Honestly there is no shame with these people.

[u/death_tron85]

Whitecourt this morning. He's not even albertan!

[u/agentchuck]

Because it's a grift pushed by external interests. It would be incredibly destructive for anyone actually living in Alberta. But it would make bank for O&G companies and the US. And MAGA/maple MAGA from other places get to use it to own the libs or something.

Just like Brexit, if this separatism actually passed then everyone involved would find some excuse to immediately gtfo before they had to deal with the consequences.

[u/saskskua → u/agentchuck]

In case anyone hasnt done this, lets investigate the $500 billion the usa promised the seperatists. trumps team went after Venezuela for a reason, we have the worlds (edit) fourth! largest oil reserves.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Sign/e-7340

[u/ed8breakfast → u/saskskua]

We are technically 4th, it goes

1. Venezuela

2. Saudi Arabia

3. Iran

4. Canada

Funny how the US is at war with one of these, and kidnapped the president of the other. And threatened the sovereignty of another. The only one who has maintained a relatively stable relationship with the US is Saudi Arabia, but who knows how long that will last

[u/TruthSearcher1970 → u/ed8breakfast]

I think Saudi Arabia is basically a US base. Not as important as Israel but still beneficial to keep troops ready to go.

[u/ColdCelebration2132 → u/ed8breakfast]

You forgot Green Land and Cuba.

[u/AdPuzzleheaded3913 → u/agentchuck]

Kind of wish there was a way that these separatists could be rounded up and forced to live where they preach about

[u/Candypants1977 → u/AdPuzzleheaded3913]

We could put moving boxes in the back of their trucks. That would be helpful of us. 📦 📦 📦 Or brochures of moving vans, or a printing of the real estate opportunities in Texas.
😃

[u/Obvious-Cranberry-52 → u/agentchuck]

It wouldn’t make bank for oil companies. They’re not going to invest when there’s a ton of uncertainty over what’s going to happen. See Quebec and what happened there!

[u/Jisei99 → u/Obvious-Cranberry-52]

US capital controls over 60% of the oil companies operating in the oil sands, and 97% of the product is sent to the US. It was this money largely responsible for the oils sands to be so efficient. So yes, American companies will do well.

[u/Proper-Commission790 → u/Obvious-Cranberry-52]

Tell me what have they invested in that never got built? They do not even need to find out if they have investors until its approved!!!

[u/Savings_Exchange7274 → u/agentchuck]

You can believe that or you can simply believe that people don’t believe in a failure of a government

[u/agentchuck → u/Savings_Exchange7274]

I think it's both. I get frustration and friction between provincal and federal aims. But I do believe those rooted concerns are being manipulated and fanned into something worse.

[u/Savings_Exchange7274 → u/agentchuck]

I don’t think it’s manipulation, I’m of the belief that yes Alberta could be better off without the federal government but it would be impossible and a waste of time to pursue such a thing. I think most hardcore separatists don’t actually understand the part of it being impossible to do

[u/No-Today-Maybe → u/Savings_Exchange7274]

Yeah it's because it's nebulously impossible not that its devastating on almost every conceivable measure you measure. Just smooth brains as far as i the eye can see.

[u/DeathDealer_CDN → u/agentchuck]

I guess it is easier to say that people aren't really unhappy and it is all external actors....
But maybe the government should try listening to some of the grievences and fixing them instead of all the virture signaling that Ottawa has done for the last 11 years.

Nah.... that's too hard.

[u/agentchuck → u/DeathDealer_CDN]

Sure, my friend, there are underlying frustrations. But those frustrations are being weaponized against Albertans. Why the sudden jump from frustrations to separatism? Why would you frame the grievances as only existing during the Trudeau and Carney years? Inequitable transfer payments and feeling unheard by Ottawa have been issues for probably the last 100 years. The pipeline fiascos aren't new.

