemporaries who are now in their late 60s and 70s also ran off to the rigs. One of my friends dropped out of high-school and within a few months was making more money than my favorite aunt who was a senior anesthesiologist.
Not all of them used their high wages to good advantage, and many are now separatists because they can see the rice bowls of their favorite sons are no longer being filled. Add in the shocking news that separatism talk has tanked the value of their acreage McMansions and their anxiety is growing.
The late Premier Jim Prentiss said to “look in the mirror” for the source of Alberta’s poor financial state. Dani Smith and her UCP clown-show know to stoke their anxiety while giving them the excuse to blame Trudeau, or somebody/anybody, or anything else for their anxiety.
@Kang:
You know the weird part for me. There *are* reasons to rebel, disagree or revolt against the feds.
Rebelling against the feds for the benefit of Multi-National Oil Corporations rather than in step with what revolutionary spirit the Indigenous people of the land engender? What are these fools, smoking?
The province DID sell out the futures of all those young people. Instead of saving up the extra tax money, or charging a tiny surcharge tax to the oil companies to invest in the future for when oil prices would swing so there would be a surplus for hard times, they spent like drunken sailors on a weekend bender at a Las Vegas casino. Instead of investing in other ventures that might bring future gains for the next generation, they acted like they were sitting on a perpetual pot of gold when they knew full well, they weren’t.
Essentially, they sold their kids’ college funds AND refused to expand the family business to provide jobs.
It was their job to be the adults in the room who looked to the future and they failed.
In 1995, Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come bluntly told the Parti Quebecois that “if you separate from Canada, the Quebec Cree Nation will be staying with Canada, and be keeping the James Bay Hydro project.” The Federal government agreed. Jacques Parizeau, Lucien Bouchard, et al did a very credible gaffed fish impression, then threw predictable apoplectic fits. And lost their referendum. Turned out a majority of Quebers agreed with Chief Coon Come.
Danielle Smith & the Alberta Prosperity fools are not smart enough to understand history and therefore doomed to repeat it. It appears the First Nations leaders in Alberta however, do read & understand history.
The UCP are becoming more despicable by they day. What a gong show.
Separatism is what happens when leadership runs out of ideas and starts yelling into the void. It’s not vision—it’s political cosplay for people who peaked in the convoy.
I’m so done with the endless pity party about Alberta being “hard done by.” We’ve got real problems to solve, and this movement’s only solution is to light a match and hope someone else builds the fireproof plan.
And let’s be honest—these guys actually believe all the “natural-born Albertans” would stick around if this trainwreck ever left the station. Please. I’d pack up my third-generation Albertan ass, grab my kid, my dog, and my healthcare card, and be in BC before they finished arguing about what to name the new currency. (Wildrose Bucks? Smithcoin?)
Separatism isn’t strength.
It’s cowardice with a bumper sticker.
And some of us still believe in building something better—not running from it.
Mic dropped. Yeehaw revoked.
Hear, hear! Never seen it put better than this.
If you take away all the O&G subsidies……mining oil is NOT profitable……some royalties that should be paid are going to the pockets of the elite……but CONS won’t tell you that…..this is why HC&E are continually being eroded and short changed…..its the constant transfer of wealth to the upper crust……vis a vis GOV. corporate welfare schemes…..just like the TFW programs that suppresses wages and send billions abroad to feed TFW families……all on the backs of domestic workers…and guess who benefits the most?…..why its CANADA’s banks of course….through account activations and money transfers that’s who…..the cream of the crock…..the creme of the golden towers of power……the largest Bank in the world if all of Canada’s 5 money toppers joined and with the 4 juniors in tow…..all assets combined……it would be the largest bank in the world…..larger than the Bank of CHINA…..this is a mighty feat for such a small population……so who’s your daddy now?…..take a good look at our hollowed out democracy with all those fees….what a shell game…..Canada’s 3 levels of gov, best right a wrong here….and soon…..There is an travesty of justice within our small nation……and so the division goes on…….and the back room politic game that hurts most Canadians goes unchecked but not unheard…..so the question remains……just who are these billionaires and upper crusties that are busy dividing all of us? some of them are on X…….
And in today’s news:
Newcomers vs. born-and-raised Albertans: Turns out, they’re not all that different
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/longtime-albertans-newcomers-similar-values-janet-brown-poll-1.7575655
So much for my hopes that progressive-minded young professionals would “emigrate” to the foreign country-wannabe of Oilberduh. Ms. Brown says that most folks come here because they think they’ll fit in.
