Trump will 100% invade Alberta if it leaves Canada.
Unfortunately, some people in the UK believed that we could negotiate better international deals alone instead of with the additional buying power of 27 other countries backing us up.
It was always a long term bet, and with the current financial situation of the EU, it could be a good one in a few years.
You sound like one of the slot machine addicts at a casino. Due for a win any day now
It was always going to be bad in the immediate aftermath though.
Yeah it’s only been about a decade or so! Any day now. any day now
No it wasn’t. You were were supposed to save £18b per year, immediately. Instead you’re losing at the very least £100b per year and you’re never going to recover from it, until about one generation after rejoining the EU which is inevitable.
Yes lying politicians claimed that. Anyone who thought for a minute would see that the benefits would be in retained sovereignty as the EU slid more into a backdoor super state. Or be part of the union, especially as a payer, when one of the payers (or you) runs into financial trouble, and has to decide between the EU rules or their own people.
“If I keep punching myself in the dick every day, one day the swelling will certainly be permanent. One day.”
You guys always find it hard to resist throwing stones from your glass house. Stiff upper lip, keep calm and carry on old chap. I suppose in the long term we will know if it was worth cutting yourself off from the worlds biggest free trade zone right on your doorstep for blue passports. Time will tell…
Similar to how Texans think if they succeed they get to keep everything in Texas and their new political rival, the USA, is just going to hand all that stuff over with a slap on the ass and a “good game”.
The holding of the referendum already got them major wins (?) in terms of loosening environmental regs and adding the Pacific Pipeline to the list of Project of National interests. That means the feds will trample indigenous rights for them 🤗 I am sure this pleased and pacified many people who would have wanted to separate for more freedom to hasten the climate apocalypse. I expect that’s enough to swing quite a few people over to the ‘no’ side because it protects that crude, crude oil money.
What else is left? Several of the questions (#1-5) about immigration are directly related to the costs of provincial services (healthcare, education). Alberta has no provincial sales tax, low income tax, and no healthcare premium. I’m guessing they are coming up against costs that are rising faster than the fracking can keep up with so they have decided to blame immigrants?
I am in Ontario and in the $75,000-$200,000 taxable income bracket for OHIP premiums. (lmao I can’t believe that’s the bracket either). I pay $750 a year towards OHIP. That’s a lot cheaper than my private insurance I’ll tell you hwat (majority is employer paid but that’s not protected outside of my collective agreement).
CBC has an article about the actual costs of caring for temporary residents.
Ron Kneebone, a professor emeritus in economics at the University of Calgary, says it’s also important to remember that temporary residents are subject to the same tax rules as Canadian citizens and permanent residents, under Canada’s progressive income tax system.
Whooop there it is.
On the province’s claim that taxpayers cover $10 for every $1 a “guest worker” pays, a government spokesperson said it included “increased capital costs such as [school] spaces for approximately 45,544 children of temporary residents” in its calculation.
I’m tired, boss. Population increase means expanding social programs, more at 11.
There are questions about requiring immigrants to have approved Alberta immigration status (i.e. Alberta gets a bigger say in immigration), or if that’s not possible requiring them to reside in Alberta for 12 months before accessing social programs. I thought more provinces had waiting periods, but it looks like even Ontario got rid of theirs recently? There may be some but I’m not going to look that up lol.
Anyways, if you are a refugee the feds pay for your healthcare, and if you are a temporary resident on a work permit you are paying income tax, so…
One difference between Alberta and some other provinces is that international students can apply for provincial healthcare in Alberta. Ontario has a separate system for that, and the costs to the student are higher than what residents pay. I’m struggling to think of an example case where someone is on anything but the basic visitor visa (6 months) and qualifies for provincial healthcare without it being tied to employment or refugee status. Supervisas (parent and grandparent) need private insurance to qualify. That program is paused now anyways. Sponsored immigration makes the person a PR applicant so they can apply for provincial healthcare, but the questions in the referendum seem only to be targeting temporary residents.
I’m focusing on healthcare because education is tied to your residence, i.e. where you are living, and portion of the funding that comes from individual residents comes from property tax. If you are paying rent, you are contributing. It’s entirely agnostic of your immigration status.
