Roch Bourassa:
“fantastical nincompoop” is priceless!
@journodale.bsky.social:
Going to once again remind everyone that Alberta separatism is a white/Christian nationalist project. Fildebrandt’s “justifications” spell it out.
B. Thomas Hall:
Bravo, Professor. Well argued. I couldn’t agree more.
Michael Slavitch:
These numpts are Convoy Clowns with a trust fund.
Alan Bulley:
I read the piece yesterday, and my reaction was: that’s it? That’s the substance of the separatist argument from a journalist and former politician? This is why we’re all supposed to turn our country inside out?
You don’t have to caricature Alberta separatism as vacuous or racist, the separatists do it themselves by Emmett Macfarlane, Sep 09, 2026, Defending Canadian Democracy Defending Canadian Democracy
Over at journalist Paul Wells’s newsletter, he has opened the door to guest columnists on the Alberta secession question. In the latest, which gives Derek Fildebrandt the mic, Paul seems aware for the potential of a little backlash, leading with a little disclaimer about why he thinks it’s valuable to platform people with opposing views.
We can quibble over where the line should be (or whether there should even be a line, I suppose) on ‘platforming’ horrible people, but I think the post itself demonstrates the validity of Paul’s point: giving Fildebrandt the space to write helps illuminate just how shockingly empty and ugly the Albertan sovereignty movement really is.
Seriously. Take 3 minutes out of your day and read it.
If Fildebrandt’s is the case for Alberta secession, then it will prove to most Albertans an embarrassing and shameful one.
What does he cite? The first specific (I use that term advisedly) item is “[Justin] Trudeau’s attacks on our own economy and sovereignty.” We shouldn’t be surprised that Fildebrandt provides no evidence for this, because when one digs into even the most baseline data the claim falls quickly apart. Albertans earn, on average, the highest incomes in the country. It is on a per capita basis Canada’s richest province, largely by virtue of having oil and gas reserves aplenty.
And of course implicit in Fildebrandt and the separation movement’s core claim is Trudeau’s alleged efforts to destroy the very oilsands industry that helped contribute to that wealth. After all, his Liberal government was the one that brought in carbon pricing, environment regulations, and blocked pipelines, right?! Except growth in oil production increased substantially during Trudeau’s time in office, at even a better rate than under Harper.
If Alberta’s separatist case rests on economic destruction wrought by Trudeau, then there’s not much of a case at all.
But that doesn’t seem to be really what bothers separatists like Fildebrandt. No, his litany of concerns is revealed through the rest of the column. Here’s the sum total of what really bugs them:
1) “Woke” Eastern politicians changed the lyrics to O Canada to promote gender equality [faints];
2) some statutes were taken down [faints again];
3) there was a “mass graves” at residential schools “hoax”; [this anti-Indigenous line depends exclusively on the fact that “mass graves” may be the technically incorrect term – the indisputed fact that an obscenely large number of children died at residential schools, and that society would recognize the horrific injustice of the residential schools program, only offends immoral people as being “too woke”]
4) gun control; [no evidence-based policy allowed]
5) tampons are available in men’s washrooms at airports and on military bases; [faints a third time]
6) “emergency war powers” crushed a “peaceful protest” of “flag-waving Canadians” [no, the Emergencies Act is not a “war powers” statute. Also, remind me which flags they were waving again there, Derek? ‘Let us endlessly occupy the nation’s capital or we leave!’]
The Fucker Truckers were not peaceful. Abusing residents and workers with non stop toxic diesel fumes and truck horn blasting 24/7 is violence; assaulting kids and medical workers ripping their masks off is violence. Numerous times Fucker Truckers physically assaulted me, painfully, just because I was protecting myself and vulnerable community members by wearing an N95 mask and I was nowhere near their invasion zones. They screamed “restrictions” were violating their rights while they abused the rights of others with their selfishness, cruelty, and anti public health and anti science idiocy and raging thuggery.
I skipped the most revealing one. Fildebrandt writes that Canada “opened the floodgates of third-world mass migration that is destroying the inheritance passed on to us by our ancestors and called us ‘racist’ when we opposed it.”
I’m sorry, whose “inheritance” and whose “ancestors” are you talking about here?
Because the inheritance of non-Indigenous Albertans is literally based on your ancestors BEING IMMIGRANTS, you fantastical nincompoop. Also, you better get used to being called racist, because the rest of us know what “third world” is code for.
If these things substantiate Alberta separatism, and I believe I’ve listed all of the identifiable, specific things raised in Fildebrandt’s column, then it’s not a movement the rest of Canada needs to worry much about, because the majority of Albertans aren’t this ignorant, selfish, or – yes – racist.
And I will close on one final note: The people who with real gripes about economic and societal destruction, about ‘the floodgates’ of ‘mass migration’, are the people whose rights would be undeniably vitiated by the secession of a province: that is the many Indigenous nations and communities throughout Alberta.
Simply put, the secession of Alberta is not constitutionally permissible. The treaties that serve as the formal legal basis for non-Indigenous presence on those lands are with Canada; they cannot be transported to a new entity, or at least not over the objection of any of those nations. And anyone relying on the Supreme Court’s 1998 Quebec Secession Reference to claim that all that is needed is a successful referendum on sovereignty is fooling themselves, relying on an out-of-date opinion of the Court that failed to squarely address this fact or the implications of the honour of the Crown, a constitutional principle the Court itself only developed in the years that followed.
