13 ms·

Alberta separatism push roils Canada

• jleyank 1y ago
  Before going to secede, Alberta should do what Quebec has done and "practise" being a country: collect its own taxes, run its own police, run its own retirement system, control provincial immigration, ... This will give them a better idea what will be required to go it alone, and test whether their low-tax haven will survive leaving Canada.
  • wagwang 1y ago
    alberta is a net tax contributor unlike an annoying unnamed province
    • bryanlarsen 1y ago
      For maybe another 10 more years, tops. With the world adding > 1TW of solar every year and > 20 million EV's every year, the demand for oil is going to drop. Alberta oilsands oil has the most expensive production costs of any major oil production area, which means they're the marginal producer, the first to shut down. Saudi Arabia with their cheap light oil is going to be making money on oil for at least 50 years, but Alberta will be lucky to get 10 more.
      • bluefirebrand 1y ago
        Alberta is nothing but empty space and sunshine. It is a prime location for Solar It will continue to be an energy juggernaut
        • SoftTalker 1y ago
          During the summertime maybe? It's pretty far north to generate much from solar in the wintertime isn't it?
          • bluefirebrand 1y ago
            I'm not a solar expert, but even during winter we get tons of sun, just fewer hours per day Northern Alberta would probably not do very good, but southern Alberta would be fine I'm sure
            • johnwalkr 1y ago
              It's not hard to look this up. It's not just fewer hours per day, latitude matters a lot. If you look at yearly totals[1] Alberta looks better than BC but not better than any other neighbors to the South or East. All its neighbors also have plenty of space. Plus, total energy consumption (electricity plus gas) is probably highest in winter when solar input is lowest. I think it's hard to argue Alberta will become an exporter of solar-derived power. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#/media/File:World_DNI_Solar-resource-map_GlobalSolarAtlas_World-Bank-Esmap-Solargis.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#/media/File:W...
            • Marsymars 1y ago
              In Calgary I rule-of-thumb 10x less solar energy in December than in June.
        • abdullahkhalids 1y ago
          Alberta/Canada exports oil which earns it forex. Which allows it to buy stuff from other countries. Exporting solar electricity to earn forex will earn next to nothing.
        • slashdev 1y ago
          Not really, the level of production in the winter would be very low, and no batteries can fix that. They have cheap gas though, and that could be used in the winter.
          • BJones12 1y ago
            > the level of production in the winter would be very low, and no batteries can fix that But overbuilding can. It's already a fairly common idea.
            • slashdev 1y ago
              You’d need to overbuild by a ridiculous amount. I don’t think it’s currently close to viable.
        • bryanlarsen 1y ago
          Alberta's solar energy might make BC rich. The price of electricity while the sun is shining is very low. The combination of Alberta solar during the daytime and BC hydro at night is valuable, but it's the hydro that'll get the vast bulk of the dollars. And Alberta is quite far from big electricity markets. It's far cheaper to put overbuild solar in places with poor sunshine than it is to build a HVDC line. Plus Alberta will have to compete with Arizona and neighboring states, which have even more sunshine than Alberta does.
      • badc0ffee 1y ago
        > Alberta oilsands oil has the most expensive production costs of any major oil production area, which means they're the marginal producer, the first to shut down This has not been true for years. Oil sands costs are lower than US shale costs: https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/varcoe-canadian-producers-battle-tested-united-states-low-oil-prices https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/varcoe-canadian... The oil sands projects are longer-lived (no need to continually dig new wells), and labour costs have been optimized after the price shock of 2014.
        • landl0rd 1y ago
          Admittedly they are benefiting mostly from American refining tech in this sense. They would have a tough time negotiating advantageous trade terms on their own and not many refineries can handle it, meaning they are mostly dependent on pipelines to America to make their oil saleable.
      • bdcravens 1y ago
        A lot of this may hinge on whether the US's drive to end subsidies for solar and EVs stick and if they take hold elsewhere.
        • elabajaba 1y ago
          Gas car sales peaked in 2018 globally. EVs are already >20% of new car sales worldwide, and the US is a joke when it comes to EV sales compared to Europe or China. https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
        • bryanlarsen 1y ago
          The US is just a small fraction of oil use. There world will be consuming oil for many decades. Some by industries with hard to replace uses (plastic, planes etc), and some by backwards countries (US, Russia). But it'll just be a small fraction, so will be supplied by the low cost producers like Saudi Arabia. High cost producers like Alberta will be shut out.
      • slashdev 1y ago
        People have been saying that for decades. Oil isn’t going anywhere anytime soon
        • bryanlarsen 1y ago
          They've been saying it "will be replaced" for decades. I'm saying it "is being replaced". Big difference. 1 TW of solar and 20% of car sales are massive numbers we've never seen before.
          • slashdev 1y ago
            It’s not being replaced yet. Oil demand is higher than ever. Solar doesn’t compete with oil, it competes with other electricity generation like coal and gas. But even that is not declining yet, globally. Global coal demand may finally have reached its peak, if we’re being optimistic. Natural gas and oil demand are still increasing.
            • bryanlarsen 1y ago
              Oil demand is down in 2025. ICE car sales are down substantially since 2017.
