Yes, Alberta is getting raped with transfer payments. Yes Eastern Canada loves hating us and wishing us ill while laughing all the way to the bank. Yes elections are over the moment Ontario and Quebec finish voting relegating Western Canadians to non combatants in a war zone and second class citizens inside their own country whose vote holds neither meaning nor importance. And yes, Western Canada (Alberta in particular) is speculating on separating from Canada.
And of that list, separation from Canada is the only non reality. Even for Quebec.
The number one reason...the Indians, natives, Metis, 1st Nations and the rest of the aboriginals have a bigger say than people can remember. Try building a golf course in Quebec. They shut down roads, they were armed and there were violent stand offs with the police. ANY separation deal of any kind would have to include them at the table or there would be hell to pay. Repercussions be damned.
Alberta is a resource loaded economic power based predominantly on oil. We would need to establish our own trading partners. With no pipelines to either BC, Eastern Canada, Northern Canada or South to the US, Alberta would be hard pressed to get their product to market. This in turn would affect the value of any currency put into play to replace the Canadian Dollar...although it would be nice to no longer deal with a currency people cant take seriously. We call our dollar the Loonie??? History aside, its insulting.
And what about pre existing deals companies in Alberta have that needed Federal government approval...or funding? Provincial projects. Where "half" the money is coming from Ottawa. Federally funded programs.
There are 1 million people in Edmonton. About the same in Calgary. And maybe a million more in various other communities about the province. 3 million people. We would need our own police, military and air force. What we currently have here belongs to Canada, not Alberta. 3 million people. We wouldn't be able to defend ourselves if the entire city of Toronto up and decided to invade us.
Then there are the banking and medical institutions that would need to be put in place. A constitution would have to be drawn up. Think its bad now?
Yes it would be fantastic to draw a line in the sand, give Eastern Canada the one finger salute while playing Billy Joel's "Im Moving Out". But the simple truth of it is we simply don't have a sufficient enough infrastructure or population to make this a practical reality.
Its like the Americans saying if Trump gets elected they are moving to Canada. A lot of huff n puff. A lot of bitching and whining. Sure its an alternative, but not a practical one.
Alberta wont separate from Canada. We cant. Its not practical. We have too much to lose. Unless a population equalization plan is brought into effect, until the population of Alberta is close or equal to that of Ontario...Western Canada will always be the tail the dog wags.
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