Like the CBC article mentions, other programs are tied to different forms of eligibility. It’s possible Alberta has very generous eligibility, but I’m still guessing that earth destruction royalties not going as far as they used to.
The voter ID one is also interesting.
Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate or citizenship card, to vote in an Alberta provincial election?
You can vote without proving citizenship. When you vote without being registered, you need to register at the poll. After the election, the same checks are made as they would be for someone registered at any other time. If you were not eligible to vote, your vote still counted, but you will face consequences, and it can jeopardize immigration status. I don’t know if any data is published on how many ineligible voters turn up each election but I imagine if it was a problem the rules on what you needed to be able to vote would change. This one seems entirely populist for and an almost immeasurably small gain, and a huge barrier for people born in Canada, especially if this be some the ID requirement for voting, not just for registering to vote.(Do you have a passport? No? Do you know where your birth certificate is? Is it undamaged?)
Questions 6-9 are about greater autonomy for the provinces but they require constitutional amendments and therefore cooperation from the other provinces. Maybe middle ground if people want to stay but want more control? I expect these will be popular.
So yeah, I’m not all that stressed out about the possibility of this leading to a binding referendum. I think the other questions give the province an “out” to appease people when the leave question fails, and as I mentioned they already got the go head to keep putting profit over people while getting the benefits of remaining within the country so…
So, I don’t know if Canada would let Alberta go peacefully, though I’d be inclined to doubt it, but even that aside, speaking as an American, I wouldn’t vote to secede if I were an Albertan.
My understanding is that a major part of what Albertans are angry about is that they have oil and gas resources that the (often more urban) rest of Canada isn’t letting then exploit, and that’s making them feel economically hamstrung.
Thing is, while we may be moving politically slower here in the US on restricting fossil fuel extraction than Canada, I expect that we’re going to get there too. If you vote to secede with the idea that joining the US is going to remove those restrictions and lead to an era of fossil fuel prosperity for Alberta…well, odds are that you’re looking at a statehood process that takes years, and by the time that you’d wind up in the US, the US is likely to be also limiting oil and gas extraction.
If you say “but we could just be a separate country entirely”, then you’re landlocked, and generally, that’s an unfavorable place to be, as you cede a lot of leverage to the surrounding countries with sea access (which would be Canada-sans-Alberta or the US).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landlocked_country
Generally, being landlocked creates political and economic disadvantages that having access to international waters would avoid. For this reason, nations large and small throughout history have fought to gain access to open waters, even at great expense in wealth, bloodshed, and political capital.
If the Northwest Territories or British Columbia also were realistically considering seceding, and Canada were going to let then walk out the door too, that might be a different story, but I don’t understand that to be the case.
EDIT: And if the idea is to bluff with a secession threat with the idea of staying in Canada that the rest of Canada will back down and let Alberta do fossil fuel extraction, the problem is that the threat has to be credible, and my expectation is that the rest of Canada is going to have a similar calculation as to the viability of seceding.
This is so much more complicated than fossil fuels. This is about being saturated in foreign propaganda, largely created by the Koch network. It’s precisely the same playbook as the Brexit thing. People are being lied to, but it’s about things they don’t have daily experience with, and if you lie loudly and often enough about something that is outside people’s everyday experience, they start to believe it. There’s no media presence in Alberta that isn’t owned by Blackrock. There’s active suppression of anti-separatist content on Facebook and YouTube, and amplification and AstroTurfing of pro-separatist content. It’s all very well documented.
There is no rational case for Alberta separation. They only reason people support it is because people are promising things that are physically and financially impossible to people who don’t have enough personal experience to grasp that it’s a lie, and they’re being encouraged not to trust anyone who does know how these things work, because they’re “out to get you.”
We’re not out to get you Frank, we’re your neighbour, you borrowed our lawnmower last week. It’s not a PsyOp to steal your first amendment, this is Canada, you don’t have a first amendment. I mean, technically you do, but it’s not about guns. Put your phone down Frank, you don’t live in Ohio.
My understanding is that a major part of what Albertans are angry about is that they have oil and gas resources that the (often more urban) rest of Canada isn’t letting then exploit, and that’s making them feel economically hamstrung.