              • slashdev 1y ago
                Oil demand is still increasing worldwide. It won’t peak for at least a decade, but probably much longer. There are more ICE cars on the road than ever.
              • slashdev 1y ago
                > Global oil demand is projected to increase in 2025 compared to 2024, but the growth rate is expected to slow down. The International Energy Agency (IEA) anticipates a decrease in global oil demand growth for the remainder of 2025, but expects demand to reach 104 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2025, a notable increase from 2024. Perhaps you meant the pace of growth is slowing this year. But that has a lot to do with the macro economic situation, with central banks around the world cutting rates as growth slows (and some countries enter recession.) The global economy is slowing, when it rebounds again, so will growth in oil demand. We're still far from peak demand.
    • Tiktaalik 1y ago
      All this means is that the average income of citizens in Alberta is dramatically higher than other provinces and so Alberta pays more in the federal taxes that are applied uniformly to everyone. I'm sure the other provinces also wish they had such high paying jobs and contributed more in taxes! Avg individual income Alberta: 74,237 Avg individual income New Brunswick: 57,336.
      • SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
        Yeah, this whole "Alberta gives Quebec money" complaint is in fact just how federal income, in the form of income tax, is distributed and is like getting upset that your provincial taxes are paying for something in Red Deer when you live in Calgary.
        • deleted 1y ago
          [deleted]
    • Marsymars 1y ago
      Wait how are you calculating this? I’d expect that even the least wealthy province is a net tax contributor. Equalization is only ~5% of the total budget.
  • badc0ffee 1y ago
    The UCP (who seem to have no official opinion on separation) have already begun some of this, with an Alberta pension plan and a new Alberta police force. (Edit: to be clear, these are just proposals the government is exploring at this point.) > test whether their low-tax haven will survive leaving Canada. The math already makes sense from a tax perspective. Alberta is a net contributor to the rest of the country, mainly due to resource royalties. But to me, the question is whether that would still hold when it has to work out trade deals with two neighbouring countries, while small (pop. 5 million), and landlocked.
    • SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
      > The UCP (who seem to have no official opinion on separation) have already begun some of this, with an Alberta pension plan and a new Alberta police force. To be clear, none of this has been enacted. The UCP love to threaten, but those initiatives have not proven to be popular with Albertans. > But to me, the question is whether that would still hold when it has to work out trade deals with two neighbouring countries, while small (pop. 5 million), and landlocked. And when Alberta needs to take on all the things that the federal government does for them.
      • slavik81 1y ago
        > The UCP love to threaten, but those initiatives have not proven to be popular with Albertans. Unpopularity didn't stop them from changing the environmental rules to allow a new coal mine in the eastern slopes of the Rockies. The vast majority of Albertans were opposed and they went ahead anyway.
    • nonchalantsui 1y ago
      There is no Alberta Pension Plan that exists today. All provinces also already run their own police forces. So there has been no movement on this in Alberta.
      • badc0ffee 1y ago
        > There is no Alberta Pension Plan that exists today. There is a fund (AIMCo) that the government is proposing to convert in to a general pension plan. So far that has not been popular enough to translate into concrete action. > All provinces also already run their own police forces. No, rural policing is handled by the RCMP in 8 provinces. Ontario has the OPP and Quebec has SQ. > So there has been no movement on this in Alberta. The idea of the police force is more popular with voters than the idea of the pension plan. So, something could come of it: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-plans-to-create-independent-police-agency-as-alternative-option-to-rcmp-1.7504377 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-plans-to-cre...
  • bee_rider 1y ago
    Some clause to this effect could be a nice thing to add to any future unions. Want to leave? Go for it! Run your own services, take your chunk of the national debt and once you’ve paid it off you are free. Why are countries begging their regions to stay? It’s obviously just a negotiation or political rhetoric. If these movements actually had to take themselves seriously they would immediately dissolve I think.
    • projektfu 1y ago
      Because a national identity means more than a temporary convenience, and regions have ups and downs in their fortunes. Why should the rich parts of Alberta fund the poor parts?
      • bee_rider 1y ago
        Just to be clear; the idea there was to reduce the tendency to make these threats by actually providing a serious path toward succession. I think these movements are mostly not serious or well thought out, so this would be a good way of calling their bluffs.
        • projektfu 1y ago
          Yes, I re-read and I'm on board. However they are also, in my opinion, being promoted by state actors who want to weaken Canadian and American national identity. In that way, it's important to not push people into stronger support of the secessionist position.
  • Gothmog69 1y ago
    Yup this is what the so-called firewall is all about and floating an alberta CPP
  • aylmao 1y ago
    They can't be an independent country, because their position is indefensible. Over 3/4ths of their borders would be with Canada— that's enough influence and threat to thwart any separatism. Who do you trade with? How do you keep Canadian troops away? The only way this could happen is if the only other country Alberta borders, the United States, strongly supports the separation— strongly enough to break ties with Canada over it that is. And if it does, I suspect Alberta wouldn't be independent very long. All trade and most defense would be with and thanks to the United States. It'd be easy for the USA to annex Alberta.
    • refurb 1y ago
      That makes no sense. Plenty of countries exist with no ability to defend themselves against their neighbors in a war. Usually what you do is prioritize good enough relations to avoid war.
