The Battle for Canada (1)

 As I write this, and as expected, three quarters of Albertans have voted to remain in Canada. 

The separatist vote, again as expected, is predominantly rural: there are actually a couple of ridings, again as of this writing, in which a bare majority of "citizens" voted not to separate, but to have a binding referendum on separation.

Yes, I scare-quoted "citizens". Because in my mind, anyone voting to leave this country ought to have their citizenship stripped at a minimum. I'd be more than open to exiling them. It's what they claim to want, isn't it? It's almost worth knowing who voted for what. Almost.

This silly plebiscite, which cost $300 million -- not counting the price of economic uncertainty, which runs into the billions -- was only step one in a process. Don't assume the resounding thumping means anything at all to the separatists...or to the United States which is funding and facilitating this fuckery. This result was expected and planned for.

You see,  Albertans didn't just vote on separation. There were nine other questions on the plebiscite having to do with restricting the rights of immigrants to Alberta and "working with the governments of other willing provinces" to Americanize Canada. And a majority of Albertans voted for just that on all but one of those nine questions. Some of those majorities are pretty healthy.

This, too, was expected. When Danielle Smith, the province's traitorous premier, realized she didn't have the votes for a separation referendum, she told her constituents to vote "yes to the nine".  Those nine questions, many of them leading and loaded and several of them blatantly unconstitutional, guarantee fights with the feds that Alberta will lose...thus amplifying calls for separation. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. is looking on, licking its lips and biding its time. It bears repeating that this is taken DIRECTLY out of Putin's playbook with Ukraine. They, too, had a referendum. They, too, voted overwhelmingly to remain Ukrainian. And it didn't matter: Russia invaded soon after to "liberate" the 27% who voted to become Russian.

The support levels are similar, aren't they? I do expect troops across the border sometime within the next year. It's been reported that the U.S. threatened to invade Canada "by sundown" if Doug Ford, the turncoat Premier of Ontario, dared to introduce an electricity export surcharge in retaliation for U.S. tariffs.

(Don't buy Ford's public "Captain Canada face" for an instant. He's busily selling off this province to American interests...and buying American electricity. So much for an export surcharge, eh?)

I had to work on the day of the massive "Unity Rally" in downtown Montréal in 1995. Otherwise I would have gone: there was a bus that would have taken me from Kitchener to Montréal at zero cost. That referendum was a damn sight closer: 50.58% stay in Canada to 49.42% for Québec sovereignty. There will be another Québec referendum if the newly elected Premier of the province gets his way. Separation in Québec currently polls at 30%...even higher than Alberta.

I do NOT envy Mark Carney. 

In my next instalment, likely this weekend, I will tell you some hard truths about where Canada is headed. For now, suffice it to say that the country will break apart into component pieces. Eventually many of them, far more than there are currently provinces and territories. The ultimate question is whether it gets to do that on its own terms. I am not optimistic.