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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 ge
by 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 agoQuebec 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 agoThere 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 agoThey 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 agoOttawa 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.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- TimorousBestie 1y agoOil companies have proven time and time again when their pipelines leak or their ships sink or their fracking liquid gets into the groundwater, they’re not liable for it. Payouts have historically been a tiny, minuscule fraction of damage done. And that’s when there was an EPA attempting to regulate them; that’s not going to happen moving forward. So why should I trust one to build in my backyard?
- dylan604 1y agoBefore being neutered, was the EPA so powerful that it could regulate what happened in the great white north? While I get your sentiments about bigOil getting way with poisoning the land/seas, we can at least keep the government agencies from one country straight.
- unsnap_biceps 1y agoThe topic was "The democrats in the U.S. are the blocker for god knows what actual reason", so it makes sense that they were talking about a US agency to me
- slashdev 1y agoThat’s not the reason. The oil goes by train which is more polluting and has the same consequences when trains derail.
- pfannkuchen 1y agoCan’t a pipe spill a lot more oil than a train though?
- smegger001 1y agoIf the shutoffs dont close maybe but that is not likely But if the train derails and every tanker can on the train is going over and trains are reaching over a mile in length, it will probably be bigger
- evidencetamper 1y agoAnd how hard would you expect the Americans to drive the negotiation when they know they are the only possible customer for Alberta? Trade deals are not made with generosity towards oil producers in mind.
- jszymborski 1y agoI find it hard not to imagine a scenario in which the USA would strangle an independent Alberta economically with designs to, at the minimum get oil for bottom dollar, or maximally to absorb it as a territory. It's what they're doing to Canada right now. We have a fighting chance, I don't imagine Alberta (or any other province) alone does.
- Tiktaalik 1y agoQuebec would be worse off independent of Canada absolutely, but having access to the ocean not landlocked and remarkably more viable as an independent state. There are other landlocked countries throughout the world so it's not like it's impossible, but Alberta would be creating an uphill to climb. Bottom line is that none of Alberta's longstanding limited market oil pipeline grievances are solved by becoming a landlocked independent state.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> having access to the ocean not landlocked and remarkably more viable as an independent state And a natural foreign ally.
- drewcoo 1y ago> Quebec would be worse off independent of Canada absolutely Writes someone in English. I don't think everyone would agree.
- goosedragons 1y agoEveryone might not agree but it wouldn't be true. Quebec shot itself in the foot just threatening separatism. Separating would be like Brexit but worse. A smaller, less powerful nation would need to make a bunch of trade deals and companies would likely be even less inclined to enter QC.
- snapplebobapple 1y agono, they are solved by becoming an American state , or by taking BC with us (close enough to zero chance to just say zero chance) or taking Saskatchewan and Manitoba (not zero chance but pretty darn close). Becoming an American state is the least unlikely of several extremely unlikely outcomes. My personal preference would be for Alberta to stay in Canada and Canada to stop pretending it doesn't need natural resource extraction as a leading part of creating a strong middle class (along with being a cheaper second option for multinational tech company/medical research/etc satellite offices). instead of the current idiotic crushing of natural resources and trying to pick and grow winners in high tech, medical,etc. which is impossible to turn into a pipeline of companies/jobs here (you can get lucky and have one offs that eventually get eaten like RIM and salesforce but that's not an economy.) There is not enough rich people here (and taxes are too high to make enough rich people even if our population was equal to the USA instead of a tenth of its size) to drive the whole finance ecosystem necessary to create an innovation company pipeline. It's all just wasted federal money, most of it was financed by money transferred out of Alberta at the margin.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoExcept of course the elephant in the room for why that is. You know, an entire population at odds with the Canadian government for trying to do to quebec and their culture what the American government successfully did to native americans and their culture. You don’t really have that unified us vs them mentality in english speaking canada.
- MeIam 1y agoSo you believe threatening to separate is a strategy and that they get more by making threats. Alberta has oil majority of it foreign owed and wants free pipelines paid by the rest of Canada as subsidy and they got one for free and they believe they get more for free...
- jszymborski 1y agoIf Canadians are worried about Trumps threats of absorption, then I as a citizen of an independent Alberta would be petrified.
- guywithahat 1y agoI don't think anyone who's paying attention is worried about some thread of absorption. Trump was making fun of Trudeau when he was saying Canada wouldn't survive without the US's help.
- jszymborski 1y agoTime and time again throughout history, bold-face, clear-as-day threats of invasion are followed by disbelief, are ignored by folks, followed by the promised invasion. Just ask France in WWII or Ukraine most recently. I don't make a habit of ignoring major world powers when they threaten annexation, and many others who are "paying attention" don't either. Trudeau is no longer here, those threats continue to be made, even in the _presence_ of the current leader of Canada. I don't understand how one could not take these threats seriously.
- rat87 1y agoAnyone who is actually paying attention is worried. Not because it's likely, it would be absolutely rediculous. But then again many things Trump has done are obviously stupid and absolutely rediculous. Like the tarrifs. Or threatening to annex Canada. That's no laughing matter.