      • aylmao 1y ago
        But that wouldn't be the case here, would it? Canada wouldn't keep its arms closed as it looses its most profitable province, connection to its western ocean, and over 11% of its population. Unless the USA vows to defend Alberta, this would certainly mean Canadian troops marching towards Edmonton. It's an existential threat. Looking at the map, it splits Canada in two. I'm not saying this would mean war. Alberta doesn't have the right geography or military power to fight a war with Canada, unlike, say, the South in the American Civil War. Canadian troops would into Edmonton with little resistance and Alberta would return to Canada. The only way Alberta could remain independent is if the USA defended it. I don't think this would mean war either— Canada would never go to war with the United States. At most troops from both sides would be positioned on each side of the border, to show they mean business, but Canada wouldn't fire a shot. Knowing thus, that Alberta depends on them for both trade and defense (reminder, Alberta is land-locked and could only trade with the USA or Canada), and given their recent expansionist rhetoric, would the USA really opt to keep Alberta as an independent country they spent money defending, but get no taxes or land jurisdiction from, or would they expect to eventually incorporate it?
  • slashdev 1y ago
    Why wouldn’t it? Alberta pays more than it receives. It would be more capable of paying for services without Canada to hold it back.
• alephnerd 1y ago
  People underestimate the anger that has festered in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and parts of BC due to Pierre Trudeau's National Energy Program [0]. It caused a severe recession across western Canada back in the 80s and 90s leading to the Reform Party movement, Social Credit movement (a proto-MAGA movement), and the BC Liberals (a reform party splinter that uses the Liberal name, and all the liberals got pushed into the BC NDP as a result), and that resentment has festered. Secession is a pipe dream, but do not underestimate the anger and conservatism in Western Canada outside of Greater Vancouver, Nanaimo, Victoria, Kelwona, and a couple other islands of liberalism in a sea of conservatism - there's no cultural or social difference between Abbotsford and Bellingham (edit: whitcom county, did not realize Bellingham gentrified), or Lethbridge and Great Falls. Western Canada's resource-driven economy also plays a major role in this because for a lot of Canadians it's their only shot at middle class salaries and life. At least Carney grew up in Alberta during that era, so he can probably avoid the misteps that Justin Trudeau and his father did when dealing with Western Canada. [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Energy_Program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Energy_Program
  • earleybird 1y ago
    Let's not forget the Salmon Arm salute :-)
    • alephnerd 1y ago
      Heh. That was a bit before my time, but I spent a couple years in a rust (wood?) belt town in BC as a kid, and the anger and resentment was palpable even then. The kind of populist anti-business and anti-establishment anger I saw amongst the post-Reform and post-Social Credit guys was the exact same as that which I saw among MAGA all the way back in 2015. I think Canadians (in reality Ontarians and Quebeckers - but not like they could read English anyhow /s) really underestimate the MAGA style populist alt-right trend. Stuff like Rebel News was always in the water back west. It's the exact same type of right-wing I see across NorCal (real NorCal starts north of Yuba), Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The Quebecois alt-right is deep in the FN and Zemmour pipeline as well.
• oldpersonintx2 1y ago
  won't happen but the point is to reset the balance of power basically Alberta will be like Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction: "You can't ignore me!" but Americans also tend to underestimate or disbelieve that right-wing sentiment exists in Canada most Americans think Canada is like Berkeley on a continent-scale...Justin Trudeau believed that too and he was reviled eventually
• neonate 1y ago
  https://archive.ph/cIwx6 https://archive.ph/cIwx6
• SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
  As an Albertan I really have to wonder who is behind this PR push. Immediately after the election there were people coming to my door, asking about my attitude towards separatism. There's been flyers and news articles, and now there's an article in the NY Times? Considering the relative unpopularity of the movement, whoever is bankrolling this has a big reach and deep pockets.
  • mycatisblack 1y ago
    My first thought when reading the title was “divide & conquer”
  • api 1y ago
    The West, and especially the US orbit, is obviously under heavy propaganda attack, but the reason it's working is that it's exploiting a deep reservoir of resentment that was already there.
    • palmotea 1y ago
      > The West, and especially the US orbit, is obviously under heavy propaganda attack, but the reason it's working is that it's exploiting a deep reservoir of resentment that was already there. And I bet liberals will focus on the former in an attempt to ignore the latter, just like they did with Trump.
      • api 1y ago
        I can’t stand Trump and didn’t vote for him but I understand why some people did, and people like him will keep getting elected until the rest of the political world removes its head from its ass and realizes that no, they cannot just eat cake. Any politician or movement able to channel the rage that’s out there is going to win. When it comes to foreign influence we need to be asking why people are so angry that they can be swayed by some lame low effort memes and honestly kind of dumb propaganda. Russian, Chinese, and other propaganda is not even very good, but it doesn’t have to be. It just has to channel that rage. As for what’s wrong, there’s a list but I think the top item on that list is something almost disappointingly boring. I am a huge believer in the housing theory of everything: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/ https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every...
• neves 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • watwut 1y ago
    What are you talking about here, west of afraid of Russia separation into smaller unstable parts. Systematically. That Russia is dictatorship and threat to democracies, that Rissua is committing genocide and trying to steal land is other topic.
