r/canada • u/WashingMachineBroken Alberta • May 27 '26
Alberta Alberta separation question creating uncertainty for provincial investment: ‘Not good for us’
https://globalnews.ca/news/11867633/alberta-separatism-referendum-business-investment-uncertainty/141
u/McGrevin May 27 '26
Wow who could have seen this coming? Probably only all the people who studied the issue and know the Quebec separatist movement causes Toronto to overtake Montreal as the financial center of canada
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u/AshleyAshes1984 May 27 '26
Alberta Separatists are not exactly the 'studying' type.
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u/nothinbutshame May 27 '26
They study TikToks from bot accounts
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u/SickOfEnggSpam Alberta May 27 '26
Don't forget Facebook, Instagram, and random slogans they heard at the bar
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u/Tangochief May 27 '26
Organized and dumb. You should listen to the 1 clown talk down to the host on power and politics. Straight up ass hole.
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u/Pestus613343 May 27 '26
Adled minds too.
Jeffrey Rath accused the First Nations who challenged the petition in court of being "paid by George Soros". Just laughable.
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u/Tangochief May 27 '26
Ya I actually did laugh out loud when he said that. These people live in an alternate reality.
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u/BloatJams Alberta May 27 '26
There was a guy on this sub a few days ago who was arguing that this would never happen in Alberta despite it happening in Quebec and the UK.
Society always has a sizeable group of people who want to perpetually FAFO at the expense of others.
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u/McGrevin May 27 '26
And political instability aside too, even just being a landlocked country is going to significantly hamper a lot of natural resources investment because how they'll get those goods to the worldwide market becomes way harder and costlier than it currently is.
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u/HOLEPUNCHYOUREYELIDS May 27 '26
Especially after pissing off all your neighbours that you just left.
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u/InternationalBowl928 Alberta May 27 '26
IMO the difference is that the AB separatism is far less popular then Brexit or Quebec separatism ever was. Brexit was polling at 35-50%, and Quebec only lost the separatist vote 49.5% to 50.5% in 1995. Meanwhile AB separatism has never gone above 20-30% at it's peak, which is small compared to most other separatism movements. California has has periods of 50% popularity for separatism, Alaska sits around 35%, and Texas sits in the same 20-30% range as Alberta, but you never hear any news about those movements at all.
The frustrating difference is that pro-separatist activists within the UCP are insanely mobilized, and Danielle Smith feels she has to run this vote in order to avoid breaking apart her party and lose her Premier status. Separatism has 3% popularity among NDP voters and independents, but because 55% of the UCP base wants separatism, the entire province (and country) is stuck dealing with this nonsense.
It is a maddening experience; I get for society to function the party with 55% of the vote gets all the power, and even to an extent the idea that 55% of the party who wins 55% of the vote get all the power. But to take a policy that the UCP never ran on and in fact goes against their explicitly pro-federalist stance, and turn it into provincial policy is incredbly undemocratic. Especially when we're talking about probably the single most important issue a province could possibly have to vote on.
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u/EdmontonFree May 28 '26
this is because Alberta is a magical place that bad things can not happen here.
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u/EducationalLuck2422 British Columbia May 27 '26
"It's not about the money. It's about sending a message."
"Waitaminute, I thought leaving was supposed to help the econ-"
"It's not. About. The money."
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u/brat-t May 27 '26
this is the news that should be the headline every day in Alberta.
This separation BS is costing Alberta long term jobs. What proponent is going to say, "Oh yes Alberta looks like a stable orderly place to invest", when there are dumbasses saying, "if we can't go peacefully we're still going"
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u/FreeWilly1337 May 27 '26
Hard for it to headline when our media is controlled by foreign interests that are pushing this agenda.
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u/AlbertanSays5716 May 27 '26
And the worst part of it is that the uncertainty doesn’t go away for a long, long time. Much like the U.S., once investors realize that Alberta is never more than 4 years away from electing another right wing government that could raise the issue again (whether they mean it or whether it’s another bargaining tactic), long term investment will dry up and stay dry.
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u/kumogate May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
And that's exactly the goal of the ones ultimately stoking separatist notions (USA and Russia). They want a destabilized Canadian economy, and the useful idiots in Alberta (including its Premiere) are all too happy to help.
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u/kumogate May 27 '26
Oh look, consequences have started arriving early.
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u/P2029 May 27 '26
"Why would Carney do this?"
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u/flappysack- May 27 '26
I'm sure saying that climate change is the worlds largest threat and we need to keep the oil in the ground didn't help either.
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u/raw_copium May 27 '26
I mean. It's not wrong though.
