There’s a substantial and growing body of economic research that separation would be a catastrophe for Alberta and Albertans, especially working people.
As economist Jim Stanford observed in his Aug. 31 report on the false promises made by Alberta’s separatists and the grave risks their scheme presents, “economists are unanimous that the costs of establishing a separate country would be enormous, and that Alberta will experience a brutal recession if it happens.”
“Separatist leaders promise Alberta would become a utopia: a freedom-loving, unencumbered, low-tax, prosperous energy superpower,” he wrote in his report, False Promises, Big Dangers. “The economic reality of separation would be much darker: a small, landlocked country struggling to build its own national institutions … in an environment of intense division, uncertainty, and outward flight of both people and capital.”
Indeed, another report by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, not exactly a hotbed of “Laurentian elites,” predicted that Alberta would suffer an exodus of businesses and jobs that would shrink the economy by $62 billion a year. And the right-wing Canada West Foundation weighed in with a report in which one author warned, “every Albertan should ask themselves one simple question: Can they be certain their employer, or their job, will still be here if Alberta chooses to separate?”
The work Dr. Stanford cites has been done by real experts in economics, people who actually know what they’re talking about – in other words, the kind of folks separatist leader Keith Wilson presumably had in mind when he told a CBC reporter that “Canadians, and many people in the world, are growing leery of the ‘experts say’ stuff …”
Mr. Wilson’s disdain for expertise is pretty clear from that remark and quite typical of the Alberta separatist movement, reflecting its origins in U.S. MAGA populism and the anti-vaccination Ottawa convoy siege in 2022.
Perhaps it is explained by frustration that real experts aren’t backing the economic fairy tales even the most respectable advocates of Alberta separation would like us to believe.
On the culture-war front, Alberta’s separatists can’t help themselves. On immigration, reproductive rights, and human rights, they just keep telling on themselves. It’s obvious that the society they dream of building in Alberta would be a racist, misogynistic, Christian nationalist dystopia.
If you have any doubts about what motivates that crowd, consider the recent social media comment by Bruce McAllister – executive director of Premier Danielle Smith’s office, no less – praising the election on Monday of neo-Nazis in a German state. This explains a lot, observed Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt in a social media post, “for those wondering why Alberta is having a series of anti-immigrant referendum questions.”
As Dr. Stanford pointed out in his report, the separatist/United Conservative Party blame-Ottawa narrative is intended to leave the impression that “whatever is wrong in the province must be the fault of an intrusive, acquisitive federal government, perpetually interfering with the province’s affairs and stealing its resources, taxes and wealth.” He makes a compelling case that in reality most of the problems that plague working Albertans have been created right here in Wild Rose Country by successive Conservative governments, culminating in the now separatist-dominated UCP.
The economic fantasy the Alberta separatist movement perpetrates offers only hopium – the pipedream that we don’t have to wait for the sweet by-and-by to enjoy our pie in the sky. No, with a little help from Uncle Sam – or Uncle Don, anyway – and Alberta’s oil resources, we can all be as rich as Croesus if only we set out on our own.
That may be comforting to would-be separatists, the trouble is that none of what Dr. Stanford politely calls the “myths” of separation stand up to hard economic analysis.
“The real experience of separatist movements around the world confirms that separation would unleash unprecedented uncertainty,” the report states. “Workers in Alberta would pay a huge economic and human cost for separation.”
Dr. Stanford lists numerous ways separation would crush the economy and derail democracy in Alberta. Here is a Top 10 List, based on his observations, of the lies Alberta separatists tell:
Lie No. 1: We’ll all get rich. Forget about it. Former Alberta Finance Ministry official Lennie Kaplan estimates it would cost Albertans $300 billion to replace what the federal government does now. The true number is probably north of $400 billion. The costs of running them would be billions more each year. The new country’s debt would more than quadruple. Interest rates on the debt would soar. “Economists project a reduction in real GDP of as much as 10 per cent in the first year of independence – a loss in economic output of $60-billion or more or up to $12,000 per Albertan per year of recession.”
Lie No. 2: Business investment would grow. “Business leaders in Alberta are unanimous … even the possibility of separation would badly undermine investment and growth.” This is consistent with the U.K.’s experience after Brexit, Dr. Stanford noted. “Less investment means less job creation, slower growth and reduced incomes.”
