The problem with Jack Mintz leading the committee that’s supposedly tasked with determining the pros and cons of Alberta separation is that he already appears to have made up his mind in favour of secession.
“Albertans need to know and understand the potential impacts of separating from Canada,” said Dr. Mintz, who has for many years filled the role of the Alberta conservative movement’s favourite economist, in the government’s news release on Friday.
In that canned quote he added that the “highly complex” work would be carried out by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, which he led from 2008 to 2015 and with which he is still associated. “The advisory council will provide feedback to ensure that the in-depth assessment of economic considerations associated with separation enables Albertans to make an informed decision.”
The obvious problem with this is that on Dec. 19, 2018, Dr. Mintz wrote a strongly worded op-ed in The National Post that was headlined, “Alberta has better reasons to Albexit than Britain did for Brexit.” This accurately summarized Dr. Mintz’s arguments.
In the op-ed, Dr. Mintz claimed federal environmental and economic policies presented an “existential” threat to Alberta’s economy and asserted that “whatever negatives Alberta would face are easily swamped by the positives that would come with separation.”
Although Dr. Mintz qualified that statement by suggesting in the op-ed that the moment might not yet be right for Alberta to become a separate country, he went on to say that “if Brexit happened, then Albexit is just as possible. Probably more so, given the existential threat to Alberta’s prosperity over resource development.”
In an interview that evening with the CBC’s As It Happens radio program, Dr. Mintz reinforced his previous comments, stating that he believed Alberta “has to” separate from Canada “if it’s really put to the wall.” The CBC news story on that interview does not indicate what specific policies or conditions Dr. Mintz believed would constitute Alberta being put to the wall.
Lots has changed since 2018, of course, but it is not clear if that includes Dr. Mintz’s mind. He has not yet responded to an email query about his current views about separation.
In the absence of anything from Dr. Mintz, we are left to wonder if Alberta Premier Danielle Smith – who claims to be auditioning for the role of Captain Canada but appears more like a committed separatist if you judge her by her recent actions – has just appointed a committee led by a separation proponent to judge the merits of separation before Albertans vote in a separation referendum.
While Dr. Mintz has an impressive curriculum vitae, there can be no question he is a strong and consistent supporter of Conservative political parties’ policies. Remember, when he wrote the 2018 piece, there was a Liberal government in Ottawa and a New Democrat Government in Edmonton, so it’s possible his intention was to suggest the United Conservative Party then led by Jason Kenney would be a better bet to keep Alberta in Canada than Rachel Notley.
But the impression left to most readers of the article is surely that it presents a tendentious argument for separation based on the views of a true believer.
In it, Dr. Mintz warns about “the possibility of leaving Alberta oil wealth in the ground” while demand continued to grow, claiming that this would be “an existential threat to the province.” This suggestion was completely unjustified.
As premier, Ms. Notley had pushed hard, and successfully, for the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline to the B.C. Coast; the Trudeau Government had already purchased the pipeline and was determined to proceed with its construction; the federal environment minister was Catherine McKenna, and say what you will about her other policies she too was on board with TMX.
The strategy adopted both by the Liberals in Ottawa and the NDP in Alberta was to ensure oilsands production could be expanded by creating “social license” through other carbon-reduction policies, an approach disparaged by Conservatives at the time.
So, yes, there were still legal speed bumps on the road to completing the TMX, but here was zero chance in December 2018 that anyone in power in Ottawa or Edmonton had any intention of leaving Alberta’s oil wealth “in the ground.”
As for Dr. Mintz’s argument that “whatever negatives Alberta would face are easily swamped by the positives that would come with separation,” shall we say that regardless of his undoubted qualifications as an economist, that showed a remarkable degree of naivety about how the rest of Canada was likely to respond to Alberta secession and the complications of establishing trading relations with other countries. And that includes the United States, which in less than two years would elect Joe Biden as president.