  • simion314 1y ago
    >When the Western talk about China and Russia, the unspoken objectives are to split the countries in smaller, weaker and easier to control "democratic" governments. I never heard about China to be split. For Ruzzia it makes sense, it is an empire hold together with force, if the Kremlin would not want to conquer even more lands and control other countries there would be no actual real negative sentiment against the empire, sure soem activists would try to helpo the subjugated nations but nobody would invest money into the movement, the Kremlin regume could have made that empire an economic power, to bad the dictator is a KGB criminal and not an economist.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• Teever 1y ago
  I'm from Alberta and I'm quite concerned about this topic. This recent HN comment[0] has been on my mind lately. I've lived here my whole life and while I have some level of sympathy for the sense of western alienation I feel that it's more of an identity thing that's been fomented by bad actors over the decades for their own personal political agendas and now that it's embedded into people's sense of self from birth it has become hyper-real and a great threat to me and the economic stability of the place that I call home. Nefarious people can really take advantage of these sentiments and get the people who truly believe them to eagerly do some fantastically bad things that are against their self interest. I don't know what can be done about that. Like what's the "Ape together Strong"[1] counter to this divisive bullshit? Alberta has a highly educated population, and one that has robust blue collar abilities, pretty good infrastructure, A shit load of natural resources, enviable geographic advantages in terms of security and isolation, and overall a very good quality of life. What Alberta needs is to be honest with itself and recognize that so many of our issues are caused by ourselves and our inability to coordinate as a people against internal and external forces. Separating won't change that, it'll only make it worse. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43487443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43487443 [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/apes-together-strong https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/apes-together-strong
  • BJones12 1y ago
    > I've lived here my whole life and while I have some level of sympathy for the sense of western alienation I feel that it's more of an identity thing that's been fomented by bad actors... As someone who grew up in Ontario, there is a real "f*ck Alberta" mentality in the central provinces.
    • AlexandrB 1y ago
      I grew up in Alberta and now live in Ontario and in my mind it's less "fuck Alberta" and more "I don't give a fuck about Alberta". Most Ontarians don't care about Alberta, its well being, or what its citizens want. Perhaps this is inevitable in a country as large as Canada. A good parallel is America's "flyover country".
  • 1y ago
• fatbird 1y ago
  An important factor to consider is that provinces in Canada are not like states in the U.S.: they are not sovereign bodies in themselves, they are administrative divisions to which certain federal powers are delegated. Alberta was created within Canada by subdividing what was then the Northwest Territories, already part of Canada. Albertans certainly feel a distinct identity within their province, but that doesn't map to a prior nation, state, or other entity that could be considered coequal with Canada. It's more like a child suing for emancipation from their parent. Their entire identity was created within the Canadian context. Who knows what effect that will have on separation if it comes to pass, but you can't really analogize separation to secession by a U.S. state.
  • palmotea 1y ago
    > Albertans certainly feel a distinct identity within their province, but that doesn't map to a prior nation, state, or other entity that could be considered coequal with Canada. It's more like a child suing for emancipation from their parent. Their entire identity was created within the Canadian context. Your analysis is too legalistic. You could have said the same thing about the US, pre-1776, and you'd have missed (or been trying to gaslight away) the elephant in the room. Nations and identities can form on their own, brand new, and don't require an appeal to some prior legal entity. > Alberta was created within Canada by subdividing what was then the Northwest Territories, already part of Canada. ... Who knows what effect that will have on separation if it comes to pass, but you can't really analogize separation to secession by a U.S. state. I believe you could say the same of many of the Southern states that suceeded during the civil war (e.g. Alabama and Mississippi were created within the US by Congress, out of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Territory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Territory).
    • fatbird 1y ago
      > Nations and identities can form on their own, brand new, and don't require an appeal to some prior legal entity. Fair, in theory. In practice, it's a bit silly when the roots of western separatism are an economic policy from 50 years prior, and the fact the BC won't play ball on all the pipelines AB wants to build to the coast. I think the analogy to parental emancipation is actually pretty good just because it does happen. It's a thing. And when Quebec came within 1% of separating in the 1995 referendum, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a unilateral declaration of independence would be illegal, but that the federal gov't would be required to negotiate a separation in good faith. > Alabama and Mississippi were created within the US by Congress Yes, but in doing so they were granted the same sovereign status as existing states. Alberta's relation to the federal gov't is the same as any American city's to the state in which it's located. If Pittsburgh wanted to separate from PA, what would that be like?
• jmclnx 1y ago
  I thought I read elsewhere the Indigenous people would succeed from Alberta and stay wilt Canada if this ever happens. Plus the same article said much of the "wealth" is on Indigenous Lands. Leaving Alberta with little.
  • badc0ffee 1y ago
    > Plus the same article said much of the "wealth" is on Indigenous Lands. Leaving Alberta with little. I don't think that's true. About 1% of Alberta's land is first nations reserves. The productive agricultural land and oil sands land is definitely outside of that 1%. Edit: Maybe you're confusing this with crown land? But if Alberta was independent, crown land would just be Alberta government-administered land.