- canadiantim 1y agoActually Trump wanting to absorb Canada puts Alberta in a great position. Canadians like to argue that no province can secede from Canada because it would be illegal but the reality is that if a referendum showed 50%+ of people in Alberta supported independence then the US would support Alberta and that’s the only thing that matters. A lot of Canadian press is wilfully ignorant of that fact.
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- Gothmog69 1y ago[flagged]
- rfrey 1y agoThis is as true as Trump's claim that the US subsidizes Canada $200 billion/year. It's a made-up outrage point.
- dang 1y ago> got nothing in return except spat in the face Please don't do regional flamewar on HN. Like national flamewar and religious flamewar, it's a circle of hell we want to avoid here. You can make your substantive points without it, so please do that instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- landl0rd 1y agoGiven that existing pipelines are already overcommitted or at capacity and carry not much more than a tenth, and given that America is mostly the only option for refining the heavy sour tarry crap they pull out of the athabasca sands, this doesn't matter much. This is what came up during trump's threats about tariffing oil. They basically would have had to eat the cost unlike most of the other tariffs trump has proposed. Regardless, let's say two places have very different values and ideas about how they want to live and what goals to pursue. What the hell gives one place the right, particularly when it consistently votes down the desired values of the other, to prevent it from leaving and going its own way? Self-determination as a principle isn't magically restricted to national borders only. That would be a ridiculous assertion.
- SketchySeaBeast 1y ago> What the hell gives one place the right, particularly when it consistently votes down the desired values of the other, to prevent it from leaving and going its own way? Self-determination as a principle isn't magically restricted to national borders only. That would be a ridiculous assertion. How granular does this asserted right go? Should Edmonton be able to secede from Alberta? Can I run outside and put up a flag on my front lawn?
- landl0rd 1y agoIt goes pretty granular. I don't really like secession in concept, in this case it's a manifestation that governments like to steal more power than they absolutely must hold at that level instead of leaving it at lower ones. This gives someone in BC a hell of a lot too much influence on how someone in Alberta lives and vice-versa when really not much besides border, military, and treaties/diplomacy needs to be handled nationally. Things should be made as local as possible. I would prefer municipal or neighborhood-level decision making for a lot of things because it's actually really hard to scale democracy well and because the losing minority grows as you make decisions at higher levels. There are practical limits to this principle, very hard for a landlocked city to secede, but at least in principle it seems morally correct if not practically possible. But I struggle to see how someone can conceivably oppose colonialism and also oppose secession.
- vkou 1y ago> this would not at all directly advance their goals of getting more of their oil product to tidewater, one of their main political grievances It's a manufactured grievance. Alberta's been pumping and selling more oil than at any point in its history under Trudeau's liberals. https://economicdashboard.alberta.ca/dashboard/oil-production/ https://economicdashboard.alberta.ca/dashboard/oil-productio... Trace this separatism bullshit back, and you'll find the fingers of the American right fully entwined in all this. What all the separatists fail to be aware of is that 98% of Alberta is treaty land. It can't secede as a land-locked province, it could only secede as a bunch of fragmented municipalities surrounded by First Nations. The only actual way towards it would be invasion and annexation by the United States. I hope that anyone looking forward to that timeline is also looking forward to IEDs.
- mbohdana 1y agoThe issue is not selling more oil but where the profit goes. I work for the Alberta Government, I know a person who works for the Ministry of Energy and Minerals who processes land use rights applications for oil and gas activities. Most of the profit obtained from selling the aforementioned rights goes to the federal government (about 85%), and only about 15% gets reinvested into the provincial department
- hodder 1y agoTotal nonsense. Political separation doesn't undue physical oil infrastructure. Crude would continue to flow as is, and trade deals would immediately be struck. Meanwhile, incremental pipeline capacity south would be rapidly approved while existing East/West expansion is hopeless under a Liberal government. I am a physical oil trader and I buy 200,000 barrels of oil a day to supply refineries in Canada. I have also worked on financing for Energy East, Keystone XL, Northern Gateway, TMX and the Line 9 reversal in my career. Trust me when I say the Canadian government is the problem and Alberta would be MUCH better off from an oil perspective split off of Canada.
- apercu 1y agoNo personal financial bias at all?
- hodder 1y agoThat is the point. Alberta has much to gain financially. Yes I have financial bias and so do all Albertans.
- MeIam 1y agoYour trade deals are a flash in history. Native Aboriginal Canadians do not owe anything to oil traders south of the border. You can't force them join your ghettos.
- Tiktaalik 1y ago
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- nostrademons 1y agoWe just need to redraw the US/Canada border: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/enwwwm/map_of_the_united_states_of_canada_blue_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/enwwwm/map_of_the_... (Probably with Colorado + NM as a little USC exclave now, and maybe with Saskatchewan joining Alberta as part of Trumpland.)