It’s no surprise the Most Hated Man on Earth thinks that Canada should be busted up and sold for scrap. But it does clear the air to have it right out there, don’t you think?
I speak of course of Elon Musk, although I realize that the title of Most Hated Man on Earth is contested, as is the one about being the richest person on the planet, and that just like heavyweight pugilists, one guy never gets to occupy the top spot for long.
Still, it’s helpful to know that someone as widely despised by normal humans as is Mr. Musk thinks ill of Confederation.
Having a guy like Mr. Musk telling us via the social media platform previously known as Twitter that he thinks Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec should all separate into their own little too-cold-for-bananas banana republics is almost as persuasive as he and his fellow tech trazillionaires’ telling us all that all those energy- and water-sucking Artificial Intelligence data centres are gonna be really, really good for us. Really. Some day.
So it can’t hurt the important cause of keeping our country together for folks to understand that the people most likely to profit from turning Alberta into a dumping ground for AI data centres that they’ll abandon the instant the AI bubble goes pop also think Alberta would be just copacetic as a landlocked petro-statelet.
Mr. Musk’s dislike for our Dominion is probably rooted in the fact that his dear old grandpappy on his mama’s side, Joshua Haldeman, was arrested by the Canadian government in 1940 for membership in an organization considered subversive to the war effort. The war in question, in case you missed that lecture, was the one against Hitler.
According to the Wikipedia, for what that’s worth, Mr. Musk’s own daddy claimed in 2024 that the old man “sympathized with Nazi Germany in World War II.” So it’s possible the Canadian government was onto something, but whatever the reason was, grandson Elon certainly seems to have inherited a huge chip on his shoulder about the existence of Canada.
To be fair, though, once upon a more-friendly time he said he loved Canada and called himself “half Canadian” – which, I guess, would nowadays make him half Canadian, half American, and all white South African. Still, they say, three out of the four mothers of his children are Canadians, so we’re probably going to be stuck with his progeny even if we’re not stuck with him.
Anyway, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe responded to Mr. Musk’s advice with a two-character post of his own: “No.”
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith issued a statement that is easier to pick at: “Our government, our Caucus, and our party support Alberta remaining in Canada.” Well, excluding Red Deer-South United Conservative Party MLA Jason Stephan, that is, and a dozen or so others, probably.
But Ms. Smith, as The Toronto Star’s Gillian Steward explained it yesterday morning, is finding out that playing both sides of the fence is a losing strategy. Which, one supposes, may be why Mr. Musk decided now was a good time to pitch in and try to help. He is, after all, U.S. President Donald Trump’s political acolyte, and we all know how Mr. Trump feels about Canada.
Reading the news coverage of the reaction to Mr. Musk’s social media commentary by Alberta’s separatist leaders, it was hard to shake the feeling they were worrying that agreeing too enthusiastically with what he had to say might turn out to be a trap.
“I agree with all that,” Mitch Sylvestre, the Bonnyville gun-store owner who leads the Alberta Prosperity Project and admits he attended one of those notorious secret meetings with Trump Administration officials in Washington D.C., told The Globe and Mail. “It just gives it some credibility for him to actually think that.” LOL, as we all used to say on Twitter when it was still Twitter and still fun.
Still, this shows more sense than Ms. Smith has when it comes to being associated with public figures who are truly loathed, whether in Florida or just Calgary.
In addition to being a virtual online sewer with an algorithm that boosts racism and other forms of hate, Mr. Musk’s social media side, officially known nowadays as X, is home to a massive misinformation and disinformation campaign about the Smith-Government-enabled separation referendum on Oct. 19.
Just for shits and giggles, maybe it’s time to reactivate former MP Charlie Angus’s petition last year that called on the prime minister to “revoke Elon Musk’s dual citizenship status, and revoke his Canadian passport effective immediately.”
When the petition closed, it had been signed by 376,994 Canadians. I bet you could quadruple that number now.