This blog post was originally published at The Buffalo February 10th, 2020. The site has since been removed from the web. This was my first op-ed and was praised by an academic I quite like as “one of the most intelligent things to emerge from Laurentian Canada in living memory“. Can you guess who? I would certainly make a few changes if I rewrote this today, (saying “confederacy” instead of “confederation” and describing Red River colonists as “French Catholics” to start) but I’m still very happy with this and I, of course, still stand by the central thesis, so I am reposting it here.

The Alberta independence movement has returned Canada to the nostalgia of our past with western colonies vying for their right to self-determination. Now, instead of the persecution of French Catholics in Manitoba, it is Albertan workers who are bearing the brunt of sweeping federal power. What remedy is given to Albertans? For some who have a vision of a free and unimpeded Alberta the answer, though perhaps radical, is secession.

But, can we justify this secession? Alberta has been a part of our confederacy for over one-hundred years since the province was born out of the Northwest Territories in 1905 along with Saskatchewan. Can the destruction of this one-hundred year union be said to be a just separation? The answer, I posit, is an undoubted and emphatic, yes.

I ask unto Ontarians, by what right do we have to control the fate of our western brothers and sisters in Alberta? By what right should we exercise our vote over two-thousand kilometers away to tell Albertans how they can live their lives? Some answers have been posited; Ontarians are owed Albertan tax dollars in the form of equalization payments and that we must stop Alberta’s environmentally deteriorating practices. Neither, I argue, can justify any impediment to the peaceful secession of Alberta from Canada.

While contentious enough of a claim, let us suppose that Ontarians really are owed equalization payments from Albertans. Is this enough to justify keeping Alberta in the confederacy? Certainly not. Does not Canada send foreign aid all across the world? Canada sends billions to Brazil, China, Italy, Mexico, and other countries across the globe. If Canada is obligated to make payments in foreign aid to these other countries, does it then follow that Canada must come under the legal jurisdiction of these countries? Must we have all of Canada under the democratic control of the Italians simply because we owe them aid? Certainly not! Either the Ontarian must recognize Alberta’s right to make their own foreign aid payments or accept that Canada should be controlled by those whom we make foreign aid payments to.

Of environmental concerns, the opposite argument can be made. If it were true that environmental concerns were enough to deny the right of Albertans to secede, then how can we justify China, who is one of the world’s largest polluters, to be separate from Canada? How can they act as their own sovereign country without Ontarians stepping in and taking control of the entire country? Quickly, one will realize that without exerting federal power, Ontarians can enter into diplomacy with Alberta as a new country just as we do now with China to resolve environmental concerns today.

To Ontarians, I ask that you please consider that our goals for Ontarian-Albertan relations can be resolved without Alberta as part of our union. We need not exert control over a people who not longer want to be a part of our democracy. To Albertans, I ask that you consider your contentedness with a system in which those who live thousands of kilometers away can tell you how to live your life. Ask yourself if you are satisfied with Ontarians, who might never know what it is like to be an Albertan, insisting that you can’t decide for yourself how much money you should be giving them. The time has undoubtedly come for a change. It may be a radical change, but it is a just one. Leave the confederacy.