On Thursday, a mostly anonymous group of some 47 individuals identifying themselves as “the Alberta Transition Council” dropped a document they called “The Alberta Transition Plan, a Practical Analysis of Alberta’s Transition from Province to an Independent Country.”
Only two authors are named in the document, St. Albert lawyer Keith Wilson, a leader of the Let Alberta Decide third-party-advertiser group, and retired business executive Dennis Kalma, who based on his Internet presence is connected to the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project.
As for the “council” comprised of the other 45, the document says they prefer to keep their role covert “in order to respect professional, employment and personal considerations.” Under the circumstances, it’s hard to blame them.
For this “plan” is an utterly unserious document, either hopelessly naïve or deeply cynical. It is a fair comment to say that either the authors actually believe the charming nonsense peddled throughout its 214 pages, in which case they are fooling themselves, or they don’t, in which case they are trying to fool the rest of us.
And for all the talk in its pages about analysis, research and findings, there is very little here but propaganda intended to create a reassuring sense of inevitability, thereby leaving Albertans with the impression that transitioning to citizens of the new state of Alberta will be a painless and quick process that would leave our lives and financial circumstances intact and inevitably result in a mutually beneficial new relationship with Canada.
It does, however, contain one interesting idea that perhaps could be explored further as a way out of the ridiculous situation Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party Government and her separatist allies have ensnared all of us who live here in the confusing, divisive and possibly rigged separation “referendum” they have scheduled for Oct. 19.
To wit: Allowing citizens of Alberta’s First Nations the option of remaining in a permanent relationship with Canada, or even for their land, encircled by the landlocked new statelet of Alberta, to remain Canadian territory.
“Canada could, for example, continue to own or administer certain reserve lands and services while the reserve remains inside Alberta,” the authors write, adopting a serious tone. “A different possibility would be to negotiate that particular reserve territory remains Canadian territory.”
The key flaw with this, as the authors must surely know, is that their own separatist base would never abide such an arrangement. Indeed, it runs directly counter to the ridiculous draft “constitution” cobbled together by the bright lights of the APP, which would constitutionally entrench the present provincial borders of Alberta for all time as the boundaries of their imagined new republic.
This part of the text continues: “That would create additional questions involving borders, roads, policing, taxes, utilities and access. Neither result would happen automatically.” To which one can reasonably respond: “No shit, Sherlock!”
Still, if Alberta First Nations can remain Canadian on Canadian land inside Alberta, why not the rest of us? The remaining 75 per cent or more of us loyal Canadians who want no part of separation but would nevertheless prefer to remain in our Alberta homes, living as Canadian citizens on Canadian territory?
All of Edmonton, for example, including its airport and Canadian Armed Forces base. Calgary, one is certain, would desire similar status. Well, this is unlikely to fly with the separatist base or the cabal of cynical schemers on Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s political staff, of course, but it is nevertheless a fine illustration of just how silly this document is despite its faux scholarly tone.
“This plan assumes that a successful transition should seek a new cooperative relationship between Alberta and Canada, not the unnecessary disruption of existing relationships,” the authors write. “In many cases, services can continue without interruption, while responsibility for their regulation, funding or oversight transitions from Canada to Alberta.”
So, the authors would have us believe, no one need fear problems accessing their bank accounts, continuation of their mortgage, receipt of their pension payments, access to health care services or education for their kids. That lawsuit you launched in a Canadian court? It can continue in an Alberta court where it left off, the authors also promise, because some of those federal judges you don’t trust will become Alberta judges you do. And those jurists’ judgments, the authors argue, will still be honoured in the rest of Canada.
Plus, federal Canadian services now offered by Ottawa will continue, quite possibly delivered by the same civil servants in the employ of the new state, the document startlingly suggests. “For those current federal employees working in Alberta who are asking if they can keep their jobs after Day 1 of independence, the short answer is yes.” One wonders how many federal employees would accept such a deal – and, if they were so foolish as to do so, how that would go over with the separatist base?