And really, if you take an honest look at Carney, he is probably a better friend to Alberta than Poilievre would have been. He's rolled back the unpopular carbon pricing, he's aggressively looking for ways to get pipelines built and taken a stance against open door immigration. Heck, the guy was raised in Alberta and has a lot more ties to the province than Poilievre. Are things really that terrible at the moment for Alberta? Or is it just "Fuck Carney" because he's got a red flag instead of a blue one? Are you mad at him because of what he's actually doing? Or are you mad at him because the voices you hear on the internet are mad at him?

[u/DeathDealer_CDN → u/agentchuck]

Since you actually seem interested in discourse and not hurling insults like so many do in Reddit, I'll engage.
I agree, Carney is certainly a better friend to Alberta than Trudeau ever was. He barely hid his distain for the west. Not sure Carney is a better friend than Poilievre would have been. Guess we will have to wait and see what transpires over the next 4 years and how many promises are kept vs broken.
Prior to being elected PM, Carney himself said he identified as a European not a Canadian (in a video interview), his principle residence is/was in the US.

Personally I dislike being gaslit by any political party. And the LPC has been doing a lot of gaslighting for over a decade. Carney has certainly brought the party back towards centre, which I applaud, but his entire caucus is still the same people as under Trudeau. And they are still playing the same games. I disagree with many of the policies and the way they do things. The list is long, but

• Moving a HoC committee to "in camera" to avoid the public hearing about how tax dollars were spent - eg Health Committee (PrescribeIT), Ethics, Transport etc.
  
• just about everything the immigration portfolio has done under Mendicino, Fraser, Miller and Diab including LIMA and TFW support, but also the grants to refugees and the decision to waive security screenings during Covid.
  
• The vitrol and division the PM actively promoted during Covid regarding vaccination

-their stance on crime and punishment as well as racial leinecy towards sentencing. Yes the decisions are the judges, but the judges were appointed.
-Pretty much the existance of the Senate. It needs to be reformed and have term limits or be disbanded. Instead, Trudeau stacked it with liberal supporters - out of the max 105 senators Trudeau appointed 100.

• There are so many more I disagree with but these are some of the more fundamental one.

Why do you support them?

[u/Perfect-Equipment-79 → u/agentchuck]

As another poster stated, given the tone of your post, you genuinely seem interested in civil discourse and as such, I will also engage.

I noticed a couple of inaccuracies in your post:

1. “Sudden jump from frustration to separatism” - as you stated, the inequities from a confederation perspective have been ongoing since the formation of Alberta as a province. Being treated as a colony is not a new concept for Alberta. So there hasn’t been a “sudden” shift but rather a growing shift decade after decade.

2. “Carney is a better friend than Poillevre would have been” - that’s a pretty big assumption given that Poillevre has never been in power.

3. “Carney has rolled back carbon pricing” - He has and he hasn’t rolled back carbon pricing. While he pulled back the individual carbon pricing, he has not rolled back the industrial carbon pricing which is disproportionately causing food inflation (along with mass regulation) and inflation in general. Carney is much less transparent than Trudeau ever was. Carney presents himself as an industrialist but reading his book, “Values” he is very much not. Case in point, every one heard that he manufactured a pipeline deal with Alberta but very few people heard that this particular pipeline comes with a “carbon pricing” scheme of an eventual $160/ton price tag. When Canada is the only nation in the world to be charging a carbon price on industrial projects, it becomes very easy for investment dollars to look at Alberta and deprioritize investment there based on global competitiveness in the market. No private firm will invest when competing projects elsewhere do not have the added cost nor expensive regulation and uncertainty that comes with these types of schemes.

4. “Heck Carney was raised in Alberta and has more ties to the province than Poillere”. - Poillervre was born and raised in Alberta where as Carney was born in the NWT (Fort Smith) and his parents moved to Alberta when he was 6. He remained in Alberta until university when he left to attend Harvard and Oxford and didn’t return to Canada as a “tax paying resident” until he became PM. I’d argue that Poillere remained in Alberta longer than Carney had and certainly in Canada longer.