    • Tiktaalik 1y ago
      Alberta's lands are part of a treaties that First Nations have with Canada. The literal reserve lands themselves are less relevant than the vast traditional territories that Alberta First Nations are sharing with Canada under some treaty obligation. I'm not terribly familiar with the minute details of the numbered treaties that cover the area of Alberta, but I am aware from recent reporting that the local First Nations do not see Alberta as having any right to separate and take FN lands with them.
      • a-priori 1y ago
        Alberta would need the consent of the councils for Treaty 4, 6, 7 and 8 in order to take their land with them. The treaties are between various First Nations and the Crown of Canada and are not transferable to an independent Alberta without consent. Some provinces have non-treaty land, acquired through land purchases or conquest. Quebec, for example, had the right to take roughly the southern third of its territory when it discussed separatism. But that's not the case with Alberta — it is entirely composed of treaty land. This means that Canada cannot grant them independence, even if it were to accept the results of a referendum that meets Clarity Act requirements. That alone makes Alberta separatism a non-starter. There's no legal route for Alberta to separate from Canada without negotiating new treaties with the treaty councils in order to get their consent, and they've already signalled they are not willing to do so.
• llm_nerd 1y ago
  It is fascinating to me that there is never a discussion about US states seceding. Well to put that another way, there is a discussion when it's a red state like Texas that is mad that the federal government wants clean air and good healthcare -- Texas spent Biden's term setting up "consulates" and fanning separation threats -- but why do we never hear serious talk about "blue" states seceding, and the mere notion is consider traitorous and "undivided under god" or something civil war incantions? Comparing the trivial complaints Albertans have relative to the federal government[1], just looking at what is happening in the US right now, where the country is objectively and rapidly becoming a profoundly corrupt, banana-republic level idiocracy, and I cannot fathom how the West Coast, New England, New York and the like want to continue to be dictated to by people like MTG or Mike Lee, or have to watch the news everyday to see what new catastrophe the self-dealing felonious president has announced. I mean, in actual polling, 9% of Canadians want to join the US (the absolute high was 15% of Albertans). 20% of Americans want their state to join Canada. Isn't that Amazing? So, start the process? [1] - Most of Alberta's complaints are nonsensical. The NEP program mentioned elsewhere, for instance, promised a coast to coast pipeline system. Alberta refused it, yet now strangely one of their biggest grievances is that there isn't a coast to coast pipeline system. Keystone XL was't cancelled by Canada, it was by the US which has always been extremely antagonistic to the province, and is rapidly replacing it with North Dakota (a state that produces about 4x the per capita oil value, but whose residents see very little value from the same). The federal government recently dropped $35B for a pipeline because commercially most big oil companies refuse to spend money on Albertan projects, but just want to rile up the low-info rubes into thinking somehow it's actually the federal government's fault. See Petronas cancelling an LNG project because spending billions on a terminal in a world flooded with low price LNG isn't worthwhile...still somehow a grievance about the federal government.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • Henchman21 1y ago
    > but why do we never hear serious talk about "blue" states seceding, and the mere notion is consider traitorous and "undivided under god" or something civil war incantions? Because conservatives own the media and push their agenda. Its of no use to them to portray things accurately. For instance, gun violence in red states is significantly worse than in blue, but the media pushes their narrative that simply going to Chicago is taking your life in your own hands.. you’re gonna get shot for sure, better to stay away! Which, coincidentally, means that those folks never investigate the truth of the matter and often they push the narrative!
• bhewes 1y ago
  Having lived in Alberta and Quebec as an American this is funny as hell, but that is Canada got to do something with too much time inside.
• BJones12 1y ago
  This Astral Codex Ten (Slate Star Codex) article is what led me to think Alberta would be better off if it separated from Canada: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-cities-and-the-wealth https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-cities-and...
  • dang 1y ago
    That's a whole new view of Jane Jacobs! You should post this as a submission to HN sometime (maybe in a few weeks, after which it won't seem like a follow-up to this thread). If you want to do that, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll arrange to put it in the second-chance pool (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308), which guarantees at least a bit of frontpage time. (Edit: I suppose I should hasten to add that my response here isn't about Alberta/Canada. Just about JJ.)
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • JackYoustra 1y ago
    Many issues here, as in a lot of SSC stuff, I'll pick one for fun > Stagflation is not a strange monster from legend. It is, Jacobs says, just the normal state of everything. Backward economies are in fact constantly in a state of stagflation. Prices didn't use to change persistently upward! That's an industrial revolution time. Stagflation is pretty well and conventionally understood by monetary econ at this point. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1Jg6G https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1Jg6G
• FpUser 1y ago
  If Alberta wants to separate to be on their own it is a lunacy. They will gain nothing in the end. I suspect that in reality there is a plan to just simply sell it to the US - separate first and then join the US later. I bet some politicians on either side of a border are actively involved. They should be fucking quartered. In the US states can not secede. I wish it was the same in Canada. Except couple of borderline cases splitting a country is never good idea.
  • qingcharles 1y ago
    I believe US states can secede legally, but does it not require the same sort of burden as federal constitutional amendments? e.g. a large proportion of the other states have to agree?