“Alberta will also be able to keep for itself the annual $20 billion more it sends each year to Ottawa in taxes,” Dr. Mintz cheerfully predicted, perhaps forgetting that as an independent country Alberta might have considerable additional expenses as well. Perhaps, as Premier Smith herself recently suggested, they might be in the vicinity of $70 billion a year plus start-up costs in the order of $300 billion.
“Hard borders and potential trade barriers with the rest of Canada would be a cost, but these would be subject to negotiation,” Dr. Mintz continued in his 2018 peice, asking, “would they really be drastically worse than current internal barriers to trade (including pipeline obstacles) that already exist between provinces?” The short answer to anyone who has paid attention to geopolitics is yes. Considerably.
He speculated chirpily that Saskatchewan might like to join up, a common notion in separatist circles nowadays. Trust me on this, though. It won’t when it realizes its relationship with the relative behemoth next door in Alberta would be, yes, essentially a colonial one instead of a full province, a status some might argue is not justified by its small population.
In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, what Dr. Mintz’s 2018 article establishes is that he is not a suitable person to lead an effort that the Alberta Government has promised us will provide “objective, evidence-based analysis” so that we Albertans can be confident in how we decide to vote in Premier Smith’s dangerous separation referendum.
The right thing for Dr. Mintz to do is to admit that his previously published views make him inappropriate for this role, and gracefully step aside.
Jack Mintz has as much legitimacy as a three dollar bill. The UCP need to be gone, before they do any more damage than they already have.
Penultimate paragraph: establishs is –> establishes
Thank you, Markovich. Fixed. DJC
There is nothing graceful about anything the UCP has done since it came to power in 2019. They have always been and will always be bulls in a china shop. They boldly smash the crockery and refuse to pay.
As for the mysterious Mr. Mintz, he first appears in his online bios in 1973, when he graduated from the University of Alberta. We know from information posted by his brother that his parents moved to Edmonton in the early 1950s. What is Jack Mintz’s human capital investment in Alberta of the future? Does he have adult children and grandchildren who live here and will suffer the consequences of an “independent” Alberta? I cannot say if any of these theoretical descendants are working poor, but I doubt it.
Danielle Smith herself has little to lose with her hidey-hole escape pod in Panama. She’s feathering her nest for her nest egg rather well. Other pro-secession “experts” (I use the term loosely because they step well outside their expertise) have enough personal wealth to move wherever they want in the world.
Secession is for the rich and powerful (and seemingly over 65 in many cases; padding retirement income with hefty consultancy fees is a thing.) They won’t stick around unless they are gifted power, money and immunity from prosecution to serve as our overlords.
Do pig farmers in Oyen, Alberta really think these wealthy academics care about them? These Alberta elites are no different from any other ruling class in democracies and non-democracies anywhere else. Forget “Laurentian elites”. These folks do what’s best for themselves and their investment portfolios. They don’t care what happens to the rest of us, our children and our pending lives of future impoverishment. They’re actively stripping Alberta of all its assets and lining their own pockets. There will be nothing left for the rest of us when the UCP and their hired “experts” bleed Alberta of its wealth and natural resources. They’ve already increased your taxes to pay for private schools for their privileged children and grandchildren. Did you notice?
If you live in Oyen or any other pro-separatist community, be assured that the “experts” behind your movement are manipulating you to benefit themselves. They don’t know anything about you and your way of life, nor do they care. You are being played, like a cat with a mouse. In the end, the cat wins. You are the mouse. This is the story Of Mice and Men.
You do have to wonder if Danielle Smith’s staff vetted Jack Mintz for this kind of thing, or if the name Jack Mintz was all the vetting that occurred.
He’s part of the odiously oleaginous oligarchs
“Alberta will also be able to keep for itself the annual $20 billion more it sends each year to Ottawa in taxes”
While 5m people pay for a fully equipped army, border guards, (they’re going to need both as First Nations fight and pour over the border to aid our cousins–they DO realize there are more than a million of us?) postal system, banking system, treasury, regulatory offices, all the healthcare costs, federal infrastructure etc etc and their population is cut by say…20% of those that flee.