A few things:
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Alberta has pipelines directly to the US. The US is the main export market and whole refineries exist that are tuned to this type of crude. Ownership is something that would have to be handled, but they can get crude to the states without crossing provincial borders.
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They want a pipeline to the west coast to export to Asia. The feds just removed a bunch of barriers and basically agreed to build one so that’s less pressing. No way they get BC to agree to a pipeline without the feds forcing the issue. BC has to deal with the environmental issues and increased ship traffic.
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Alberta supports low taxes by subsidizing the lost income with O&G royalties. They are trying to keep those in place even as needs outpace royalties. Do environment regs play a part? Sure. But the PM is a text book neoliberal and has already said fuck the environment, we need money. The previous PM wasn’t so overt but sure set carbon targets without plans… I suspect lack of investment and stable markets is what is largely limiting expansion, which is why there is importance put on the Pacific Pipeline.
So, I don’t know if Canada would let Alberta go peacefully, though I’d be inclined to doubt it,
I mean, no one can say for sure but there is a legal path for it, in contrast to the USA. Is the bar impossibly high? Maybe. But it’s not the first time we had to think about it reasonably seriously.
Alberta has pipelines directly to the US. The US is the main export market and whole refineries exist that are tuned to this type of crude. Ownership is something that would have to be handled, but they can get crude to the states without crossing provincial borders.
Well yes, but actually no. All they have to do is increase the capacity of their 3 direct lines by a factor of 10. I can only assume there’s no fucking reason they pipe it halfway across the continent, and I have to believe that replacing that massive pipeline will take neither money nor time.
Sure, that’s what they’re told to say. That has nothing to do with the actual reason for the separatists. If you want to understand where this is coming from, understand that all Alberta Oil Companies are American owned. They only play American television in the work camps. All the radio stations are American owned. All the newspapers are American owned. The first thing our Premier did when she took office was try to pardon Anti-vaxers, only to discover Canadian Premiers don’t have the power to pardon and she was actually breaking the law by trying to influence criminal investigations. They literally think they’re American, because American media and culture are the only things they’re allowed to consume. They’re deeply, deeply confused people who don’t even know where they are or what’s going on around them because they’re so saturated in American propaganda and American paid AstroTurfers they literally can’t tell which side of the border they’re currently on.
This isn’t a group you can reason with rationally. This is a cult force-fed propaganda like that scene from Clockwork Orange. Trying to engage with their delusions isn’t helpful, they’re not expressing reasoned insight, they’re shouting shibboleths like a pack of wild dogs.
Thanks, I didn’t mean for my comment to be authoritative. There was just a lot there that was just inaccurate and wanted to help people outside the country understand.
I agree that a lack of understanding of how things work (like the pardon thing you mentioned) plays a massive role. I don’t seek to know laws because I think they are just and correct, I want to know what they are so I can figure out how to do what I want. It seems like at least some portion of the separatists haven’t bothered to do that and are like “nuh uh, I’ll make my own rules.” Sure. Good luck.
There’s a small core of people with an agenda to turn us into a US territory, capture our oil royalties and eliminate public services. There’s also a halo group that are trying to leverage the situation to buy concessions for Alberta from the fed. That halo group doesn’t appreciate the danger of the fire they’re playing with. They are going to sell their children into slavery for the promise of a bowl of soup. The lion’s share of the “movement” (if you want to call it that) is just deeply misguided people who don’t understand they’re being fed lies. Breaking through that information silo is the most critical thing we need to do. The only way to do that is to identify the most weakly connected, build relationships of trust with them, and gradually bring them back out of the cult and keep pecking away at the edges until it’s just the core left and the rest are back in the wider Alberta community. It’s not as herculean a task as it seems, True Believers are a very, very small minority, even within Alberta.
We do need to get past this philosophical abstract idea we can educate them out of the circle. You might convince the outer halo that the risk of using the cult like a weapon is that it will cost them everything when they lose control, and they will always lose control as it snowballs, but you’re not going to deprogram the true believers that way. Oil Cult deprogramming is a much more indirect process.
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