海角社区官网

Not even a $34.2-billion expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline (TMX) built by Ottawa to get Alberta oil to non-U.S. markets for the first time has reduced Alberta鈥檚 bellyaching.

The expanded TMX pretty much guarantees high Alberta oil production and employment for decades to come. The Canadians who paid for the TMX with their tax dollars are still waiting for a word of thanks from Albertans.

But Alberta doesn鈥檛 do gratitude. It does righteous indignation, ad nauseam.

Perhaps Alberta should go its own way and then have only itself to complain to.

Not that there鈥檚 much to complain about in one of the world鈥檚 most prosperous jurisdictions.

Even more reason for Alberta to go it alone. Its population of about 4.4 million roughly equates with that of New Zealand and a self-governing Scotland.

At a time when Canada鈥檚 sovereignty is under attack from the U.S., a couple of prominent Albertans backed by an energetic grassroots Alberta separatist movement are undermining Canadian unity, which otherwise is at a zenith not seen since Expo 67.

As earlier noted in this space, the most effective means of quickly ending U.S. President Donald Trump鈥檚 economic attack on Canada would be a 300 per cent export tax on the Alberta oil shipped to the U.S. The U.S. relies on Alberta for about 20 per cent of its total oil consumption.

But Alberta Premier Danielle Smith balks at that. 鈥淚f they (Ottawa) start stealing more of our money and trying to control more of our future, I think Albertans will boil over,鈥� Smith said of export tariffs, which no dictionary defines as theft.

The larger context here is Smith鈥檚 oxymoronic Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, by which Alberta can attempt to override federal laws it doesn鈥檛 like.

And there鈥檚 Alberta鈥檚 mooted carve-out from the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) by which it seeks 53 per cent of the CPP鈥檚 assets, having contributed only about 16 per cent of those assets, according to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

Smith and her Ontario counterpart, Premier Doug Ford, are a study in contrasts.

In waging the tariff war against Trump, Ford has threatened to cut off electricity exports to the U.S.

And in the Ford government鈥檚 throne speech last week, Ontario said it will 鈥渃hampion鈥� new oil and natural gas pipelines to reach new markets for Western Canada鈥檚 fossil fuels.

That was a generous nod to Alberta.

Smith has not championed but demanded unfettered access to the rest of Canada for new pipelines criss-crossing the country.

If Smith has any sensitivity to people elsewhere in Canada, including Indigenous Peoples, who might object to having pipelines traversing their land, she doesn鈥檛 show it.

That unrestricted pipeline construction was one of nine demands Smith made in her first meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney on March 20. She said her demands must be met by a new federal government in six months to avoid an 鈥渦nprecedented national unity crisis.鈥�

And there鈥檚 Preston Manning, a co-founder of the Reform Party and an Alberta nationalist, warning Canadians in an April 2 newspaper column that a vote for the Liberals in the April 28 election is a vote for Western secession聽鈥� 鈥渇or the breakup of Canada as we know it.鈥�

Manning has subjected Canadian voters to extortion, a sordid gambit that only the most strident Quebec nationalists have attempted.

Absent Alberta, Canada could confront Trumpism as a more united front.

And Canadian taxpayers would no longer have to subsidize Alberta鈥檚 oilpatch, its increased housing supply, and its university research projects.

No one from Ottawa asked me what I would do with the $34 billion in taxpayer money聽鈥� including mine聽鈥� allocated to expanding the TMX.

I might have said the TMX can wait.

And suggested that the money be spent instead on cutting health-care wait times and rebuilding a largely deficient long-term-care sector where so many Canadian seniors died in the pandemic.

Alberta鈥檚 separation would reduce the Canadian economy by about $460 billion, or 15 per cent. That鈥檚 no trivial loss, but it鈥檚 bearable.

The real loss would be Alberta鈥檚 entrepreneurial culture; its powers of endurance, forged in the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression and more than one collapse in world oil prices; and the remarkable people Alberta produces聽鈥� Peter Lougheed, Marshall McLuhan, Max Ward, Michael J. Fox, Chrystia Freeland, Mark Tewksbury, Grant Fuhr, and k.d. lang, to name a few.聽

Sadly, the Canadian patriotism those Albertans did and do represent has been betrayed by the self-involved parochialism of Alberta鈥檚 current political leadership class and its followers.

If only one could take a pill and make that go away. But it might be that there ain鈥檛 no cure for Alberta except to wave goodbye.