Albertans have spoken, rather loudly.
asserted
Albertans → speak → ?
Roughly three-quarters of voters chose to remain in Canada.
asserted
quarters → choose → Canada
The binding referendum some had hoped to trigger will not happen.
asserted
some → bind → ?
Plenty has been written about how we got to this referendum about a referendum.
asserted
we → write → referendum
Yet one question keeps nagging at me: what was that all about?
asserted
that → keep → what
On the eve of the vote, the CBC asked Vicky Bayford why she would vote to start the province down the road to independence.
asserted
she → ask → independence
Bayford is no random voice plucked from a parking lot.
asserted
Bayford → pluck → lot
She is a former leader of the Independence Party of Alberta, ran for the People’s Party in last year’s federal election and has been active in the Alberta Prosperity Project.
asserted
She → run → Project
She has been making the case for leaving for a decade.
asserted
She → make → decade
Which makes the first answer she reached for rather surprising.
asserted
she → make → ?
Alberta, she said, is like Quebec, a “distinct society.”
asserted
she → say → society
Alberta is certainly a place with a personality all its own, one you can see and feel in the self-reliance and the swagger.
asserted
you → see → reliance
I’d sooner hear that about Newfoundland, which at least was its own dominion until 1949.
asserted
which → hear → 1949
Alberta also has a history of being allergic to the idea.
asserted
Alberta → have → idea
When Ottawa tried to enshrine it for Quebec, at Meech Lake and later at Charlottetown, Alberta was among its fiercest critics.
asserted
Alberta → try → critics
In 1995, Reform’s Deborah Grey told the Commons that Albertans “reject any concept that promotes the inequality of citizens or provinces or gives special status to any province.
asserted
that → tell → province
Three decades later, one of the movement’s veterans has borrowed the phrase.
asserted
one → borrow → phrase
It’s a people, with a language, a law and a history they carry together.
asserted
they → ’ → language
Being one doesn’t oblige you to leave.
asserted
Being → oblige → you
Quebec, distinct by any measure, has twice chosen to stay.
asserted
Quebec → choose → measure
Quebec’s markers are not hard to find.
asserted
markers → find → ?
Pollster Jean-Marc Léger puts it neatly.
asserted
Léger → put → it
Most Quebecers, he says, come from French culture, live in an English society and lead an American way of life.
asserted
he → say → life
Albertans would recognize two of Léger’s three.
asserted
Albertans → recognize → three
The missing one is the whole point.
asserted
one → miss → ?
All shared with Saskatchewan.
asserted
All → share → Saskatchewan
It sends far more to Ottawa than it gets back.
asserted
it → send → Ottawa
But look at what the grievance produced.
asserted
grievance → look → what
Some want Alberta to be a country.
asserted
Alberta → want → ?
Some want more room within Canada: its own pension plan, its own police, fewer cheques to Ottawa.
asserted
Some → want → Ottawa
And some wouldn’t mind getting closer to the Americans through deeper economic integration, easier markets, perhaps more.
asserted
some → mind → integration
In an August Research Co. poll, 26 per cent of Albertans backed independence and 16 per cent liked the idea of joining the United States.
asserted
cent → back → States
Who Quebecers are
That’s the movement’s real problem.
asserted
That → ’ → ?
Whatever one thinks of Quebec’s sovereigntists, they can usually tell you in a sentence why they want out.
asserted
they → think → sentence
It is about who Quebecers are, and a nation that wants a country of its own.
asserted
that → want → own
Alberta’s case is about what Albertans pay, and a bill, however unfair, is not an identity.
asserted
bill → pay → what
I wrote in these pages about Spain’s Basques, who collect their own taxes and send Madrid a cheque for shared services.
asserted
who → write → services
Most Albertans would envy the arrangement.
asserted
Albertans → envy → arrangement
But it rests on something older: a language like no other in Europe, and a people who were Basque long before Spain existed.
asserted
Spain → rest → Europe
Money can fuel a movement.
asserted
Money → fuel → movement
…and 7 more, not listed.
The Aporia