Lie No. 3: Alberta would sell more to the world. As noted in this space yesterday, Alberta’s problems can’t be blamed on difficulty exporting petroleum, despite the UCP/separatist myth-making to the contrary. Alberta’s international exports grew 16 per cent over the past five years, triple all of Canada. “As a separate country, Alberta would be small and landlocked. International experience shows this is not a recipe for trade success.”
Lie No. 4: We’ll still trade with Canada. There are no guarantees. “Separatists blithely assume that negotiations with the rest of Canada would retain free access to markets in other provinces. But this is wishful thinking. Even a 10-per-cent reduction in interprovincial exports from Alberta would be sufficient to cause a major recession here.”
Lie No. 5: We’ll be free to travel and work in Canada. Don’t bet on that. Despite propaganda to the contrary, that’s not what happened after Czechoslovakia’s peaceful “Velvet Divorce.” Slovaks called it the “Sandpaper Divorce,” because they got ground down. “No one knows if the rest of Canada would welcome Alberta with the same rights and freedoms they have today. Albertans would retain only the real right to live in their own separate, small country.” It’s said here Albertans can forget about this, especially if our new MAGA government starts forcing immigrants to leave en masse, sticking Canada with a refugee crisis.
Lie No. 6: We’ll stop subsidizing Canada. The problem with this one, as Dr. Stanford points out, is that we don’t actually subsidize the rest of Canada. “This argument is blatantly false, no matter how often separatists repeat it. The Alberta government pays no money to Quebec or any other province. To the contrary, the Alberta government receives substantial fiscal payments from the federal government – totalling about $14 billion this year. Those transfers would stop if the province separated, leaving a major hole in the new country’s budget.” In fact, the paper shows, most Albertans get more back from federal programs and services than they pay in federal taxes.
Lie No. 7: Taxes will be lower. Nope. Not happening. And because federal taxes are more progressive than Alberta taxes, working people would have to pay even more to make up the difference after separation. Given the beliefs of the separatist crowd, taxes would likely become even less progressive after separation. So, “not only would separation increase the total amount of taxes that must be collected, but that larger burden would be shared less fairly.” Services would, naturally, deteriorate. So get ready to pay more for less. And don’t expect a separatist government to increase resource royalty rates to cover the difference.
Lie No. 8: Living standards will rise. No again. Alberta now has the highest GDP in Canada. “Economists are unanimous that separation would reduce Alberta GDP and wealth, not increase it. Public services would be put under further pressure because of the enormous costs and debts associated with setting up new national institutions.” Given the ideology of the separatist movement and the likely financial crisis, say good-bye to public health care.
Lie No. 9: Our resources will be all ours. Not so fast. Ottawa and First Nations would still control legal rights to large swathes of land in Alberta. “Alberta would constitute a legal quagmire lasting for years, dramatically enhancing the uncertainty facing businesses and property developers.” Some separatists are bound to suggest violence to cut the Gordian knot, but that’s not exactly going to encourage a favourable investment climate, is it?
Lie No. 10: We can still use Canadian money. Reassuring, perhaps, to the separation curious, but basically hooey. And that also goes for using the U.S. dollar – backed by more than $40 trillion in debt. Alberta could continue to use the Canadian dollar, but don’t expect any cooperation from the Bank of Canada. Ditto with the U.S. dollar, which would put Alberta in the same company as Somalia, East Timor and Panama. “The challenge of creating a monetary system in an independent Alberta is perhaps the most daunting economic hurdle that advocates of separation must confront,” Dr. Stanford wrote. “the most likely result of separation would be monetary debasement, widespread defaults, and a breakdown in normal monetary circulation.” And brace yourself for currency controls if you wait too long to try to escape this mess.
Unfortunately, unlike a normal Top Ten list, none of these are funny.
Then there’s the biggest lie of all, although it’s not really an economic one. To wit, that by voting for separation in Ms. Smith’s referendum on Oct. 19, we’re just “sending a message to Ottawa.”
The idea we should vote to “Let Alberta Decide,” as Mr. Wilson’s group puts it, is a trick. It’s intended to divide the country and create the conditions in which separation is inevitable, even if it becomes universally obvious it’s a mistake, like the Slovaks’ Sandpaper Divorce, or the United Kingdom’s disastrous Brexit breakup with Europe.