Oh well. Hopefully all those ROC “immigrants” are at least loyal to Canada. Unlike Mitch Sylvestre and his ilk.
Thank you for this DJC. I laughed, read the comments and kept smiling. I sat there for a while and I was suddenly overwhelmed with sorrow about Alberta’s tomorrow.
This is exactly what I felt. Our ‘leaders’ are the ones who need to not have access to sexual explicit materials. I doubt they can handle their pea sized brains.
I am glad that David can report all this craziness so well, because history needs to have a true description of what is going on. I no longer have words to express what I really feel about these clowns.
If the ‘Prosperity Project’ (sic) ever came to fruition, I suspect we would soon find all the little things the federal government does that no one ever thinks about, and that did not make it into the ‘fully costed fiscal plan’, because none of the prosperity people thought about either.
For example, the next time you fill up with gas, look at the pump for a little sticker from the government. There is some federal civil servant who drives from gas station to gas station, filling a one litre container with gasoline, just to make sure the pumps are accurate. The same federal department also checks the scales at grocery stores etc. Did the prosperity people think to include that little item in their document?
I also wonder if they realized they will be in charge of passenger screening at airports, and air traffic control as well.
Finally, in the document they listed how much money they would spend in the various departments they would be responsible for as a federal government. It would be interesting to see how that amount compares to what the Canadian government spends currently, just to see if it is realistic.
Just to put a little bit of perspective– on the flip side of the separatists we have someone who wants to work for Albertans…aka Bonnie Critchley— “Damien Kurek sold us out for the angry guy from Ottawa ” D’mn: mic drop., and she has a platform out that makes me wish I could vote for her. I haven’t seen or heard anything from Skippy except that he is “going to stand up for Alberta against the feds in Ottawa “…??? Excuse me ?
And her black cowboy hat is a homage` to her military service, that she wants to fight for and serve her community.
Mr.Poilievre ? Mark Carney had his elbows down while trying to flip pancakes.
Fun fact– the Calgary police hand out police/sheriff’s badges to the kids….’police helper’. Just saying….lol
Alberta separatism went from posturing to preposterous, and on to absurd—from historical and politically useful mythology to, since Danielle Smith became premier, finished-before-it-started and, lately, to stone-deafness of the majority of Albertans—including some now-former UCP MLAs.
If Smith can’t hear her own, erstwhile UCP MLAs when they criticize her directly to her face in the Assembly—never mind the entire NDP Opposition—, then how much more deaf is she to the majority of Albertans when they express their unequivocal opposition to secession indirectly in every other forum, from on-the-street to online? Or is it the other way around? A palindromic a-fortiori argument has to be some kinda rare achievement.
Obviously the large majority of Canadians are also unequivocally against Alberta separation. The two metrics are absolutely required to pursue secession: Alberta’s electorate must vote in a referendum that complies with the federal Clarity Act and, in the unlikely event a majority votes to secede, then all ten of the federates’ legislatures and the federal House of Commons must ratify it, according to the SCoC’s reference opinion which would doubtlessly guide it should a challenge ever require a precedent-setting judicial decision. Since the odds of meeting all these thresholds are virtually impossible and the exercise therefore preposterous, starting and ending with the referendum which Albertans clearly don’t want and, if needs, will overwhelmingly vote to remain Canadians, one has to wonder what the reason for pretending to not hear such a loud denunciation by such a large majority of Canadians—including a majority of Albertans—really is.