    • antognini 1y ago
      There is no recognized mechanism for states in the US to secede. Probably the consensus view among constitutional scholars is that accession to the United States is permanent --- that is, there is no way for a state to secede once it joins the union. There is a minority view that a state could secede with the consent of the Federal government or other states, but what would constitute agreement is not spelled out. If there were a serious attempt at secession it would probably require a constitutional amendment, so in practice it would require the consent of 3/4 of the states.
      • rgblambda 1y ago
        While there's no precedent of a state seceding, looking at Filipino independence as the closest example, it only required the President's signing of a treaty and the Senate's ratification of said treaty to cede U.S. sovereign territory.
        • antognini 1y ago
          US territories are a rather different situation because they are not sovereign entities in the way that US states are. US territories are essentially land owned and administered by the federal government so the federal government is free to acquire and dispose of them as it wishes. But the states are sovereigns in their own right that have entered into a compact vis-a-vis the federal government and the other states. Because the sovereignty of the federal government emerges from this compact of the collection of individual states, the federal government generally does not have the authority to modify the terms of the compact without the assent of the states.
• cafard 1y ago
  Canadians will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that at least Alberta made noises about secession 40 or 50 years ago.
  • bluefirebrand 1y ago
    More recently than that. Alberta independence is a can that gets kicked around quite a bit
• Tiktaalik 1y ago
  Alberta on as its own independent state would be net worse off in that they'd be a landlocked state and this would not at all directly advance their goals of getting more of their oil product to tidewater, one of their main political grievances. British Columbia would still oppose further oil pipelines to its coast for the same reasons it has always opposed them and in fact it would become politically easier for Canada to deny such access. So the only viable outcome really is American annexation. (Additionally not advancing the Albertan grievance of only selling oil to one customer...)
  • nickff 1y ago
    Quebec also would have been worse off as an independent state, but threatening sovereignty gave (and continues to give) them important bargaining leverage. Additionally, Alberta has long-standing grievances, and ignoring those in favor of a strictly economic analysis is quite... limiting. Albertan sovereignty advocates might also argue that Canada has more to lose in Alberta than it ever did in the case of Quebec.
    • jszymborski 1y ago
      There are different degrees of "worse off", however. Quebec is a major port city, while Alberta is sandwiched between BC, Saskatchewan, Montana, and the North West Territories.
      • abdullahkhalids 1y ago
        They have US border on the South. If they were independent, they can strike a deal with the US for their oil pipeline, without Ottawa blocking them.
        • slashdev 1y ago
          Ottawa has supported the keystone XL pipeline south. I don’t see what changes there. The democrats in the U.S. are the blocker for god knows what actual reason.
• neom 1y ago
  30 October 1995 was the day Canada almost tore itself in half[1]. Within hours of the vote capital started to exits, the banks shut down domestic FX trading to stop the bleeding, the loonie slumped, and Quebec-listed stocks went to shit.[2] ofc, ottawa responds by slashing transfers and public spending in the 1995-97 budgets. [3]They literally said, very loudly to province “do more with less.” Health care, social services, and infrastructure entered a period of massive of under investment, while provinces raised tuition, tolls, and property taxes to plug the gap. That all started the Clarity Act fight[4]. As a Canadian, I left Canada because my countrymen insist on shooting us in the foot, mostly in my opinion, because Canadians don't have enough to worry about on average. It seems we are hell bend on continuing the trend. It seems Canadians will do anything to avoid building a cohesive country... 30 October 1995 flipped Canada from build mode to the fetal position, and we're still in it. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Quebec_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Quebec_referendum [2]https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=841344 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=841344 [3]https://thewalrus.ca/betting-on-separation/ https://thewalrus.ca/betting-on-separation/ [4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarity_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarity_Act
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • Oanid 1y ago
    Thanks for sharing your comments and perspective. I read an article on HN this morning about housing and the need to build more of it. One of the comments mentioned that social housing construction in Canada dropped significantly in 1995—presumably due to the fallout from Quebec's referendum and the broader context you described.
    • neom 1y ago
      Taken in an even wider context, Canadians really got fucked hard: https://x.com/decenter_hi/status/1926730931080986915 https://x.com/decenter_hi/status/1926730931080986915
• perihelions 1y ago
  Not surprising given the Times' background, that the CIA isn't mentioned at all as a suspect. Despite that quietly funding and boosting separatist groups is their quintessential modus operandi; that they've done this hundreds of times all over the world; and US intelligence is the most well-funded in the world; and US leadership has now without ambiguity signaled US' intention to end Canada as a sovereign nation. They acknowledge the politician, sure; but they disregard the enormous state apparatus that politician wields, what it does and is capable of. The New York Times is pretty consistent about ignoring it. Note US administration-aligned media has lately been spotlighting US annexation of Alberta[0], despite only 18% support in actual Alberta[1]. Note also the related intelligence admissions about Greenland[2]. [0] https://www.foxnews.com/video/6369677470112 https://www.foxnews.com/video/6369677470112 ("Canadian lawyer leading delegation to DC to make Alberta a state") [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-join-u-s-poll-1.7434317 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-join-u-s-poll-1.743431... ("...the most support for that proposal in Alberta with 18 per cent of respondents agreeing Canada should join the U.S.") [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43910874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43910874 ("U.S. Orders Intelligence Agencies to Step Up Spying on Greenland (wsj.com)")
  • some_random 1y ago
    Credible news organizations require some amount of evidence before publishing.