“Just flirtation with the pipedream of separation undermines the economic, political, and social well-being of Albertans,” Dr. Stanford wrote. “And the longer this pipedream is kept alive, the more the damage will grow.”
If separation became reality, jobs and incomes would be at risk. Federal programs like Employment Insurance, the Canada Child Benefit and the Canada Pension Plan would disappear. Taxes would have to rise. Services would disappear. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms would be gone – to be replaced by what, the right to bear arms? So would the full rights of Canadian citizenship. Alberta students who wanted to study in Canada would have to pay full international tuition fees. The population of the new country would be bitterly divided.
Said Dr. Stanford: “The utopian promises of separation would in reality jeopardize most of what generations of workers in Alberta have worked for: a society which harvests this province’s unique abundance of human and natural resources, to build a society of opportunity, fairness, and inclusion.”
Well written, and thoroughly explained in great detail. This would never get published in the regular media. It wouldn’t fly with them, because anything that makes the UCP and Danielle Smith look foolish for aiding and abetting the separatists, they wouldn’t publish. My other sense (and it’s a very strong one) that this is going to be a fight for Danielle Smith’s political tenure. The separatists want her to do their wishes, or else they’ll take her out of her position of power. Anyone who is in opposition of Alberta separation, and they are many, will not support the UCP and Danielle Smith. She has created a really big mess that we are going to have a very difficult time undoing.
If Marlaina’s lips are moving, she’s lying. A perfect match for the separatists.
I read this article and the first thing that came to my mind was the Pied Piper of Hamelin. It is so sad, that Alberta is being ripped apart by the UPC, the Separatists and foreign interests, it seems like we’re just blindly following the noise.
For me, The Simpsons “Monorail” episode sprang to mind.
Personally, I believe a core group of the seppies are aiming for 51st statehood. The rest of the crowd holding pitchforks and torches are merely useful idiots as far as this core group is concerned. Without a doubt these core 51st staters have studied the tenants of propaganda. Goebbels would be proud of their efforts.
Is Smith is thinking of it all as a win/win? If the referendum dies out she is still the Premier, if not, she will become Trump’s proconsul.
As an aside, there is a certain irony of Smith happily taking a grab ankle approach when dealing with Trump but when dealing with our own government in Ottawa she spits venom and resorts to extortion.
Well that’s because Dumpfs a Nazi and so is danielle smith…
Always many fibs to go around. Brexit is not an appropriate model, and if one compared the economies in Germany and the UK since 2019, the Germans went off a cliff. This is of course because Germany is a vassal of the United States Empire and for over one hundred years everything inhumanly possible has been done to prevent the economic and security integration of Germany with Russia. Despite the typically absurd claims regarding the Ukrainian participation in the destruction of Nordstream, that particular environmental catastrophe was beyond the shadow of a doubt a US operation to force the hand of the Germans. It dovetails with the US aims in their energy war, creating a market for their fracked LNG and forcing the Germans to move plants to the US or elsewhere as their economy is dismantled. That’s the reward for staying in the EU, which is an instrument of US imperialist control on the continent. The Alberta situation is much more akin to that of Katanga. Folks ought to remember that that little set-to resulted in the murder of the head of the democratically-elected leader of the Congo, with the assistance of the magnificent personnel of the Canadian army, who, due to their handiness with the French language, helped to hunt down Patrice Lumumba so that the Belgians could shoot him. (Typical for the period, the South Africans were up to their eyeballs in that particular imbroglio, but it was all driven by the inestimable Allen Dulles.) The head of the UN was likewise assassinated as a function of the struggle, and it was a significant contributing factor in the execution of the sitting US president at the time. If the Province were to secede from Canada, for all of the above-mentioned reasons it would not be a viable economic entity, and would be rolled into the US in very short order. This would be in line with the US policies formulated prior to the 2001 terror attacks which unleashed the currently enjoyed economic and geopolitical era. The US is not going to permit an “independent” Derpberta to export significant quantities of tar to China, so the superstitious grifter-yokels are dead in the water with that particular fantasy. As always, one need only to look at the US disposition