Albertan angst, again

I've blogged about this and related topics several times, and will try not to repeat myself. Much.

In the wake of the recent federal election various Albertan voices are bleating about separating from Canada (again, or still) because they don't like the result. They don't understand basic electoral math, and don't appear to respect the results of a free and fair election process. 

In no particular order, numbered merely for convenience.

First, Alberta has about 10% of the population, and gets about 10% of the seats in the House of Commons. The tail does not get to wag the dog. Even when Stephen Harper (an Albertan in a Calgary riding) was prime minister, with a majority government, not much changed. We didn't see much of him. There were no pipelines built. Even if the Conservatives had been elected again, the bleatings wouldn't stop because they understand the electoral math perfectly well.

Second, in the recent election, Liberals got about a third of the Alberta vote, and ended up with 2 seats. A proportional representation system would have seen about 11 or 12 of those seats go to the Liberals. The separatists want you to overlook that inconvenient fact. The other inconvenient fact is that Alberta voter turnout was about 70%. So the conservatives got 2/3 of 70% of the vote, or about 45% of eligible voters. Consider also that voting Conservative does not mean you're voting to separate from Canada.

Third, if Alberta does separate, why on earth would BC facilitate running a pipeline through it's territory? Alberta would have no control over whatever tolls BC or Canada would add to the price. Fine, the separatists say, more pipelines to the States or we build our own refineries. Except we could do that now if it was economically viable. Having BC join in with an Alberta separation movement is even more deluded than Alberta alone.

Fourth, all of Alberta is land covered by treaties between indigenous peoples and the Crown, which means Canada. These were written before Alberta became a province. Successive generations of European descendants have wished the indigenous people would simply go away or be assimilated, but that isn't going to happen, and today we aren't going to go into the various racist policies enacted to bring that about. That treaty relationship has numerous deficiencies that we will not go into today, but the discussions to improve things are happening with an established entity. Why would the indigenous peoples hit the reset button and start over with a new unknown entity and try to establish a new framework? That cannot possibly lead to a better deal for them.

Fifth, the separatists are stoked that Quebec seems to be getting a better deal. They point to all sorts of ways they see Alberta getting the shitty end of the stick, and Quebec the clean end. They forget that seat count, with Quebec holding about a quarter of the population. Plus they never opted into some of the federal arrangements, such as CPP. Plus Quebecers are canny about changing their vote between the Bloc, the Liberals, and even (gasp!) the Conservatives. Any federal government has to take that into account.

Sixth, talking about CPP, Alberta does not pay into it and has zero claim on CPP funds. Individual Albertans do. The money is well managed by a non-political board, and yes, some of it is invested in Alberta. The Alberta record for managing the Heritage fund, and the various public service pension plans is poor at best, and is now under the control of the provincial cabinet. That leads to money "invested" in political boondoggles such as Kenney burning $1.3 Billion on a failed pipeline project. There are numerous other examples.

Seventh, ( I really should stop counting) equalization. Again, Alberta does not pay into the equalization program, Albertans do through their income tax. We pay more tax because we (on average) make more money. And remember, it was Harper's government that enacted the current version of that program. Plus, the program assumes that Alberta could raise more revenue via a sales tax, and chooses not to.

Eighth, various recall or public petition processes. My rule for recalling a politician is that the petition should have more validated signatures than votes for that politician, say 10% more. So for example, in the last Calgary civic election, Jyoti Gondek got 176,344 votes out of a total of 390,383 votes, or about 45% of the vote. The bar for a recall petition should thus be 195,000 validated signature. There were lots of people unhappy with Gondek, and they tried a recall petition that quite rightly failed miserably. Yes, it should be difficult to recall an elected politician. As a note, the second place person had less than 117,000 votes and it went down from there. 

Ninth, the whole join the States thing. It's lunacy. Right now the USA is not a civilized country. People get shot at random as they go about their lives, and the governmental response is thoughts and prayers. Citizens are being deported to third world hell-holes without any process at all. All sorts of institutions that were put in place for the public good are being dismantled. Musk and his fan-boy horde are rampaging through federal institutions and their databases, firing people at random. I think this is a massive data capture for their own evil purposes. The DOJ is no longer an institution following laws, they merely follow Trump's whims.The current USA is a great example of what happens when you let a criminal oligarch cabal run things. The States would never admit Canada, or even just Alberta as a state. By their standards, we're all raving left wingers. At best they would annex us and turn us into another Puerto Rico.

So really, I wish that that loudmouthed tiny fractional minority would shut up about separating, and get on with the business of working within the system like a grownup. Agitate for a proportional representation system for voting and I'll happily take part in that discussion. Push the government to enact new programs, or change existing ones through the established lobbying framework. Push to get more pipelines built if you're into that. Propose other ways of dealing with climate change if you don't like the current plans. Run for office yourself and find out the reality of how complex it is to govern a democracy. 

In other words, grow up and stop threatening to hold your breath till you turn blue. You're already blue, we get that. 

I've no idea what photo would got with that rant. So maybe just the image 

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