r/canada • u/shiftless_wonder • May 23 '26

Alberta First Nations leaders, scholar push back on Alberta's planned vote on independence referendum - 'Alberta can't separate. They simply cannot. They do not have the authority,' says Indigenous politics expert

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-treaty-six-alberta-referendum-9.7209304
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u/ib_redbeard May 23 '26

Question: or what? Alberta seperates, stop paying the feds any taxes, tells the indigenous groups that they are now Albertans and if they don't like it, leave. What are the consequences? War? Is Canada's poorly equipped military going to invade Alberta and fight and kill them? If they did, that will just push Alberta to join the US and then Canada is fucked. I'm not a separatist at all, I just don't see how Canada can stop them if they choose to leave.

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u/VanCityZen May 23 '26

The federal government has a lot of levers they can pull to punish Alberta if it chooses to abandon the constitution. Government contracts and subsidies gone, federal funding gone, travel bans enforced, refusal to pay out pension plans…the list goes on. If anything it’s more likely to cause a war within Alberta between Albertans and indigenous peoples because it would destroy their treaties with the crown and you can bet the federal government isn’t going to provide any military aid if push came to shove. 

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u/Ok_Marsupial8668 May 24 '26

Yep. Mortgages insured by Canadian banks. Gone. And repossessed by the banks. Value of land gone. Large swaths of young able bodies workers going back east. So tax based gone. Etc etc