toward hydrocarbon-producing regions across the globe. Saudi Arabia has been owned outright by the US MIC since Roosevelt bought the House of Saud at Bitter Lake not long before he went to hell. The US failed to hold Russia after taking it over in 1991 and has subjected the state to all manner of assault for the last three decades since it was commandeered by an atavistic right-wing nationalist program. Canada is next on the list. But Honest Uncle Sam would never hamstring his best ol’ buddy! After Canada comes China, the Final Boss whose economy was curiously pertinent to the Great Plague of 2020 that killed most people on earth, and whom the Carny Banker claims is the greatest threat on earth to Canadian national security. Then come Iraq and Iran, both subject to coups and military assaults by the US and vassals like Canada. The slave-holding UAE, great friend to the Carny Banker and the society closest in nature to “Canadian values”, apparently. Rounding out the top ten are Brazil, another country under unrelenting CIA attack and home-base of the charming poultryphile Bolsonaro (look it up), and Kuwait, a fake country created by the British literally to take control of oil away from any kind of Iraqi state. Meanwhile, the Carny Banker is meeting with Krusty the Korrupt Klown of Kiev to ensure the Canadian taxpayer’s ongoing commitment to the destruction of the Ukrainian male population and the continued “extension” of the Russian state as per the recommendations of the Rand Corporation. Carny was in Banff, holding court with the real owners of the earth, with no actualy representation of the tens of millions of Canadians who actually work for a living. Canadian capitalists want to have their cake and eat it too, as always, (a desire that has always prevented the recommended social program of letting everyone else eat it), so they want to peddle their wares, such as they are, to China and other parts of Asia while continuing to suckle at the teat of the still-vast US economy. This is at odds with the total integration of the Canadian intelligence, military and finance apparatus with the US structure. Welcome to the Republic of Boreal Katanga!
LOL, this bot sucks!
Alberta voters never let facts interfere with their feels.
Great column DJC. When one lays out researched facts and actual cost analysis, it’s not really a compelling argument is it? Hence the strategy to focus on emotional triggers (FREEDOM!!!) and mythical grievances (Trudeau Sr. departed this mortal coil coming up on 26 years now, and hasn’t been PM for 42 years, Jr. stepped down over 20 months ago). Just like self described Christians and their knowledge of the bible, how many indignant next generation seppies actually know and understand the National Energy Program (NEP) from the 1980’s (hint, some of its aims such as energy independence and Canadian ownership/control seem somewhat relevant today). The NEP was never fully implemented and also largely repealed by 1985, but seppies keep beating that dead horse 40+ years later. Also, open carry?? Seriously??
With the Oct. 19 referendum approaching, the observation of an earlier commentator about the UCP’s combination of malice and incompetence is on clear display. Incomplete ballot packages being mailed out, incorrect instructions (just cross it out, trust us), changing deadlines, a shortage of workers (while we want to be maîtres chez nous, please send us your election personnel), hand counting of ballots within 48 hours, and what are expected to be massive lineups (but only in urban areas). It’s almost enough to make a benevolent Premier throw out the whole mess and schedule a binding referendum this Spring, ironically when the next provincial election was originally scheduled. Utopia or dystopia, which to believe?
Speaking of myths, I was going to say something about Medusa. Nah.
I can’t wait to hear how the separatists and the separatists within the UCP will explain this coming winter of high inflation. Things should be getting really intense by the time they have their second vote on secession in late winter 2027.
There are a few things driving the coming hardships. There’s the US war with Iran that has shut down the Strait of Hormuz. Oil tankers are being bombed by both the US and Iran. The Houthis have taken control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Saudi Arabian oil tankers are not welcome in the Red Sea. The east-west pipeline in Saudi Arabia also appears to have been attacked.
https://www.newsweek.com/saudi-arabias-east-west-oil-pipeline-hit-by-houthis-photos-appear-to-show-12430311
As oil prices rise, so does everything else, including the cost for transporting food and other goods. Farmers in Alberta are speaking out about the high cost of diesel fuel during harvest. That doesn’t include costs that will be passed on to consumers for getting those crops to market and then out to grocery stores. Some experts predict a recession or worse.
Who benefits from high oil prices? Not ordinary Albertans. Don’t listen to experts. Believe your own bank account come spring.