  • blast 1y ago
    "US leadership has without ambiguity signaled US' intention" That's a pretty funny way to describe the Trolling Bloviator.
• Projectiboga 1y ago
  There is also a major First Peoples presence in Alberta. This will complicate any attempts to seccede and complicate any union with the USA. https://www.alberta.ca/map-of-first-nations-reserves-and-metis-communities https://www.alberta.ca/map-of-first-nations-reserves-and-met...
  • MrMorden 1y ago
    Secession would require renegotiating Treaties 4, 6, 7, 8, and 10. Good luck with that.
• nayuki 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • dang 1y ago
    Let's please not do regional flamewar here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• dustbunny 1y ago
  As a Western Canadian, I actually think it's the media attention on this that has made it more popular. The vast majority of people in my life think this is a terrible idea. Western Canada, and Alberta, have been shafted by federal Canadian politics for a long time, but Carney seems to be saying the right things ("energy super power", "energy corridor", "streamline infrastructure").
  • diego_moita 1y ago
    As an Albertan I agree. Separatist parties never got more than 5% of the vote here. What is happening is: 1) Conservatives believed they had a sure path to a super-majority in Ottawa. 2) Trump spoils everything. 3) But Trump is their hero, they'd never blame him. So they blame the usual suspects: Trudeau and the Libs. 4) Because they can't do anything about the Libs victory, they do what spoiled children do when they hear "no": throw a tantrum. 5) Because the media needs circus and drama to catch eyeballs, the media goes to overdrama on their tantrum. 6) Because children on tantrum love attention, they double down on crying and yelling. Go to 4.
    • morkalork 1y ago
      Literally just like a child packing a bag and threatening to run away from home because you didn't kowtow to their every demand.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  • tavavex 1y ago
    I agree as a Canadian. It feels like there's vastly more reporting on this than there are actual people fully supporting this movement. These things may be getting more coverage because they sound so outrageous and novel, but it's an unpopular idea even among Albertans. It also lacks anything that Quebec's once-mighty secessionist force had - no unified organization pushing for it, no vision for what an independent Alberta would be like, no cultural differences with the rest of Canada, no irreconcilable grievance with the federal government (outside of them not being conservative enough). Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of tension in Alberta - but as it stands, this movement is more of a way to voice discontent, rather than a serious plan to become a sovereign state. IMO, it's not worth a dramatic full-page treatment that paints this as a likely possibility - but foreign reporting on Canadian issues has often been very questionable.
• cryptoegorophy 1y ago
  Call me a conspiracy theorist but most of these post/articles/info is a Russian propaganda. It fits a textbook narrative of divide and conquer. I’ve seen same patterns in other parts of the world and similar thing seems to be in seed stage here as well as USA. It is a slow grind towards a long term goal.
  • throwaway48476 1y ago
    Most people who see Russian propaganda everywhere never stop and look back to see the connection between their ideology and Russian propaganda.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• dblohm7 1y ago
  Albertan here: a supermajority of Albertans are opposed to separation, but it continues to be amplified by the press. Danielle Smith, our provincial premier (equivalent to a state governor) is trying to pull a David Cameron to appease the separatist wing of her party.
  • JackYoustra 1y ago
    you'd figure that the mere invocation of the name would dissuade such a person from the idea!
• petermcneeley 1y ago
  What % of the participants of the trucker protest were from Alberta?
• thr0waway001 1y ago
  Next huge wildfire after Alberta secedes will be very very interesting. Heck just last year, the most prominent city in Alberta, Calgary, needed help just dealing with breaking a huge water main breaking. With drought becoming more of a real threat every year Alberta will be in a shitty place being landlocked. We are gonna need the rest of Canada’s help. Unfortunately, we can’t drink the oil.
• krooj 1y ago
  This is one of those cases where I would hope that extremely strong federalism is exercised from Ottawa: essentially, Alberta could be dissolved, stripped of its provincial status and relegated to a territory. From that point, allow for further subdivision to the various First Nations people, allowing reformation into other territories or offer provincial status. The rest of it could be federally administered - see how they like that. As much as it pains me to say it, Canada's diversity is also it's weakness, and there needs to be precedent - perhaps not as severe as in the US - that you do NOT leave the dominion.
  • squigz 1y ago
    Putting aside that this isn't that popular a position in reality, why do you think such actions from the federal government would go over well with not only Albertans, but the rest of us in the rest of the country?
• insane_dreamer 1y ago
  > Critics say that these [federal regulations] limited Alberta’s ability to fully extract and export its mineral and fossil fuel wealth. Of course they do! one of the key pillars of trying to mitigate global warming is reducing dependency on fossil fuels, which means not "fully extracting" it. What's the alternative -- extract as much as possible now so we can line our pockets, and let the next few generations deal with it?
