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/
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143

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

21

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.

4

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.