Alberta was promised another oil pipeline by the federal government. It’s years away. If the federal government becomes a foreign government, kiss that pipeline goodbye. Oil already flowing through a pipeline might not flow freely through a foreign country (B.C. would be in Canada, unless KLF can pry that away, too). 54-40 or fight.
Would the US carry through on the supposed promise to give the separatists a $500-billion revolving line of credit, with so many financial problems of their own, including an extra $1-trillion in vote buying? In this myth, the US would expect nothing in return, not even the oil they so desperately need right now. Pull the other one. It has bells on it.
There’s a gap of two weeks and one day between Alberta’s referendum and the US midterm elections. A lot could happen in that time. Will there be mid-term elections? Will the US decide to take our oil? It’s Manifest Destiny.
Wait and see. Better yet, send a message to the US that we won’t stand idly by while they plunder and pillage Alberta. Vote to stay in Canada. Stop believing in separatist fairy tales. Believe in Canada.
Whaddya know. UCP government pipelines everywhere! More data centres! Who cares how much it will cost? What inflation? What world events? Seniors, suck it up. Affordability is a “perception”. You’re probably confused and emotional.
https://thenarwhal.ca/alberta-ai-data-centre-takeover-cabinet-doc/
Separation is such a no brainer but we need to reinforce our trenches, especially if yo live near Bubbleville as I do. So soldier on and hope common sense will prevail. May they never bring on our own 9/11…
It is getting more and more difficult to see “re-education” camps imposed on dissident populations by totalitarian governments as the evil they are usually portrayed as. While the dictates of totalitarian governments should never be seen as justified, we are still left with the question of how does a society deal with citizens whose motivations to rebellion are ipso facto irrational? Writing articles about it, while well-intentioned, is clearly not sufficient.
The election of the Nazis in Saxony-Anhalt perhaps bears further analysis in the context of Derpberta separation and the US Empire. Contrary to the usual massive deluge of lies from the US imperialist academic and media complex, capitalists love them some Nazis if the alternative is in any way economic democracy. It’s a funny thing that in the Empire which had slavery until it barely won a war against itself, and continues to this day to destroy the descendants of the people living here when the first European banker’s emissaries arrived, folks like to throw around the term “conspiracy theory” as a descriptor for any analysis that points out the absurd and perverse nature of the imperialist, colonialist and capitalist system. After the destruction of the German and Russian empires during the Great War For Civilization to End All Wars, the resulting states attempted a signifcant mingling of their “comparative advantages”, to coin the phrase of the vile Clintonian rip-off propagandists. Walter Rathenau managed to cobble together the beginnings of a mutually-beneficial economic and security arrangement with Germany and the Soviet Union. The unfortunate Mr. Rathenau met his end rapidly thereafter, ostensibly at the hands of the proto-Nazis of Konsul, an endearingly psychotic band of racist German military men. The murder was chalked up to antisemitism, and that was the end of that. Konsul, however, had very curious links to the same fianancial apparatus that also happened to be supporting the IRA in Great Britain’s original colony. British financiers. As things progressed, the Nazis came to power in Germany and the German population was sicced on the Soviets, resulting in the deaths of perhaps 27 million Soviet citizens, and the eventual incorporation of the German state into the US Empire. Like outlaw motorcycle gangs, the German Nazis, the Italian Fascists and the Japanese imperialists patched over to the CIA. The folks living in the eastern part of Germany were on the receiving end of the wrath of the Red Army, resulting in significant and horrific atrocities against the population. This resulted in, among other things, mass suicides in at least a dozen German population centres. Cult members gonna be cult members. However, in the end, the Soviets got a hold of themselves and built a functioning socialist state in East Germany. Their cars weren’t great, but they didn’t have mass starvation and murder squads like those found in the far-flung reaches of the US empire, like Haiti or Guatemala or Indonesia or El Salvador or Iraq or Congo, a lot of the rest of the countries that constituted the Free World after 1945. And subsequent to the rejoining of all the German folks under the CIA in 1989, a lot of people who grew up in the GDR didn’t really cotton to plutocratic kleptocracy. But as we all know, liberal/progressive bourgeois folks will take a hardcore Nazi any day over a socialist. So now you get Nazis in Saxony crowing about their love for Russia, and as the Ukrainian CIA project falls apart, it can all be blamed on Drumpf’s griftocracy and the Nazis. Worked pretty well in 1945, no reason it can’t work again. Which brings us to the grifter-yokels in Derpberta. It’s not an accident that far-right superstitious mouth-breathers constitute the opposition to the liberal/prog corporatist agenda in this province.