“Hard borders and potential trade barriers with the rest of Canada would be a cost, but these would be subject to negotiation”
How conciliatory do they think federal negotiators are going to be when faced with a rogue province that will soon be an outpost of the US Empire? How conciliatory was the EU towards England knowing it was a USA wedge? Do they see how the USA treats England? 25% tariff rates. And they haven’t even absorbed them, yet.
We all need to stop talking about this, now. It’s a fantasy.
It would be like Toronto seceding. Same population without the financial machinery that runs it. Believe me, we’re tempted considering that greedweasle, Ford. Except we’re not idiots. Better to be patient and wait for a moment to fix it rather than destroy the joint.
Let me explain to them what would happen to them. First, they’d be sanctioned. Sure they will be able to smuggle stuff by land from the USA but where would they get the cash when the feds cut off the banking from a rogue state? Then, they would be treated as an arm of the US Empire and traitors. Have fun with that. That means no Canadian company will be allowed to trade with them. The entire EU would sanction them. No ports? No Chinese goods.
Secessionists the world over can tell them that starting a “new” country is hard enough when they used to be an *actual* country with a distinct culture before some larger country or Empire, absorbed them. They tend to be bullied by all the countries that surround them. It takes generations before the mess settles down and the economic hardships are often never, overcome.
Not wanting to pay a fair share of taxes isn’t a reason to be a country as in the long run–it costs more to run a country than a province/state. Why do they think California, with the world’s 5th largest economy–hasn’t done it already? They surely have more grievance and can absorb the economic blow better than Alberta ever could. AND…they aren’t landlocked.
Idiots.
Albertans, are you sure this chronic separatist whinging isn’t destroying what future you might actually have the chance of achieving?
“Alberta is worse off today than it was 30 years ago.” — Ted Morton, November 30, 2019.
Yet, it is business as usual for O&G corporation foreign shareholders who are apparently managing quite nicely,
https://www.taxfairness.ca/sites/default/files/2025-10/Exporting-Profits-Report-October-2025.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7XzEoddonU
Which is both the objective and the result of deliberate government policy choices, i.e., “Of course I’m going to take advice from CEOs. Who else would I take advice from?”
So for example, one result is the following, “The provincial government maintains a corporate tax rate of 8%—the lowest in Canada. While intended to spur local investment, much of this capital has instead gone into a “harvest phase” prioritizing investor dividends over local economic reinvestment or job creation.”
The lesson is a simple one, the appropriate scapegoats; which, are needed to distract from both historical and current poor Provincial government policy choices, need to be chosen very carefully, as one never wants to, heaven forbid, either offend or appear to be attacking the owners of capital.
Lastly, Ted Morton, “the role player in a stage play”, is a closely aligned fellow traveler of Jack Mintz, i.e., “Yet in the strange marriage of Ted Morton and the Alberta Residents League, a separatist root fire may be burning beneath what appears to be a simple agenda for reasserting Alberta’s interests.”
Bang on! If the good Doctor was not a seppie he would not have been tasked with leading this confederacy of dunces on the “pros and pros” of separation.
Mintz is as objective and credible on Alberta separation (and equalization) as he is on climate policy and energy.
“Mintz, a member of the Order of Canada, is often quoted as an expert on energy questions, but he is also an active participant in the oil industry. Since 2005, he has sat on the board of Imperial Oil, which is 70% owned by American giant ExxonMobil. According to Imperial’s annual report, Mintz received $258,675 last year for his work as a director, and holds $1.5 million in Imperial Oil shares.”
“What Canada’s pro-oil boosters fail to grasp about climate change” (Macleans, Sep 27, 2019)
• https://www.macleans.ca/politics/what-canadas-pro-oil-boosters-fail-to-grasp-about-climate-change
A longtime disinformer on climate policy and carbon pricing.