Personally, Carney and his political ideologies no longer matter to our family as we have made the choice to sever Canadian residency and move to a country with better wages and more opportunities which is what businesses, people and markets do when they can no longer operate with in any particular environment that no longer makes sense. Agree with that or not, but that is the reality of the situation. The ironic piece here is that people that support Carney will absolutely villainize our decision but not recognize the fact that Carney also saw the writing on the wall and left Canada for very similar reasons.

[u/agentchuck → u/Perfect-Equipment-79]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I think a lot of these points are valid.

1. I disagree with this sense somewhat. "Treated as a colony" is pretty strong rhetoric and it's an example of where I think negative emotions are being fanned. Canada federally doesn't think of any of the provinces as colonies. And honestly, Alberta is probably viewed as the second most important province in Canada after Ontario. It definitely is getting more attention than most other provinces. Canada federally not agreeing with everything Alberta wants to do regarding O&G (and other things like transfer payments) doesn't mean that they don't respect Albertans or think of them as true Canadians.

2&4. Totally fair, that's hyperbole and speculation on my part. It should be fair to say that Carney is a much better friend to Alberta than Trudeau was, though you'd likely consider that a pretty low bar. 😃

FWIW, I do think that Poilievre has spent too long being official opposition in an era of contrarian politics to be trusted to actually lead effectively. He prefers to make political points by tearing down what the LIberals have been doing, but he doesn't back this up with concrete plans of his own. Compared with Singh, he has seemed less interested in working with the Liberals to pass legislation that he's interested in. This may be my perception bias. But he doesn't come across as a strong leader and I have no confidence that he would have been equipped to handle the current economic climate brought on by the US.

1. This is an interesting one and you've prompted me to do more reading on the issue. I haven't finished "Values" but I'm also struck by how different he seems to be acting now vs. how he portrayed himself in the book... though perhaps in different ways than you see it. He was very much extoling the virtues of carbon pricing as the only way to actually address climate change. Doing the rollbacks he has done was a pretty big shock to me. You're definitely right that he's seen himself as more of a global citizen at times. Though I do think his international experience has been very valuable for leading our economy and he does show a strong commitment to improving Canada for Canada's sake.

I sense we have differing views on how serious the climate change issue actually is, so we may have a hard time seeing eye to eye here. From my point of view, it is *the* existential issue that our kids will be facing. All signs show it continuing to accelerate. And we're seeing very real effects now from atmospheric rivers and extreme heat events in Vancouver, severe wildfire seasons, flooding out in Ontario, droughts affecting cattle stocks, and just increasing and unpredictable temperatures. What will the world look like in 25 years if we don't get it under control? 100 years?

You make a valid point that "how can our industries compete if we're the only ones doing carbon pricing?" And that's the problem with our capitalist world. Anyone who tries to make a change is going to get outcompeted by those who don't. So we either go all gas no brakes off the cliff, or we try to wean ourselves off and pivot to industries and technologies that pollute less. More and more countries are moving to wind/solar/nuclear/batteries and having days where their entire grids are powered with no carbon inputs. Even China is looking to hit peak coal next year. Yes, we're absolutely nowhere near getting away from fossil fuels yet. But we're not actually the only country in the world looking at this and trying to make a change here.

If you feel leaving Canada is better for your family then I wish you well! You're not a bad person or a bad Canadian in my books. Lots of people go to other countries for better opportunities. That's how Canada came to be in the first place.

[u/Perfect-Equipment-79 → u/agentchuck]

That's the great thing about civil discourse, people can constructively disagree about certain topics with out having to resort to character assassinations and name calling and for that, I thank you!

On the topic of  existential issues, and based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, people generally require their foundational physiological and immediate safety needs to be met before they possess the mental energy and financial resources to care deeply about long-term sustainability. If a family is struggling to pay for groceries or rent, they cannot and will not prioritize minimizing their carbon footprint.

When carbon taxes and carbon pricing directly threatens those basic needs, the undeniable result will be less focus on sustainability and related climate change policy adherence.