Maybe there isn’t a real reason—except for whatever it is that makes Smith destroy every office she’s ever been elected to— Calgary School Board, Wildrose and ProgCon parties (terminating the latter’s 44-year dynasty) and, as schism sets in because of her poor leadership, possibly the UCP too. When Smith’s run-of-the-mill climate-change denial gradated to snake-oil Covid claims, thence to what kind of people she wants to come to Alberta and whom she would “deport”, an authority not accorded federated sub-jurisdictions, she pays cringingly wanton fealty to the Orange-Goo-Tanned One who would probably say, any time of any day, “I don’t know this woman, I never met this woman,” and, despite her pilgrimage of sycophancy to MAGA Logo and commendation by none other than free-enterpriser Kevin O’Leary, probably a perfunctorily tRumpesque “She’s not my type” because she doesn’t much resemble Steven Miller, the tRumpublican Goebbels. When tRump waxes tediously about annexing Canada because we don’t clean the ground of twigs and needles in the 2nd-largest boreal ecosystem on the planet (so vast it can’t even be viewed in entirety from the altitude of most orbiting satellites), or whatever the blame of the moment is for him, it’s plain his playbook from which Smith reads so closely can’t be taken seriously. And when rogue, metapoli-sci prof Barry Cooper preaches that the two Spare Cloth Provinces of Locklandia are the only ones the USA is interested in annexing anyway— as if historically-justified Canadian wariness of American Manifest Destiny should be relieved that such thuggish extortion would end right there—it’s gallingly obvious that maverick Wexiteers daring Canada to knock the a buffalo chip off their shoulders are living in a never-never fantasy land, one naturally wonders who’s behind this psychodrama.
I can’t help but suspect, since I’ve been to both Melville, Saskatchewan and Brooks, Alberta that it’s the producer of The Producers, Mel Brooks himself, his screenplay the supreme irony of staged entertainment and the power of ridicule over the most heinous episode in human history. (One of Brooks’ best movies, the protagonists devise a scheme to bet large against the success of their own broadway play which they design to be so offensive it will bomb first night—only to be ruined by the production’s unexpected, smashingly successful debut. For me it’s a toss-up whether it or Blazing Saddles is Brooks’ supreme masterpiece.)
A 51st-state of Locklandia would actually be, in the present manifestation of the USA, the 28th landlocked state, but the cognitive dissonance of simultaneous, dual-purpose distraction-and-attraction works pretty well for pseudo-politicians like Smith and tRump whose junk, to paraphrase Andrew Dice Clay, is about to fall out and hit the floor sooner than the hyper-mythologized, modern-day Manifest Destiny and Lebensraum could ever accomplish, even in fantasy. But Smith and tRump are carny hucksters, and neither Brooks nor Clay would touch politics with a N=google-foot poll. So who’s really behind this psychodramatic slow-mo train-wreck?
With presumed permission from the Paint Driers Union I would first suggest seeing clear of manifest destiny and lebensraum with one more absurdity-check : Hitler’s Lebensraum was predicated upon ethnic German —or pure-blood “Aryan”—fecundity to fill the conquered and murderously-cleansed “living room” whereas tRump’s preferred US ethnicity is almost completely moribund—in many areas actually attritting—and couldn’t even fill a tiny part of his own country, much less Canada, the 2nd-biggest country in the world; meanwhile, the ethnicities he would detain without charge or trial and incarcerate/deport in or to concentration camps are by far the most fecund citizens in the nation and by far the largest potential source of patriotic Americans. Okay, that absurdity test done, let us proceed by Ockham, that the simplest explanation is the best one.
Forget, if possible, the historical ignoramuses who revise history and the psephological gormless who presume popular rebellion against democracy. Mel Brooks’ evil twin in Alberta is Big Bitumen. Through its deft deployments of pseudo-science, economic blackmail, and demagogic proxies it has fabulated a magical redoubt around the Albetarian Mines of Bitumen, exploitation of which it intends to defend as a self-ordained right. Firstly, although Big-B is owned and operated by American interests, its own, self-envisioned destiny is not genuine American Manifest Destiny but, rather, particularly focused on the 3rd-largest deposit of petroleum known, with small splatters to the northeast in Alberta and southeast in Saskatchewan, not on the whole continent (+ Greenland). Oh, certainly it will use innate American exceptionalism, not least that the time scales of 1775-until-now and the prospective lifetime of mineable, or surface bitumen are similar (about two centuries at current rate of extraction) to sustain a distractive narrative. It will support and instruct its political proxies in Edmonton, Regina, and Ottawa to dredge up every conceivable slight and beef with the federal government Alberta has ever had at any given moment and mush them all together into a mythic ball of rage (or, as it used to be, every complaint with the Quebec government which Reformers insisted was one and the same with the federal). It will order the manufacture of popular consent to secede which Smith by her deeds, Cooper by his words, and Wexiteers by their manifestos promote, their ears cemented shut with duck-down and tar.