The only climate Jack Mintz recognizes is the investment climate. The health of the real-world climate and real-world people be damned.
On equalization:
Mintz: “Leaving aside politics, however, the Alberta plan does raise deep concerns for the rest of Canada, which depends on Alberta’s $20 billion in annual transfers though the federal budget.”
Wilful economic illiteracy.
“Jack Mintz: With Alberta’s climate plan, actions speak louder than words” (EJ, 20-Apr-23)
https://web.archive.org/web/20230420214939/https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/alberta-climate-plan-actions-speak-louder-than-words/wcm/b1a69903-f329-455e-9d31-d2703ca02735
When has Mintz ever left politics aside? His remarks on equalization are framed to sow ignorance and confusion.
Federal revenues flow primarily from wealthy taxpayers and profitable corporations; provincial transfers, including equalization, flow to provincial governments to pay for programs and services for the entire population.
The Alberta Govt does not send a cent to Ottawa. Ergo, no “annual transfers”.
In 2023, Alberta taxpayers contributed 14% of federal revenues = 14% of funds for equalization. 14 cents on every tax dollar collected and spent. 14 cents on every equalization dollar.
The bulk of tax revenues flow from taxpayers outside Alberta.
Alberta taxpayers contribute 14 cents on the dollar. Taxpayers in other provinces contribute the other 86 cents.
Hard to argue that Albertans largely fund transfers including (Quebec’s) equalization payments when 86% of the funds come from taxpayers in other provinces.
If Alberta secedes, Canada carries on with 86% of its revenues.
Which is more: 14 cents or 86 cents?
End of argument.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190722125222/https://www.imperialoil.ca/en-ca/company/investors/corporate-governance/board-of-directors
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/profile/jack-mintz
Thank you for underlining that Mintz is not the man for the job. Another Tory at the trough from the Calgary (oil) School no less. We don’t need another report. Mintz should comment on how much his favourite party will contribute to the Heritage Trust Fund this year amidst the “oil boom”. It should be simple math since it will have only one zero.
Marlaina bends over backwards to accommodate the seppies. She could not care less about Canada no matter what word salad spews out of her piehole. Each one of these “independent” panels is set up only to ensure that the predetermined result is achieved (provincial cops, privatized health care, lavish taxpayer subsidies to private schools, orphan well cleanup, etc.)
This woman is always trying to stack the deck, while pretending to be innocent. I wonder what she gets out of Alberta’s separation and who is really backing / stoking this group of losers. America / China / Russia? One day the truth will come out, or it will get shredded, just like when the NDP won in 2015. I wonder how much it cost the Alberta tax payer, when the outgoing Conservatives shredded all that paper. Iron Mountain must have made a small fortune.
Or Mintz is just looking for an LPC gig with the federal government? Sure. He’ll be easy to lose him in Ottawa.
100% agree that Mintz should step aside. But of course he won’t.
Sure, but Mintz isn’t a real doctor… according to MAGAs,
Did Albertans raise their placards, throw smoke bombs and chant against the very dishonest electoral boundaries do over? Umm, no.
So will they protest Dr. Mintz’s presence on this committee and his previously expressed separatist support? Ummm, no.
The opposition will come from NDP supporters, the well educated, and Canada-lovers all of whom are outnumbered by the UCP and separatist supporters.
Democracy is great but you can’t “hope” to change the mindset of your opponents. You need to act and speak forcefully.
It’s at times like this that you find out what a generally respected person is really all about. Sadly, the “respected” Dr. Mintz has no qualms about joining an important committee on an issue important for ALL Albertans with his views that clearly favour a minority of the province. It’s one thing for the Premier to pack endless committees with her low achievement crones, but another for an apparently competent and nominally respected academic and public figure to sully his name while engaging in a pretense of objectivity.