• MeIam 1y ago
  This is oil talking and how does oil talk? Via oil companies. Americans own a lot of oil in Alberta. Americans are Astroturfing. They do it at home and abroad and that is how Citizen United produced corporate personhood in USA. If Alberta wants to separate and it's native people/aboriginals who own much of the land, don't go along, are they going to go to war?
• 3vidence 1y ago
  Alberta government is trying to rile up people to distract from their own going healthcare scandel where the MP and her party are complicit in stealing billions of funding. https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/article/ousted-alberta-mla-says-premier-knew-about-ahs-problems/ https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/article/ousted-alberta-mla-sa... As an eastern Canadian I'm all for expansion of oil production and building a cross country pipelines, but the UCP as a party seem very corrupt.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• aylmao 1y ago
  If Alberta were to separate, I can only imagine it would be to become part of the USA. If Alberta became part of the USA, there would be many factors pushing the North West Territories, the Yukon and British Columbia to follow. The Northwest Territories and Yukon simply make sense for the USA to want. It connects Alaska, they're relatively unpopulated (which makes annexation easy), and as northern trade routes become more feasible, are strategic for the USA to try to claim. British Columbia has sizable population, but can it exist as part of Canada, isolated from the rest of Canada? I think the geography of Canada is fascinating. It has long been a "river country", like Pakistan or Egypt, built around the St. Laurence river [1]. It inherited sizable "extra" territory on the west from the British— territory the Brits kept from the USA back when they were in a position to defend it. This non-St. Laurence Canada has slowly been populating, but looking at North American maps— from population density [2], to roads [3][4], to railroads [5], it just seems so relatively disconnected at the longitude of Lake Superior. I don't really know if it's possible to build a big city in the Thunder Bay/Nipigon area, but it almost feels like there should be one there. I get that Ottawa was made the capital in 1857 as a compromise between French and English speaking Canada, but if the USA keeps pushing this rhetoric (and we all know it's the USA behind Alberta separatism), would it be beneficial to move the Capital to Winnipeg? It's closer to the actual center of Canada, which would not only exert more influence on the west, but be a forcing function on east-west connectivity and with it, union. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canada#/media/File:Distribution_of_Population,_1851_to_1941.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canada#/media/Fi... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canada#/media/File:Population_density_statistics_canada.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canada#/media/Fi... [3]: https://www.cec.org/north-american-environmental-atlas/major-roads-2020/ https://www.cec.org/north-american-environmental-atlas/major... [4]: https://koordinates.com/layer/110462-north-american-roads-2023/ https://koordinates.com/layer/110462-north-american-roads-20... [5]: https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/map-rail-canada/ https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/map-rail-canada/
• vouaobrasil 1y ago
  Sounds like the desires of spoiled brats in my opinion. Alberta enjoys low income taxes (10% flat until a VERY high amount), no provincial sales tax, and lots of money from oil. Life is very good in Alberta generally and yet they still want more. People say Alberta gets shafted by federal politics it's rather selfish to want to benefit even more from oil considering that is the one thing that is bringing down this world. Sounds like the real problem is that the selfish brats just want to freeload off more oil because they want the cheap life of high consumerism. Sad.
  • _benton 1y ago
    The "spoiled brats" are the eastern Canadians who take billions of dollars from Alberta while enjoying overrepresentation in the federal government and voting against the interests of the people who fund their provinces. Eastern Canadians enjoy favourable deals with the federal government and denigrate Albertans who protest the unfairness of it. For all the hate Alberta gets, they sure are eager to keep them in Canada...
    • vouaobrasil 1y ago
      I don't disagree. I think Canadians are in general, spoiled brats. Albertans and others. And I'm not trying to be insulting. I'm Canadian myself.
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      • _benton 1y ago
        I don't disagree either haha. But on this particular issue the spoiled party seems to be the ones receiving the money
        • vouaobrasil 1y ago
          Haha, fair enough!
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• OutOfHere 1y ago
  The people of Alberta seem wholly uneducated and unconcerned of climate change. Who will they sell the oil to when the world burns around them?
• incomingpain 1y ago
  Polls are all in the 35-45% range, just like brexit. If Alberta separates, after replacing everything the federal government does, they'll have freedoms returned and have $25 billion/year more to spend on themselves. Albertan culture and identity has been under attack for 10 years and it has caused a great division in the country. Certainly an unprecedented national unity crisis with 3 active serious separatism movements. There are a number of interest groups who are going to boost alberta separatism. USA greatly benefits due to oil and food trading; but more importantly the oil is priced in USD. Alberta likely switches to the USD or rolls their own. Most other oil trade nations are going to boost for their separatism. Gun rights advocates will essentially undo the gun bans. Not to mention allow handguns for wildlife protection. Absurd that Canada prohibits carrying a handgun in grizzly territory. national defense corporations like lockheed martin will be able to sell the F35 to Alberta no problem. They benefit billions right away. oil and gas industry unlocks trillions of $ by separating. Quebec separatists will do all they can to get them to separate; alberta goes first and quebec will be able to follow. Liberals, especially in Toronto, will heavily insult and push albertans out of canada. Without alberta, Canada essentially becomes a single party democracy run by the liberals. There's so many interest groups boosting separatism, it's going to pass easily. Can you tell me even 1 group that has any good arguments for alberta to stay in confederation?