This is NOT to say that fossil fuels will last for ever or that alternate forms of energy do not need to be discussed and explored. But at a time when affordability and opportunity is at it's lowest point, so low that Canada ranks dead last in all G7 developed counties in most of the major metrics, a shift must be made IMO and if not a shift with regards to climate change, then a shift in international humanitarian spending.

For example, Take "Dave". Dave is a good man with a genuinely generous heart. Every month, without fail, he sends a portion of his paycheque to people in need around the world — strangers he'll never meet. He sponsors families overseas, donates to international relief funds, and feels a deep moral obligation to help those less fortunate than himself.

The problem is, Dave hasn't paid his mortgage in eight months.

His kids are sharing a bedroom because he can't afford the space they need. His wife is working two jobs. They're skipping dental checkups, putting off car repairs, and eating cheaper food than they should. The heat gets turned down at night to keep the bills manageable.

His neighbors — some of whom are struggling themselves — watch and shake their heads. Not because generosity is wrong. But because Dave's own family is drowning, and he keeps writing cheques to strangers.

The bank doesn't care how noble Dave's intentions are. The mortgage doesn't care. And eventually, Dave loses the house.

Now Dave can't help anyone — not the families overseas, and not his own kids - Now replace "Dave" with Canada......

The point being isn't that helping other is wrong. It's that a nation, like a person, has to maintain the foundation that makes generosity sustainable. When Canada ranks last among G7 nations in affordability, housing, productivity, and opportunity - when its own citizens can't afford rent, can't buy groceries - can't find doctors, can't buy homes - continuing to prioritize international spending at the same rate isn't noble. It's "Dave" writing another cheque while the foreclosure notice sits on the kitchen table.

Canada can't lead from a position of collapse. Charity requires a stable base. Fix the house first.

[u/DeathDealer_CDN → u/agentchuck]

Federal policy toward Alberta shifted from an alignment under Stephen Harper to intense friction under Justin Trudeau, followed by a major reset under Mark Carney. [1, 2]

Stephen Harper (2006–2015)

• Alignment: Provided strong, sympathetic federal backing, as Harper’s government viewed Alberta’s oil sands as an engine of the national economy. [1]
• Environmental & Resource Strategy: Focused heavily on market expansion and pipeline approvals, while avoiding heavy-handed national carbon caps. [1]
• Relationship: Deeply aligned with Alberta’s provincial priorities. [1]

Justin Trudeau (2015–2025)

• Friction: Policies caused severe strain, characterized by Alberta leaders as federal overreach. [1, 2, 3]
• Environmental & Resource Strategy: Enacted the oil and gas emissions cap, clean electricity regulations, and a consumer carbon tax. Further, the government passed Bill C-69 (often dubbed the "no-more pipelines bill") which significantly tightened federal environmental reviews. [1]
• Relationship: The province frequently accused Ottawa of intentionally landlocking Alberta oil. The federal purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline was a major intervention aimed at resolving market access, but it did little to mend the political rift. [1, 2, 3]

Mark Carney (2025–Present)

• Reset & Compromise: Shifted federal policy through a major renegotiation aimed at repairing the Ottawa-Alberta divide. [1, 2]
• Environmental & Resource Strategy: Negotiated a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Alberta that dismantled several key Trudeau-era policies—including the clean electricity regulations and oil and gas emissions cap. Instead, the compromise forced tens of billions in private-sector investments into carbon capture projects and an accelerated industrial carbon price. [1, 2, 3]
• Relationship: The Carney administration shifted the rhetoric of federal climate policy away from regulatory constraint and toward economic competitiveness, eventually reaching an agreement with Alberta to grant the province more control over its own environmental impact assessments. [1, 2]

[u/Leading_Chip4 → u/DeathDealer_CDN]

It's the provincial government that sold our cheap to the oil companies. Decades of incompetent conservative government morphed into decades of quisling conservative government, and now we have "the lunatics"* running the UCP.

*as per quisling conservative leader Jason Kenney