Step aside and give up skewing the report pro secession and leave that nice paycheck on the table? He ain’t doing Jack quit.
Of course with these Reformers intending to dump the major costs onto the backs of taxpayers like healthcare, education, and policing it may work, but what happens when Albertans are required to pay the $31,000. we each owe Ottawa for our fair share of the National Debt and the $34 billion pipeline they built for us. No one is considering this are they?
When did anyone associate with the Grift-o-Kons ever acknowledge a conflict of interest and then act to eliminate that conflict? Their motto is “don’t mind if I do”. Progs/liberals are all fired up about stopping wicked Pewtin, now in his fifth year of Global Blitzkrieg that has carried his hordes almost 120 km from the Russian border, with the unforeseen effect of eliminating the capacity of the new Hitler to export oil and gas, while apparently forgetting that all that Russian conquest juice has to be replaced with super-environmentally friendly shale gas and bitumen. Grift-o-Kons are quite content with an “independent” Alberta that has the caring and sharing standard of living of Oklahoma as long as their beaks get wet. The Empire wouldn’t have to bother annexing the third-world resource basket, as they already control the oil and gas. Meanwhile, Canada’s highly technologically advanced real estate speculation economy will continue to thrive as the Carny Banker implements his Great Crusade in Europe and Asia militarist economic structural adjustments. Living the dream!
Don’t hold your breath – and never forget Dani’s concerted efforts to keep the UCP in power in perpetuity by gerrymandering Alberta’s electoral boundaries. She continues to play both sides and, to give her credit, she’s very adept at doing so – all while keeping a straight, “butter wouldn’t melt” face.
This is one of the fundamental problems for Conservatives, after years and years of constantly criticizing the Federal government, sometimes only for politically partisan reasons, it is hard for them to now muster more than tepid support for Canada with any credibility.
Perhaps in their minds, after saying for years and years that Canada is broken, they have convinced themselves it is. At least, they certainly have convinced some of their supporters and now they have to try unconvince them without backtracking too much on what they previously said.
Brexit was a political exercise for the UK Conservatives to try appease some of their disgruntled supporters and stay in power. In the short term it did that, but they are out of power now and while the lunatics did not take over their party yet, a more extreme right wing party seems to have also taken away a lot of their support. So they are unlikely to be in power again any time soon, or perhaps ever. They may not even survive as a party.
I suppose Dr. Mintz, who dabbles a lot in politics for an economist, can not take back what he said in 2018 related to Brexit. However, I hope if he has paid any attention to the UK since then, he has learned it has not turned out so good, certainly not for Conservatives. Also the UK economy has not done so well since then either. There is a political as well as an economic lesson to be learned from it.
Mintz and his fellow travelers are giddy at the thought of separation for one main reason: their fantasies of a libertarian utopia that they imagine Alberta could become on its own. As for Saskatchewan joining in, conservative political operative Kory Teneycke has gone on record calling his native Saskatchewan the ‘communist right wing’, where residents may have a general conservative world view but woe betied any government that messes with public health care or the crown corporations (and, I imagine, the co-op).
I had to chuckle when I read Climenhaga’s last paragraph…
“The right thing for Dr. Mintz to do is to admit that his previously published views make him inappropriate for this role, and gracefully step aside.”
The “right thing to do” is no longer ever considered by Danielle Smith and her UCP renegades. Mintz was hand picked to appease the separatists and his forthcoming costing revelations will be “interesting” to say the very least.
If this is how Danielle Smith is going to promote a sovereign Alberta remaining in a united Canada for the next few months she is going to break her face in two.
The media should be already pressing Danielle Smith on how she is going to celebrate Canada Day this year. My bet is that she will celebrate a bit harder on July 4th. 🙂
Hah, Joe Canuck. “she is going to break her face in two” I almost spit my wine out onto my keyboard. Great line…
Likely Marlaina babes will be in Panama on July 1.
