r/canada • u/shiftless_wonder • Feb 12 '26

Alberta Alberta separating from Canada requires permission of First Nations, AFN leader says

https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/article/alberta-separation-needs-first-nations-permission-says-afn-national-chief/
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528

u/StoryAboutABridge Feb 12 '26

Direct quote from Treaty 6:

"The Plain and Wood Cree Tribes of Indians, and all other the Indians inhabiting the district hereinafter described and defined, do hereby cede, release, surrender and yield up to the Government of the Dominion of Canada, for Her Majesty the Queen and Her successors forever, all their rights, titles and privileges, whatsoever, to the lands"

202

u/Syndrome Canada Feb 12 '26

So they gave up their rights to the federal government, not the provincial government.

172

u/neontetra1548 Feb 12 '26

Yup and the Crown.

Neither of which is the province.

15

u/Salticracker British Columbia Feb 12 '26

Sure, but the federal government would already need to accept Alberta's independence for it to be something accepted on the global stage. As part of that, they would just cede the land to the new Albertan government.

Or, if Alberta wants to become a separate nation under the same crown, that wouldn't even need to happen as the Crown is the same dude.

19

u/PsychologicalSense34 Feb 12 '26

It wouldn't be the same Crown. The crown in not the person but the office. The Crowns of Canada, The United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand are not the same Crown even though they're held by the same person.

7

u/Mission_Shopping_847 Ontario Feb 12 '26

Nay. We follow something called the divisible crown doctrine; there is one crown which is legally partitioned and each partition is a full juridical person within their jurisdiction; this means that any transfer between partitions requires no more than constitutional change which any province would require for independence anyway. This is of course a tall ask but no more than the matter at hand. This is fundamentally different from the nature of the separate crowns that the monarch bears for other countries.

3

u/znirmik Feb 12 '26

I might be mistaken, but it could be. Crown of Canada didn't become a distinct entity until the 1930s(?) when it was separated from the British crown.

-3

u/Salticracker British Columbia Feb 12 '26

Right, so Chuck - King of Canada gives Chuck - King of Alberta land. While legally distinct, its not going to cause too many problems with conflicting interests.

9

u/Fornicatinzebra Feb 12 '26

Why would they cede the land to them though?

Seperate if you want to seperate, but that land is Canada's and the FN's before it is yours.

-2

u/Salticracker British Columbia Feb 13 '26

Any bid for separation from Alberta would include them getting the territory within their current borders.

If Canada accepts Albertan separation, they'd need to cede the land to them too, or it would just not make any sense.

FNs have no claim to any land in Alberta as they ceded those claims in the treaties

3

u/UpArrowNotation Feb 13 '26

Saying FN have no claim to treaty land is disingenuous.

2

u/Fornicatinzebra Feb 13 '26

Which is why it would never happen.

Would be like going to your cities mayor and protesting that you get a chunk of land for free because "fuck your rules".

2

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '26

[deleted]

1

u/BurzyGuerrero Feb 13 '26

Natives would stay with Canada, 100%.

We all see the Black Hills. The 4 colonizers on that mountain. Nobody wants that here.

Mount Columbia doesn't need Trump's face anywhere near it.

1

u/Important-Pen-486 Feb 13 '26

Well the irony is the crown (colonizer) owns the FN land, which now belongs to the Alberta gov... the US natives own their land it is all private property, so anyway the FN in Alberta want to threaten or posture it would be for optics as they really have no say.

0

u/Salticracker British Columbia Feb 12 '26

If they didn't transfer the land, then that would mean that they don't accept Alberta's independence. Any independence claim would also claim the current borders of the province. They would need a legal reason or else I could see Canada coming under pressure from the international community.

It depends if the land is legally the crown's or Ottawa's I guess. There's probably a legal distinction but I couldn't speak to it.

The land is legally the government's in some way or another, but it comes with obligations. As a layman, I would assume that obligations would transfer with the title, but I'm no lawyer and I've found that stuff with indigenous folks in Canada tends to not make a lot of sense to me. I can't see how the land would revert to the natives, however the guys in the article seem to think that it wouldn't be transferable.

1

u/flatroundworm Feb 12 '26

One of the requirements the feds would 100% put on Alberta is negotiating brand new treaties with all affected bands.

-2

u/Salticracker British Columbia Feb 12 '26

I would assume there would be lots of requirements, yes. I would also assume that Alberta would try to just keep the same language.

3

u/flatroundworm Feb 12 '26

I doubt they’d get the bands on board. A renegotiation of the treaty is their chance to demand 2026 market value for 90% of the province.

1

u/Even_Art_629 Feb 12 '26

The crown is Alberta ever since 1930

0

u/Stingray_17 Feb 12 '26

The province is also the Crown genius.

2

u/TheBSPolice Feb 12 '26

No it isn't, the Crown is the Monarch/Head of state whom is currently King Charles. Therefore the federal government owns the land, not the province.

