There are a few moments that no longer surprise me. Here is a short list: Hearing the Colorado Rockies lost their last game; an announcement of another Transformers movie; a Boomer using “Reply All” rather than “Reply” in a company-wide email. While these events are not surprising, they do elicit an emotional reaction in me, usually one of disgruntled disappointment.
I think I may have found another event to add to my list. When I heard Alberta, Canada, had made a threat to secede, I had the same lack of surprise as I did with other par-for-the-course events. My emotional reaction was different though. I was disgruntled, yes, but I was also worried and tired.
Alberta is uniquely situated in the Canadian geopolitical and socioeconomic sphere. Its thriving economy is the source of nearly a fifth of the nation’s GDP. It has a generally thriving economy, so it contributes a healthy amount to federal taxes. In short, Alberta makes money for Canada. However, it only has a tenth of the seats in Canada’s parliament, and receives little support from the national government, like in 2014, when Alberta experienced a deep recession. Normally, the Canadian federal government provides equalization payments to bolster weaker provincial economies and level funding between provinces, but in Alberta’s recession, they received no financial support from the government [1]. Even today, Alberta still flounders in finding sufficient employees for their industry while they are stuck in recovery [2]. Alberta citizens have not been blind to incongruent treatment: Alberta provides financial gain to the nation, but it does not garner any benefits.
This apparent mistreatment has resulted in what is being termed as an “independence referendum” [3] which sounds considerably better than an Ordinance of Secession, but it functions the same way: Alberta is drafting its break-up text with Canada, crowd-sourcing for proper moral support.
But, Alberta has been drafting and deleting that text since the 80s, and that’s what makes me tired. The four westernmost provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan) have come together and fallen apart several times in pursuit of the Western Canada Concept—the idea that Western Canada would do better on its own because the more populous provinces in the east don’t really care about them [1, 4]. If you compare those four provinces with a group of middle-aged men who have thought about starting a band since their college days, the resemblance is uncanny.
Since Alberta has been playing the same tune for nearly 50 years, I’m rooting for it to separate from the rest of the nation. If it did, it likely has the economic means to support itself, and it would perform well in international trading with its oil exports. Because of its experience of getting burned by the national government, Alberta has a good reason to develop a governing system that would prevent the same thing from happening within its new borders. Rather than belaboring the process and complaints, it would be quicker and simpler for Alberta to officially declare independence, seek international diplomatic recognition, and form a government that caters to its own interests.
Also, history shows that Canada’s provinces don’t really play nice for long periods of time. Canada’s 160-year history is riddled with secession attempts. In fact, Nova Scotia tried to secede the first year of Canada’s existence. Quebec has attempted secession several times [4].
Secession threats happen for a reason, and it’s usually because of some sort of tension between a sectionalist area and the national government. In Quebec’s case, those tensions boiled slowly, starting almost when the nation was founded until the 1960s and 70s. That’s when things turned violent. One of Quebec’s several secessionist parties bombed the Montreal Stock Exchange, and kidnapped and killed a Quebec politician [4].
Any secession attempt can turn violent if the tensions rise, and Alberta has been building tension for a while now. I’m not saying that their movement will definitely turn violent, but I am saying that there is always a chance it will. Alberta has yet to meet the requirements set for a secession vote (the Citizen Initiave Act stipulates that they need 10% of the people who voted in the 2023 provincial general election to sign a petition before a secession vote can occur [5]). So far, CBC shows that the polls indicate support is far from enough [3], which means inaction will cause tension to rise.
I fear that if they don’t secede this time, we will continue to see the pattern of more threats of secession, leading to increased tensions, leading to a greater chance of violence. Alberta’s current attempt is another example of the pattern, and I think it’s time for one of Canada’s many secession attempts to be realized to finally disrupt the pattern and finally allow Canada to rest from the tension it’s felt for years.