It’s becoming obvious that stupid is contagious in Alberta, and even if there was a vaccine for stupid, most of them are too stupid to take it.
“Albexit”? What appended to “Wexit”?
Oh, yeah, I momentarily forgot the aspirational Deseret of the North was pooh-poohed by the Coastal elites of Churchill, Manitoba, and Kitimat, British Columbia. Here on the Wet Coast we’d sooner join “Cascadia”—I mean, so long’s it includes California, American Columbia (now Washington and Oregon states), and Alaska.
And Manitobans? The Wexit prospect is just too unRiel—except with respect Saskatchewan, Manitoba’s “Field of Crows” where the second-last Father of Confederation made his second and last stand with Métis rebels at Batoche in 1885, was captured and summarily executed. Besides, “Saskatchewexit”? Almost as clunky as “Albexit.”
As Canada’s first aboriginal provincial Premier admonished premier Danielle Smith, she can’t even do a referendum question—let alone secession—without consulting with First Nations signatory to the Numbered Treaties that cover Alberta: since a few them also extend into Saskatchewan, it rather seemed Kinew fired a shot over the bow of USS Greater Landlockia, Scott Moe’s most-sovereign ship of dreams.
Putting aside for the moment that any sincere secession advisory commission would, or should advise one and all that there is no legal way for a province to secede unless the Constitution is amended to say that all ten provincial legislatures plus the federal parliament would have to approve it, we should remind Dr Mintz his premise—that if Brexit could happen so could Albexit—omits a crucial difference: Britain is a unitary state whereas Canada is a federation and Alberta is one of its ten federates.
Not even Scotland—once a separate kingdom powerful enough to harry and bend English policy, and eventually to commandeer the English Crown itself—could enjoy any legal or constitutional right to negotiate its citizens’ overwhelming anti-Brexit position. Neither is Northern Ireland a federate but is nonetheless rocked by the sham of a foolish Referendum which now requires customs offices to re-stifle free trade across the border with the Republic of Erin which had for a while significantly quelled the Troubles with which British martial law had so much trouble before UK joined the EU. We might as well include the not-quite-separatists, or “devolutionists” of Cymru, Mann, and Cornwall where, even if anti-Brexit voters were marginally edged by Brexiteer voters, all of them (essentially non-sovereign, rural Celtic enclaves within a United Kingdom) are politically powerless when London tells them to stuff their respective concerns including, for example, those concerning North Sea oil which London controls completely even though it would be in Scottish jurisdiction if it were the separate nation it aspires to be—or, for that matter, if it were a sovereign federate like Alberta is within a united Canada.
Economists can practice the dismal science anyplace, anytime, but their predictive powers are fairly ridiculed today by, for example, those who remember that the promised “trickledown” never happened (prerequisite were the slashing of taxes and regulations on private corporations, but the reverse happened; a prosperous upwelling of wealth directly to the top). Of course ridicule is much more derisive now that bigoted partisanship, ideological nostrums, and fascistic prejudices are choking the biggest economy in the world. The only thing its presidunce’s cavalier tax-cuts and stupid tariffs are paying out is a stadium-full of ticker-tape warning that worldwide financial disaster is imminent.
Mr Mintz’s vocation back in 2018 plainly meant to bamboozle the huddled masses, and he appears to have been recruited for much the same purpose today. It’s gotta be ill-informed, not least because only billions of negatively impacted people haven’t magically forgotten about the last decade of dismal science. Perhaps it hasn’t gotten to Albexiteers yet that erstwhile American MAGAnauts is bad-hurt too, they just ain’t realized it ’til the past year, is all.