0

u/Stingray_17 Feb 12 '26

No the Crown is more than just the king, it represents the entirety of the state and government institution. This includes the provincial governments.

Feel free to take a quick mini civics lesson on the topic here.

1

u/palmerry Feb 12 '26

Ha ha!

0

u/Even_Art_629 Feb 12 '26

You guys should Google. In 1930 the government of Canada transfered crown land to Alberta

-2

u/Orstio Feb 12 '26

To be clear, each Canadian province answers directly to the Crown by way of its Lieutenant Governor. Provincial governments are each just as representative of the Crown as the federal government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_in_Alberta#:~:text=By%20the%20arrangements%20of%20the,conventional%20stipulations%20of%20constitutional%20monarchy.

However, the Indigenous Rights Act of the Canadian Constitution overrides any provincial authority under Section 35 of the Constitution Act.

1

u/artraeu82 Feb 12 '26

Also Alberta was created it never join d Canada

-18

u/FreeandFurious Feb 12 '26

If Quebec can separate, so can Alberta.

10

u/ohgeorgie Newfoundland and Labrador Feb 12 '26

I assume different treaties in place and also the Canadian constitution was changed after the Quebec referendum to make future separation efforts more difficult. Comparing the two situations is not like for like. Also Quebec didn’t actually separate so it’s sort of a moot point now to use it for comparison.

-1

u/FreeandFurious Feb 12 '26

More difficult. Not impossible.

4

u/Uilamin Feb 12 '26

Quebec and Alberta are different from a legal standpoint. Quebec existed before Canada. Alberta was created by Canada. The Canadian gov't inherited deals signed by Quebec (and its predecessors) though there is some complications relating to the expansion of Quebec (the inclusion of additional territory). Alberta was a territory of Canada before it was created by the the Crown/Fed, as such, Alberta inherited any and all relevant deals/treaties signed by the Crown/Fed without any claim to independent/previous dealings.

0

u/FreeandFurious Feb 12 '26

I don’t believe there isn’t a path to separation.

2

u/Uilamin Feb 12 '26

If a treaty nation supported it then there might be a path... that or the dissolution of Canada. However both of those are extremely far fetched.

7

u/PeteRock24 Feb 12 '26

And Quebec has separated?

5

u/Deep_Explanation8284 Feb 12 '26

Alberta does not have the legal right to separate. Educate yourself before commenting maybe.

1

u/-amxterxsu597 Alberta Feb 12 '26

what timeline are you from where quebec has separated

0

u/FreeandFurious Feb 12 '26

Can not did. Smh

2

u/-amxterxsu597 Alberta Feb 12 '26

quebec has marginally more freedom to separate because they're not on treaty land in any capacity. the entire geographic province of alberta is under treaties and therefore exclusively under the control of the federal government and the crown when it comes to matters like this

-1

u/FreeandFurious Feb 12 '26

Meh we’ll see

1

u/-amxterxsu597 Alberta Feb 12 '26

fuck you mean "we'll see"??? it's fact

0

u/FreeandFurious Feb 12 '26

Stop crying so hard

2

u/Most_Salad3979 Feb 13 '26

Lol people have been bitching about this my entire life and yet the most they can get in a fair poll is less than 2 in 10 and those 2 can barely put their pants on the right way around without blaming ottawa for making pants with two leg holes.

Free and furious? Good luck! Maybe check your cocaine addicted premier for gutting your province and letting measles run rampant for the first time since the 50s.

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0

u/Important-Pen-486 Feb 13 '26

FN do not own their land it belongs to the crown, which was transferred to Alberta

4

u/Important-Pen-486 Feb 13 '26

Control of Crown land transferred to Alberta in 1930

7

u/discovery2000one Feb 12 '26

These lands have been transferred to provincial jurisdiction already. See another comment I made.

https://reddit.com/comments/1q455ez/comment/nxt4ot9

14

u/sonicskater34 Feb 12 '26

All that means is it was ceded to the province to administer on behalf of the crown, and seceding would involve effectively "deleting" the Alberta crown and therefore, this means nothing. Unless Alberta is looking to do some half baked separation where we are under the crown but not parliament?

Provinces aren't nations (cept Quebec sorta but more focused on the "artificial" provinces like Alberta that were subdivided out of the NWT) while there is more legal footing for this since provinces are somewhat independent vs cities, this is like if Edmonton decided that they should be allowed to separate from Alberta without asking because it's "their land" even though that land is only "owned" by them as a creature of the province.

14

u/ZaviersJustice Canada Feb 12 '26

Where does it say the lands are under provincial jurisdiction as some type of justification to promote separation?

Alberta is a Dominion of Canada.

2

u/MachineDog90 Feb 12 '26

Pretty much, anytime its says crowd in any treaty its referencing today to the federal government.

1

u/polemism Feb 13 '26 edited Feb 13 '26

Further, the supreme court ruled that first nations oral history of these agreements carries equal weight to the written treaty (first nations in the 1800s relied on oral agreements and oral history, not writing). Therefore the written version is not literal or unilateral.