The authors say elsewhere: “RCMP members can be offered to transition to become Alberta sheriffs.” What’s more, a “cooperative agreement could allow temporary (Canada Revenue Agency) collection or data services under defined terms while Canada builds full capacity.” The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation could continue to operate too, they say. And so on.
And, hey, don’t worry about Canadians to the east and west being pissed about our frivolous decision to break up their country based on half-baked promises and U.S. and Russian Internet memes. “Geography makes an ongoing relationship both inevitable and important,” the “plan” avers.
Anyway, if that fails to work, Alberta can always threaten British Columbia. “Although British Columbia has direct access to the Pacific, it is effectively continentally landlocked by the Rocky Mountains when moving goods eastward to the rest of Canada and inland North American markets.” Moreover, B.C. “has a strong interest in preserving reliable access to Alberta energy because there is no readily available near-term replacement for supply.”
Nowhere is the absurd naivety of this work of fiction more obvious than on the question of dividing up Canada’s debt, post separation.
“The debt and assets analysis does not support using a simple per-capita or federal debt as Alberta’s final settlement formula,” the authors declare with boundless optimism. “Instead, the settlement should examine the broader financial relationship between Alberta and Canada, including federal assets and liabilities, records, historical investment, who benefited from debt-funded programs and infrastructure, contingent obligations, transition costs and Alberta’s historical fiscal contribution to the federation.”
After all, they argue, apparently forgetting that all Canadians pay the same tax rates, “Alberta taxpayers have contributed substantially more per capita to federal programs than Albertans have received through major federal transfers and spending programs.”
“Canada may propose that Alberta assume a share of federal debt based primarily on population,” the authors cheerfully continue. “However, such an approach would ignore Albertans’ historical contributions, which should be taken into account in any fair calculation methodology.”
“Should be …” That phrase does a lot of heavy lifting in this document. But good luck getting voters in other provinces whose country you have just broken up to be in a mood to let their politicians agree to any such deal, even if their leaders were in a mood to do so.
Elsewhere, under the general heading of health care, the authors seem to presume that transfer payments from Canada should continue.
What is the basis for this unwarranted optimism? Well, according to the authors, it worked for Peter Lougheed in the 1980s. “Difficult Canada-Alberta disputes have historically been responded in negotiated arrangements,” they say. They seem to have forgotten, alas, that despite his differences with the first Trudeau government, Premier Lougheed was a patriotic Canadian and Alberta was a Canadian province.
Look, there’s plenty more foolishness in this effort. I could write another 1,000 words on the disadvantages of a country with no currency of its own, the functionality of a diplomatic service that would only pay attention to North America, or the dangers of waiting until after a separation engineered by extremist right-wingers like the leaders of the APP to find out what your constitutional rights and protections in the new country would be. On that last point, the APP has already tipped its hand in its draft constitution, and it’s not pretty.
Oh, and they’re in a hurry. All this is supposed to be basically wrapped up by the fall of 2027!
Do members of the secretive cabal who cooked up this “plan” imagine that after independence Albertans will still get to send a huge cohort of separatist MPs to Ottawa every four years or so to lecture Canadians on how to run their affairs? This is not stated explicitly in this document, but such an assumption seems to underly much of what is written there.
In fact, what they propose would be a bitter and angry divorce. Worse, no matter what the vote is in Premier Smith’s bogus referendum, at least half the population of the new country, more likely two thirds, would side with the missing parent.
And the APP wants us all to be armed to the teeth!
No wonder the anonymous “council” thinks the new state would need an army and a spy agency – not to “coordinate with neighbouring states,” as the plan suggests, but to keep its own population down.
“The report will speak for itself,” Mr. Wilson told a CBC reporter. Indeed, I think it does, regardless of whether he thinks “Canadians, and many people in the world, are growing leery of the ‘experts say’ stuff anyway.”