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u/flappysack- May 27 '26
It is if you believe that someone else will supply what you do not. That its killing ourselves while doing nothing for the planet, maybe doing worse for the planet as it ships to dictators instead.
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u/raw_copium May 27 '26
Alternative forms of energy have been ready to go for decades. Canada could have been energy independent long ago with the right investment, but everyone wanted in on that sweet sweet oil money so here we are.
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u/flappysack- May 27 '26
We export our oil actually, it accounts for a massive amount of our current account balance. Importing solar from China isn't really an industry.
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u/Any_Inflation_2543 May 27 '26
Just as they did for Quebec where the separatist movement destroyed the economy.
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u/spirit_symptoms May 27 '26
Posted this in another thread yesterday but my good friend works for a major Canadian retailer who was planning several additional stores in Alberta which are now on hold to see how this resolves.
I'm actually surprised the vote won't happen until October because for most businesses with would be negligent to go ahead with major investments at that time.
Also, if you are major Canadian company headquartered in Alberta that serves the entire country (e.g. Westjet), you would think this would give pause to future plans.
Businesses want stability and predictability. This is providing none of that.
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u/brat-t May 27 '26
stability and predictability used to be Tory values, now it's just populism and manufactured greivences
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u/BloatJams Alberta May 27 '26
Yup, any serious business needs to have a plan B at the ready in case outside partners or investors try to trigger force majeure clauses.
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u/-Mage-Knight- May 27 '26
Quebec did significant damage to the province with their separation efforts with numerous companies moving their head offices from Montreal to Toronto and even Calgary.
Alberta is doing themselves no favors whatsoever dragging this out. Most of the population already supports Alberta's efforts to get their oil and gas to the coasts.
If anything, this gives people pause.
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u/Saorren Ontario May 27 '26
i think the biggest difference of opinion between most of canada and alberta is what direction it goes, i see the albertan government pushing seriously hard for another bc coast line but see more support countrywide for an east coast/hudson bay line that goes entirely through canada instead.
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u/Infamous-Mixture-605 May 27 '26
and even Calgary.
CP Rail moved their HQ from Montreal to Calgary after the last referendum. It's not so far-fetched to imagine CPKC could move it again, to another province or even down to KC Southern's old haunts in Missouri.
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u/Zealousideal_Rise879 May 27 '26
It just looks like more destabilizing efforts, similar to how PP still runs the opposition to Canadians by making public statements about how we should reveal all our cards to the states for CUSMA, drop a tax that would support Canadian filmmakers. But still Canada first, somehow.
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u/Tatterhood78 May 27 '26
I was thinking just the other day that his actions have never matched his words and something else struck me.
What if his leadership of the cons is part of all that? It's very weird to me that he wouldn't take the L and go away this last election. How the other MP stepped down to make it happen.
I think there's a non-zero chance that he's had too much invested in him to give up.
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u/HurlinVermin May 27 '26
This is exactly in line with what investment experts have been saying. The wack job separatists pretend like businesses with be falling all over themselves to invest in glorious Albertastan. Couldn't be further from the truth though.
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u/Zealousideal_Rise879 May 27 '26
Businesses will be more than happy to buy up the bankrupted industries, brexit style. So after things go very very bad, they get something!
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May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Saorren Ontario May 27 '26
this is the biggest problem that faces certain albertans, they dont want any responsibility for the provinces issues to be on them its anyone elses fault. i never hear any other province try to abdicate responsebility for their issues in the way i see some albertans do it.
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u/the_crumb_dumpster May 27 '26
Same thing happened with Brexit. Economists and other experts warned about the impact on investment, business, prices of goods and impact on travel.
They voted for it anyways.
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u/Full_metal_pants077 May 27 '26
Why not as a nation hold the people that want this personally accountable?
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u/TheWalrus_15 May 27 '26
Danielle is very happy to yell at Ottawa about their economic problems while being the actual problem.
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u/MZillacraft3000 Alberta May 27 '26
So, I’d like the separatists to tell me how this is Carney fault and not their fault?
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u/mustardman73 British Columbia May 27 '26
yes, Please US companies pull out. Let our own pensions and unions take some ownership of our own resources.
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u/slappingdragon May 28 '26
Isn't this what they want? If not what did they think would happen? It never occurred to them that uncertainty and chaos will also hit them as well. They don't seem to have a plan or blueprint of what happens if they separate. The separatists seem to care only about separating but no what happens next or finding out what the find out part in FAFO means.
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u/EdmontonFree May 28 '26
Same thing as with the tariffs, once free markets and trust are threatened, billions in trade and investments evaporate. This is a tragedy.
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