Every few years someone insists Alberta would be better off cutting ties with Canada, marching toward some fantasy republic of pipelines and Stetsons, grizzlies and grievances. 

Some of those grievances aren’t imagined. 

Former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program took billions of dollars in potential oil revenue away from the province through federal taxes and controlled prices. So when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney came along and cancelled the National Energy Program, they loved him for a Calgary minute. But it didn’t last. 

But slumps come and go, especially in boom-and-bust Alberta. Few premiers there have thought beyond sending out unimaginative cheques during boom times, saying they are returning the money to the people. 

Former Premier Peter Lougheed created the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund in the 1970s, kind of a provincial sovereign wealth fund. But successive governments kept treating it as ordinary income, spending windfalls like drunken, landlocked sailors. 

Alberta’s prosperity was built inside Canada. The province has benefited from national institutions, national markets, national stability. The idea that it could simply walk away, keep all the upside, dodge all the downside, and thrive is political theatre. It’s not serious nation-building – and Premier Danielle Smith is not acting like a serious leader. 

Her separation question is a dud. 

Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada? 

No such legal process exists – utter rubbish. 

And then there’s non-constitutional questions like this one: 

Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purposes of decreasing immigration…and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities? 

Most leaders know that inciting anti-immigrant viewpoints is not a recipe for statesmanship, but Smith doesn’t care. She’s got a base to satisfy – and ‘base’ is a great word for the sentiments this kind of talk provokes. 

Alberta’s prosperity was built inside Canada. The province has benefited from national institutions, national markets, national stability. 

Canada works best when we resist the temptation to retreat into provincial bunkers. In fact, nearby Lakefield author, John Boyko, wrote an entire book about this in 2017. Called Sir John’s Echo: The Voice for a Stronger Canada, its central thesis is Canada has always been strongest when the federal government leads national issues and that, as Sir John A. Macdonald intended, Ottawa should remain the central voice for all Canadians. 

Alberta’s frustrations are real — but so are Ontario’s, Quebec’s, the Atlantic’s, and the North’s. And that makes this a local issue for me – and for any Canadian reading this. 

The federation survives because we hash it out, loudly, imperfectly, and together. That’s the deal. That’s the country.