But what’s B-Bitumen so worried about? It already enjoys handsome subsidies and absolution from cleaning up its mess, the lowest royalties and corporate taxes practicably possible, and a very reliable consumer base south of the border from which it profits immensely. Moreover, it has manipulated Alberta into a position of almost total dependence on and subservience to Bitumen mining by ordering its political proxies to stifle investment in a broader-based economy and, especially, to beggar alternative energy development, no matter how comparatively competitive with petroleum—in short, Big-B already has Alberta by the short and curlies because it has so many lucrative operations worldwide it can plausibly threaten to pack up and leave. Strictly speaking the USA, as one of the biggest oil producers in the world, doesn’t critically depend on Canadian dilbit. It reminds that Albetarian Dilbit it’s not entirely the US government’s concern but, instead, Big-B’s concern for simple reasons: a huge, multi-century resource and a huge, mega-gluttonous consumer market for the stuff, which is the USA. Understandable, yes, but why foment Alberta separatism when, if we may infer from the past, it will get everything it wants anyway?
After all, despite the pearl-choking resentments Canadians affect over tRump’s idiotic 51st-state riffing, we basically know that the US benefits more with a sovereign Canada as its most important economic and strategic ally. We are confident ordinarily inconsiderate Americans will eventually figure out who’s really to blame for the tax on Canadian goods they import and have to pay, and why it’s a pain in the pocketbook and in the ass. Instead, Big-Bitumen’s primary worry is the growing concern around the world that undeniable climate-change, caused mostly by the use of petroleum fuel, is happening faster, more destructively, and way more expensively than even the Casandras predicted not so very long ago.
Thus, if Big-B had its druthers the choice of sovereignty over the massive bitumen-and-sand deposit is a simple one: although Canada is a high-emission nation and struggles politically to address that, at least it officially acknowledges the cause of climate change and develops policy—again, politically challenging—to ameliorate the worst of what’s irrefutably headed our way whereas the USA, one of the world’s largest emitters, demonstrates much, much less political will to ameliorate petro-pollution, federally denies climate change as human-caused and responsible for increasingly frequent weather-related catastrophes, and has abrogated its international emissions-reduction treaties. Although the Carney Liberals have scrapped the carbon tax, indirectly at the behest of Big-B by way of its provincial and federal political proxies, there are many other policies it feels threatened by, considering the centuries-long time horizon it expects to profit from Alberta bitumen. It would much rather the deposit was under US, rather than Canadian jurisdiction.
If, as many of us suspect, Big-Bitumen is behind Barry Cooper’s suggestion that the Americans weigh-in to support Alberta and Saskatchewan’s confederation with the USA—or, in Cooper’s imagination, protect Alberta and Saskatchewan from any attempt by Canada to stop them from seceding, then it’s worthy of an investigation of the most serious sort by the sovereign federation of Canada.
I don’t want to sound tit-for-tat vindictive, but I would sooner bet on a sovereign Canada trying Big-B and its political collaborators on substantiated charges of treason than on some goofy notions about history repeating manifest destiny or lebensraum being able to convince many Canadians to approve of Alta-Sask separation. It’s not about tRump’s idiotic “51st-state” twaddle or some Black-Tucker-Peterson revisioning of cyclically-rooted fascism, it’s about Big-B protecting what it presumes its own, worldly significant deposit of petro-goo. It doesn’t matter that the paradigm is shifting to non-petroleum energy, Big-B is hedging on the long-call. Like a thousand year reich…
What basis is there for that very long-shot position? The reason for doing it now seems to be one of best opportunity while the world, and particularly Canada and the USA, is gripped, distracted, or handcuffed by a wave of demagogic throes. But my question is, if this crazy episode loses America’s hegemony in the world—as many observers are just now starting to take seriously—, how does Big-B figure its Athabasca position can be better protected, for the next two centuries no less, from the vicissitudes of carbon-emissions policy now making waves and smoke everywhere, by eventuating Alberta and Saskatchewan’s subsequent confederation with a declining behemoth?
Am I not getting something here?—or am I really watching Blazing Saddles instead of The Producers?
Scotty— Blazing Saddles it is……LLMAO
Skippy riding into Calgary, cowboy hat and boots and sheriff’s badge proudly pinned to his shirt….” people of Battle River, I’m going to save you from those feds in Ottawa ”
Stormy Danielle: ” it’s tru, it’s whelly tru…..
Hmmm, now who qualifies for Mongo…..Scott or Dougie ?
This is a video just crying to happen, lol