“It’s obvious that the society they dream of building in Alberta would be a racist, misogynistic, Christian nationalist dystopia.” Take Back Alberta. Which really means take Alberta back to a whites only society that never existed in reality. Delusional. I’m not sure if the separatists need a history lesson or therapy. Maybe both.
Hippie: Sometimes a history lesson can also be therapeutic, I suppose, like the one Germany received in the fall of 1945. For some reason today I didn’t feel like using your initials. DJC
88.
That’s enough. Let’s not go down that road. DJC
It’s Dingy lying as usual. She made a point that she would support the remain side yet instead she is totally silent on that and spending a great deal of time promoting another referendum to be binding even before the first one has taken place.
I wish every separatist read your article. I’ll add to your list.
11: If I could manage my own CPP I’d have an income of $6,000 per month. -Mitch Sylvestreg
12: Alberta would be able to replace all that we have now and still have an annual surplus of $30-$50 billion. -Jeff Rath
Aptly demonstrated is the nudge-nudge wink-wink backroom deals that will be made possible by an unscrupulous government without any federal oversight or charter rights to constrain such excess. That should ring alarm bells.
You have to hand it to Fraulein Schmidt. During the last election she said if the Liberals won she’d trigger a constitutional crises and, true to her word, here we are.
So the real question remains. When the seppie question-for-a-question fails (which it most likely will, unless some serious shenanigans take place) just how will Schmidt and her merry band of deplorables continue to make the seppies’ dream live on? I’m telling you now folks, and I’ll leave my prediction in this digital space, this steaming pile of separation BS is not going away come October, and the UCP will have it’s fingerprints all over it. I guess we will all just have to wait and see.
It is hard to know how much the separatists really believe this and how much is just being delusional, trying to make come up with things to support what they want. I recall a similar situation in the last Quebec referendum when all sorts of promises about a better future were made that were not based in reality and sometimes at total odds with it. Of course this is nothing new, more recently lets not forget that Trump promised lower inflation in the US, but delivered higher prices due to his Middle East conflict and tarriffs. Also and perhaps more relevant to this situation, the Brexiters in the UK made all kinds of promises about how it would do better economically after leaving the EU, which have not turned out at all.
It would be good if what the separatists said was challenged more, but what is left of our mainstream media seems to neither have the resources or inclination to do this much and social media can be even worse. Whether intentional or not, their algorithms often make it into an echo chamber of what people believe or want to believe, with little or no moderation or critical analysis.
However, fortunately I do feel most Albertans are rightly fairly skeptical about the unrealistic promises the separatist leaders are making. So it will not be hard to challenge them if the effort is made. If the effort is not made, we have seen many instances in the past, including fairly recently, when enough people start to believe misinformation that is repeated often and not successfully challenged.
The issue is that there’s no reasoning with seppies. For example, re Lie #3: “As a separate country, Alberta would be small and landlocked.” True, of course, but the seppies labour under a delusion that there is a UN convention that would guarantee an independence landlocked Alberta a sort of easement across Canadian territory to “tidewater”. It’s a misreading of certain provisions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Never mind that they all hold the institution of the United Nations in deep contempt, yet they still want to call upon one of its documents to strengthen their arguments. It’s bizarre.
But leaving that aside, we can’t limit this discussion to mere economic arguments. National unity has to be an emotional matter for Canadians living in Alberta. Basically, it has to be “you can have my Canadian citizenship when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands” (sorry for the NRA/Charlton Heston reference, but the quote worked too well not to steal). If we limit our defence of Canada to the dismal science, we’ve already lost.
Jerry: The Leave side in any such debate always has the emotional advantage. The stupider the economic argument in favour of leaving, the stronger the emotion. I have always felt that someone really needed to put the Fear of God into Albertans about the implications of separatism. None of the Remain campaifgn s are prepared to do that, and it is a serious error. DJC