And people suggest that our movement hasn’t had an effect on Alberta politics. Seriously?! In fact, the Alberta Independence movement has probably had a far more powerful consequence for our province, both immediate and long term, than even the election of a gutless “conservative” majority UCP did.
Kenney will ride on the strength of our movement into every meeting, every negotiation, every consultation, every deal or agreement he makes with the feds and the other provinces for the next four years. Let’s face it: it isn’t the newly elected UCP that the ROC is afraid of. It is Alberta Separatism that will carry the day every time. And it is up to all of us to keep up the pressure.
Who knows: If our movement is strong enough and loud enough we may even be able to effect exceptional changes in national policies of critical importance to our province, like Equalization. Trust me ~ an avowed federalist like Jason Kenney will not. The ROC knows who he is ~ an Ottawa insider, an elitist who will throw the average Albertan to the dogs whenever the progressive heat is turned up. And they know, in the long run, they can count on him to do exactly what the political establishment always does. Cave to the mainstream for fear of being kicked out of the old boys club.
Just watch. Over the next months you will see Jason Kenney invoking fear of Alberta Separatism, over and over, every time he needs a bogeyman to back the ROC into a corner with.
Regards,
Sharon Maclise
Friends of Alberta Separation
You are making a huge mistake if you enter into any negotiations with Ottawa using the Clarity Act. That is a trap. If you get enough signatures for a binding referendum for Independence you should go for a UDI. Unilateral Declaration of Independence. This ends all Treaty’s and entanglements legally on the day you declare UDI through a democratic vote of the people of Alberta. Under the Clarity Act you would be drawn and quartered by Canada’s corrupt courts. Think BREXIT. If you are serious about Independence go UDI.
It seems to us that the only reason a province is able to Seceed at all is because we have legislation defining the process. Quebec may ahve thought it could seceed all those years but there was no clear provision in the Constitution or supsequent legislation for that to happen prior to the Clarity Act of 2000. We agree that the federal gov’t would make it very hard to effect actual Separation but, unless they wanted a full-out revolution, they would have to negotiate in good faith. It would likely take years to conclude the process but as long as Albertans had voted, in a referendum, to do so the federal gov’t would have a real political problem if they refused to negotiate. If they did, that would be the time to simply declare Independence and start acting as an Independent state.
It was mentioned, “We agree that the federal gov’t would make it very hard to effect actual Separation but, unless they wanted a full-out revolution, they would have to negotiate in good faith.”
This reveals that you already anticipate a problem negotiating with Canada. Canada, I am sure, would not be concerned about a “full-out revolution” as they are not even concerned about a Albertan referendum, now. If the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour you better go with UDI. You need to do this by 2021 because the United Nations opens up legal statist to countries for a short time in 2021.
“It would likely take years to conclude the process but as long as Albertans had voted, in a referendum, to do so the federal gov’t would have a real political problem if they refused to negotiate. If they did, that would be the time to simply declare Independence and start acting as an Independent state.”
As mentioned above, Canada would only have to wait out the UN time frame for Alberta to be internationally recognized as a nation. Most de facto states (UDI) fail and collapse back into their parent state. Again, this argues that a referendum and UDI needs to happen now.
We’ve had lots of people who think they know exactly what would happen if Alberta voted to Seced from the federation. In fact no one knows anything more about how this process would proceed than anyone else. It’s all just “listen to me I’m so smart” hot air because the entire exercise has no precedent in Canada.
We’ve even heard contradictory arguments that a province has no legal right to secede, and that the federal government hasn’t any power forcibly to prevent it from seceeding. So, not to put to fine a point on it – we really place no credence on anyone’s “opinion” on this question. The Clarity Act says the federal gov’t must, not shall, respond to an act of Secession so we’re prepared to rely upon that Act. We intend to pursue our goal regardless of all the self-important people who would like us to believe they have the answers – they don’t.
Dear Guest; This idea that “Canada doesn’t care” “Canada wouldn’t be concerned” is a non-starter. Of course they would care and be concerned. It is extremely challenging to govern a country of loyalists; imagine what it would be like governing one that was under a constant cloud of unresolved division. Just look at Britain for an example. After the Brexit vote resolving that “exit” was a constant preoccupation of the gov’t, an ever-enduring cloud over every political, social and economic aspect of life there. Just because Liberals have the partial support of two plus provinces and a solid lack of support of two plus already makes it a challenge to govern. The only reason Trudeau is managing it now is because Premiers in both Alberta and Saskatchewan are federalists. If Alberta Separatists won a Referendum on Separation our Premier would need to be solidly behind it, too or wouldn’t be the Premier for long. In fact, it appears that, despite promising to be more responsive to citizens, Kenney is sadly proving, in typical top-down politics fashion, to be a Harper “I’ll make the rules, you all shut up, cause I know best” clone.
Independence movements active at this time – Spain, Belgium – are, like ours, to some extent, based upon economics – rich jurisdictions exploited by poor areas with electoral dominance or enjoying constitutional imperatives, like Spain. The language and cultural differences exacerbate the economic pressures. The idea that Alberta would “collapse back into Canada” is absurd. Unless total economic sovereignty was achieved, the equalization program was scrapped, and Alberta was able to reclaim core economic, social and political control of key public services, including collecting and managing its own taxation, policing, pension management, etc there would be no desire to “collapse” into a Canada as it exists now. Why would we have left in the first place. I can see Alberta working out a cooperation deal on “national” security, including a shared military but not much else.