I would refer Mr Mintz to relevant histories he might want to peruse before ejaculating how easy, prosperous, and fun it will be when Alberta secedes: they include the CVs and political careers of the likes of John Swinney, leader of the separatist Scottish National Party, who until becoming First Minister (premier) of Scotland, served in various economic SNP cabinet portfolios; Jacques Parizeau who led the separatist Parti Québécois government through the seminal 1995 Referendum, was a professional dismal scientist who nevertheless only took into account “money and the ethnic vote” after the separatist cause came perilously close to winning; Fredrick Douglas, Black American author who decried the cult of “The Lost Cause” which glorified the defeated, short-lived Confederate States of America despite the abject disaster the resulting US Civil War wrought upon the entire nation (more casualties than all other US wars combined to this day), but particularly upon the Old South when unpaid slave labour was thereby abolished, rendering the whole region a chronic economic backwater (to this day); and, finally, The diaries of Louis Riel whose ideas of political economy recorded therein were admitted as evidence of his insanity during the rushed trial which condemned him to be hung by the neck until dead before he or a power-of-attorney had any opportunity to appeal.
Once Mr Mintz gets caught up on his history reading, he should also become familiar with the separatist organizations of Greater Idaho and the American Redoubt of Montana and adjacent parts of contiguous states, long-simmering hotbeds of secession (or, failing that, a special, confederal-like carve-out from the US federation) which have acquired new significance now that MAGA tRumpublicanism has infiltrated northward to inspire Albexit (and, we might suppose, Saskatchewexit as well) from these bordering states.
I encourage Mr Mintz to pay special attention to the economic nostrums related to these secessionist movements.
Despite all the political nonsense and posturing the bottom line is very straightforward. All of the key players realize it but do not appear to want to say it. This is simply down to the numbers. And the pro Canada folks have the numbers. End of. Seems to me that many are simply waiting for the fat lady to sing the song so that everyone can go home. Why on earth does anyone think that Smith appeared to change her approach. Someone sat down with her, showed her the numbers, and advised her to forget her TBA crew and start practicing real politics.
@Murphy
Every time some news commenter says, “Canada is the leader of the free world, now,” I cringe.
I don’t want us to be the “leader of the free world”–I want us to fix THIS country. We’re nowhere near the leaders unless we’re marching them all to a neo-liberal mono-capitalist hellscape. If we do something right then let others point and say, “Some of that, please”.
The end result of neo-liberalism is always oligarchy and fascism.
The end result of neo-socialism is always a communist dictatorship.
I’d prefer we navigate the the gray space in the middle for our own best interest.
Democracy is full of mine traps, often too slow and messy. Politicians don’t think in generations, they think in four-year election terms. That’s what senates are for. If they ever worked that way.
These fake conservatives, Reformers, didn’t come into power in 2019 as some suggested it all started with Ralph Klein whom our family had known since 1960, who admitted to my parents that he was a Liberal and knew nothing about being a Conservative so he sought help from Preston Manning and Stephen Harper.
It was apparently where he got the saying that to be a good conservative you have to make the stupid people pay and he began destroying everything Lougheed created for the good of the people, and forcing privatization and deregulation down our throats and nothing has changed these Reformers are still doing it, and them and their gullible supporters are creating this financial nightmare for our children and grandchildren to have to deal with it in the future.
One question: Why is it that in every article, whether pro- or anti- separation, it is NEVER pointed out that the Indigenous Nations of Alberta (and, may I suggest, the rest of Canada), will NEVER allow this to happen? Wilful blindness everywhere. This is how BS propagates; the lies are never called out. We all deserve better than this.
@Wes,
Because they’re afraid of “encouraging” exactly the results I keep predicting. It won’t just be Alberta’s First Nations that comes a-knockin’ on the parliament door. They’re afraid of triggering a bigger repeat of Oka where all the Indigenous Nations start flooding over the border to save our cousins, setting up camps and blockades and mass protests. There are over a million of us. Rez/Urban/Registered/Non-registered/officially and not officially acknowledged. Half are children. Supporters.
That’s more people than Alberta or even the feds, can handle. They know it. We know it.
They’re scared to say it.
@B
Thank you for your response. It is helpful to know this.