Alberta is a province in Canada with a lot of oil and a moderate but not yet dangerous separatism problem that polls a little below 30%. That’s far less than needed to win a referendum, but enough to support an insurrection or a large campaign of civil disobedience. It’s also a sufficient level of support for America to take advantage of in one of their patented color revolutions.
Though the level is higher than in the past, it’s nowhere near new. Growing up in the 70s and 80s in British Columbia I remember the anger.
Because there’s a lot of resentment in Alberta and out West in general it also gums up the works politically: the Premier of Alberta has been truculent and unwilling to join in on national efforts to resist Trump’s trade war, for example.
Alberta has oil. Lots of it. Most of it is crap, tar sands oil. It is because of Alberta oil that Canada has a trade surplus with America, in fact, we have a goods and services deficit.
Like all resource rich areas Alberta lives from boom to boom, and the good jobs are in the resource sector. At one time that resource sector was heavily taxed, but that’s far in the past and it is now heavily subsidized. So anything that seems to hurt the resource sector which the Federal government does, like environmental regulations or even renewable energy initiatives is resented. A lot of Albertans identify with oil company interests.
So, this issue needs to be dealt with. Its legs need to be cut out from under it.
The approach which will work is simple enough.
The federal government should either nationalize the oil industry or tax it at high levels when oil prices are high and take the money and just give checks to people in resource rich areas. (Not just Alberta, but also Saskatchewan in particular.)
Put 50% of profits or taxes into a sovereign development fund which invests in new non-resource businesses in resource areas in proportion to the income it receives from them (because resources always run out and one doesn’t want the West to turn into the Maritimes economically), and simply cut checks for the other 50% directly to people who live in the areas.
Make it so that the people of Alberta, Saskatchewan and other resource rich areas see the federal government as the one responsible for their prosperity and personal income, not oil barons.
Of course there are more steps which should be taken, but this is the first and fundamental one: reverse the underlying issue.
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Purple Library Guy
Almost certainly not going to happen, which is a pity, especially for the general case. In the particular case, the problem is going to be solved fairly soon because by early in the 2030s nobody is going to be buying tar sands oil. No oil patch, no problem.
Conventional oil will hang on a little longer, but as far as I know isn’t a big enough deal to be an economic driver any more, at least in Alberta. And Saskatchewan is just too tiny to have much impact on Canadian politics as a whole unless some visionary arises there and inspires the nation . . . can’t discount that, it’s happened before. But the vision would have to be about something other than dead-end oil in one province, because that isn’t very inspiring to anyone outside Saskatchewan.
I live near where the tankers are loading up tar sands goop from the last pipeline they rammed through; I’m crossing my fingers that we don’t have a spill before it falls out of use. I think chances are fairly good at this point; estimates are about 2%/year chance of a major spill, and I’d bet volumes are going to be dropping within 5 years, pretty much nothing coming through within 10.
Ian Welsh
Yeah, this is a “what we should do” post, not a “what we will do” one. Should have done it under Trudeau Senior, honestly.
Problem is once the tar sand oil is a non-thing, a lot of Albertans will blame the rest of Canada.
Purple Library Guy
Yeah, they might be mad, but they will be depending on the equalization payments which will suddenly be flowing towards them.
Like & Subscribe
This isn’t the way Canada will become America. Oil sands production is declining. Global oil demand is nearly at its peak and it will fall off substantially once it surpasses that peak. Canada will become a necessity because much of America will be uninhabitable by 2050 so hundreds of millions will migrate north into Canada and Alaska. Canada’s sovereignty will be untenable and indefensible. The oil sands will play no part in what’s coming. That’s a canard.
https://macleans.ca/economy/why-canadas-oil-sands-arent-coming-back/
Jessica
Sigh.
There is so much that would so obviously be to the benefit even of the powers to be.
That so little of it ever happens is testimony to the sclerosis of Western societies.
Oakchair
Saskatchewan is just too tiny to have much impact on unless some visionary arises there and inspires the nation . . . can’t discount that
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Didn’t the creator of Canada’s health care system come from Saskatchewan?
Purple Library Guy
@Oakchair: That was what I was referencing, yes. Tommy Douglas, arguably the greatest Canadian.
different clue
@Like & Subscribe,
Climate-refugee invasion by Americans into Canada may not play out as a formal American invasion or attempts at Anschluss. It may not happen until America has collapsed into a form of Somali anarchy . . . a sort of Somaliamerica, if you will. And it will be hordes of disorganized Somaliamerican barbarians surging over the border.
Canada still has time to build a Big Beautiful Wall with Big Beautiful Minefields.