Canada

It would lose oil value by joining US. Only 1 customer becomes permanent. The pipeline to west coast would face higher transit fees.

What it needs to do is start its version of the Bloc or actually start swinging from party to party. The Liberals have nothing to gain there (although it didn't keep them from spending billions on a pipeline for Alberta, guess that's what they mean by the Liberals not caring) and the Conservatives don't need to make any effort to gain Alberta anyway (so they end up treating them worse than the Liberals even though Albertans don't realize it).

I said the exact same thing some time ago!

It's also categorically absurd to mass infrastructure spend on FF export potential to Europe from Alberta. Not only are they weaning off dead ender climate terrorist energy, but they have ample supply capacity from nearby abundant sources. Temporary geopolitical sympathies is no basis for Canada to fund stupidity. If Europe wants to help Alberta cofund something, I'm ok with Canada helping provinces along the way approve permits, but the inherent stupidity should not impact other Canadians.

Ontario and Quebec (and prairies) energy is cheaper with tariff free Chinese help. Solar in Ontario and Quebec would now be cheaper than in Arizona despite much less sun with lower financing costs and cheaper inputs. Chinese battery supplies and factories can both make Canadian EV production competitive, and enhance electricity resilience affordably. Canadian trade of oil for solar equipment helps both Alberta and Canadians achieve desired energy policy/benefits without any stupidity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Unfreedom has an interesting take on the wave of separatist movements. It traces it to a reactionary “politics of eternity”, which is being supported and advanced by authoritarian regimes to undermine the established order based on trade democratic deliberation. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_Brexit_referendum

Now that X and Meta have become dedicated propaganda platforms, and I don’t know that it’s even possible for the government or researchers to get the needed access to determine if there are bad actors manipulating the public in this way now.

From Snyders view, one of the aims of this global effort is to convince people that coordination via democratic deliberation doesn’t work. Proposing ridiculous, highly polarizing referendums and tricking as many people as possible into voting for the most absurd option is a great way to convince everyone that democratic process are stupid, since that is the most degenerate form of democratic activity.

“Here’s how the play is likely to unfold in the weeks and months ahead: Carney will be elected Prime Minister on April 28 by a comfortable margin; [Alberta Premier Danielle] Smith will trigger a constitutional crisis, providing cover for Carney to strike a grand bargain that finally resolves longstanding tensions between the provinces and Ottawa; and large infrastructure permitting reform will fall into place. Protests against these developments will be surprisingly muted, and those who do take to the streets will be largely ignored by the media. The entire effort will be wrapped in a thicket of patriotism, with Trump portrayed as a threat even greater than climate change itself. References to carbon emissions will slowly fade…

In parallel, we expect Trump and Carney to swiftly strike a favorable deal on tariffs, padding the latter’s bona fides just as his political capital will be most needed.”

Heres one theory. A separation crisis allows us to displace Russian oil globally and drop energy prices, which is why Trump gave manufacturing a 250% greater tariff than oil and gas, which caused other provinces to vote for Carney en mass since they thought Pierre would side with Alberta and not do reciprocal tariffs to protect manufacturing.

Alberta takes a large hit on its energy exports to the US since it is land locked. Opening up LNG from BC and Alberta to the coast allows it to derive revenue on the global market, which should help when oil prices fall globally due to Trumps actions. The Canadian dollar tracks crude oil prices, so if we dont open up alternative export markets we will be taking a series of hefty haircut, as the US also devalues their dollar to increase domestic production.

https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/the-week-that-was

People aren't too bright 'round these parts.

Say 50.1% of the population vote to leave so it's on, then some people change their minds or some people die while others turn 18, then it's 49.9% who want independence so it's off.

Thats exactly how it went with Brexit, except that they still went through with it.

That's like the entire point of the Clarity Act. You need to have the feds agree on the question and threshold for a leave vote to be valid and binding.

As the indigenous peoples of the prairies have already pointed out, by treaty, the provinces don't own the lands they're governing. The people can leave.

They don't get to take anything with them.

No. They can just leave.

They can't have the land; so they can vote all they like but it's the plane ticket that makes the difference.

The will of the people is the will of the people. Start imposing a super majority on things and watch as nothing gets done anymore.

You think 100% of Albertans and Saskatchewanians want to split from Canada?

Some people are of the thought of "do it now and get it over with so we can see it fail and move on".

Nenshi (head of the Alberta NDP) has literally said he wants the vote to happen today so that we can get this out of the way, stop playing political games once the vote fails, and move on to getting stuff that actually matters done.

This has been the case for decades. Every time they run the polling, the overwhelming majority don't want to separate. It's why they can never get enough signatures to even have a referendum.