Alberta separation

[goalieguy847]

Well... looks like this referednum question maaay cause a snap election ( maybe) or else smith may just refuse to review it...who knows... but i see enough of these facebook posts for alberta independence.

Now, as a farmer, i struggle to see how we will be better off if alberta WERE to separate...but somehow ag will be UNLEASHED if alberta were its own.... uhhh... state? Country? Entity?


I feel like a possible referendum question could be coming at us in the next 6 months..
so why not have a frank discussion about how agriculture would be better. Or worse.

Thoughts how we would be better?

Where might it be worse?

Also... if we could keep the idiiotic name calling out of this.. that would be alright!

[cropgrower]

well first off if Alberta was independent i cant see that it would have been affected by Ottawa s stupid EV tariff s

[fjlip]

Good analysis...
Ask yourself every time you read something if Western Separation would solve the problem. I came to this realization yesterday when Moe and Kinew were calling for and end to the EV tariffs and Ford was saying hell no. This came after Vassy Kapellos had some Chinese guy on her show talking through an interpreter who said the canola tariff would be dropped if we dropped the EV tariff, and that China would start buying canola from us as long as the price was competitive to other prices they have to pay for canola.

So here goes:
EV tariff
-Separation would still solve that. East can keep it. West would drop it.

Canola / Pea tariffs
-Separation would solve that- Chinese guy admitted they were in direct retaliation for the EV tariff, so if the West Separated, it wouldn’t be a retaliation, since we don’t build any cars in the west and it would be pointless to retaliate against Western Canada when we don’t build any cars and when we had already dropped the EV tariff, do China would drop it.

9 bad laws(No more pipelines, etc)
-Separation would solve that. West would drop them all.

Pipelines
-Separation would solve that. We’d have the 9 bad laws dropped before lunch on the first day and by the afternoon, companies would be announcing their intents to build.

Immigration
-Separation would solve that. West would just shut it down and only let in who is needed here.

Housing-Separation would solve that. Just need to slow the movement of all the immigrants coming from Toronto/Brampton/Montreal and close the door to new immigrants except those who are really needed.

TFWs
-Separation would solve that. Just shut it down.

Equalization
-Separation would solve that cause it would be over.

Health Care
-Separation would solve that. Since Western Canada would keep all the equalization money, governments could spend the money on Health Care

Roads
-Separation would solve that. Again, keep equalization money, fix the roads

Military
-Separation would solve that. Keep the equalization money, build our own military. And no money would be wasted stocking the men’s washrooms with tampons.
Homeless Crisis
-Separation would solve that. We could keep the money giveaways for gender sensitive farming in Africa and the Caribbean and all the woke gender gay giveaways and use it to get homeless people off the street and help communities that need to upgrade their drinking water.

Drug Crises
-Aside from BC, separation would solve just spend a little equalizion money and build more rehab facilities. BC would lose the federal money they are using for safe supply, and they would be forced to end safe supply.

USA Trade
-Separation would solve that. USA needs our oil. We don’t make cars in the west. USA needs our critical minerals so much that the US government is buying shares in Canadian Companies. We don’t export any aluminum from Western Canada that I know of. I don’t think we export a lot of steel from the west. USA uses a lot of our canola meal in dairy. We ship grain down there. They ship corn up here. We buy their cars, trucks, tractors, and combines. I think Western Canada and the USA could come to an amicable trade deal.

[ajl]

Thanks fjlip. Separation would solve many of the problems of the west as they are mainly inflicted by folks back east that hate us now that they have become dependent on us. I spent my high school years in ontario, and then western canada was completely irrelevant. Canada was ontario and ontario was canada as far as we knew. Now that ontariowe has exported their industry to china, they are now dependent on the west for welfare. They loathe us for that as well due to envy. The west has become successful despite the odds against us. So to be opposed to AB/Western separation means that one wants to maintain the gulag for your neighbors. So as fjlip very ably explained, we would be better off in every way.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Does it have to be about what's in it for me and my industry? Or shouldn't it be about what's best for the region as a whole and the general population?

I would argue that the anti-industry policies of the federal government have been relatively benign to Farmers compared to what they have done to the energy, mining, forestry and energy intensive industries.

Our industry probably have the least to gain relative to the rest as of today.

But looking further into the future, there will come a time when these policies have chased every other industry out of the country and there are no other industries to provide the tax base in Canada. Combined with the terminal demographics in the rest of the country, and farmers will be the only tax base left.

We need every other industry to be strong and profitable to share the tax burden.

That has proven not to be the goal of the federal government or voters in the rest of the country.

[shtferbrains]

I recall back in the 70's when things were rolling along without much government intervention and Lougheed came out with the year end numbers for Alberta it was easy to see the income taxes they collected just added to the surplus.
Many areas in the world that have an abundance of resources often don't have any personal tax

[goalieguy847]

How do we believe we would do better in ag?

i dont see us having any sort of clout so we would probably get roasted. Fert would be subject to ... god knows what sort of duties and tariffs. Phos comes out of florida so at the whims of trump we may be paying... whatever they want.
our grain would have not alot to blend against so we would get scalped on the coast. How would it work with cn and cp and alberta being a separate country?
.

[13stripe]

You would remove one layer of government.

[Blaithin]

I don't believe in any way the referendum would go in the favour of separating. The separatists have been shown again and again in recent elections that they are not in any position to succeed.

That said, would it benefit Alberta or agriculture in Alberta?

No, not at this point in time.

USA is too unstable, now is absolutely not the time to try and separate and set up new trade situations. We would be vulnerable on all fronts and end up being stuck in limbo for eternity. It's like not we would become "Sovereign Alberta" and suddenly have great trade and stable exports. It would be an extremely long process and right now the main players the process would be with are about the least cooperative people you could ever hope to work with.

What could separation do for us?

Well theoretically in the land of sunshine and rainbows it would answer all questions. We would have as many pipelines as we want. We could have as many mines as we want. We wouldn't get any sort of carbon tax. We wouldn't have climate targets to hit. All tariffs would magically melt away. We would be able to export all our resources, there would be endless buyers and no complications to get them to markets.

In reality, pipelines have to go through somewhere not "Sovereign Alberta" so there needs to be negotiating done there with somebody, either Canada or America. Or we need to invest in processing infrastructure which involves big investment and time to build. So, no quick oil revenue.

All mining and logging resources need to cross through somewhere not "Sovereign Alberta" to get to a market. You're now adding in a necessary international border crossing to get to a market which adds a lot of red tape into a situation. If Alberta goes full anti climate and allows all mining because "China will buy anything" will BC and Canada allow it to ship through their territory? Will China buy it if it goes through America due to all that tariff circus and those port issues?

For agriculture, Alberta would be almost totally reliant on importing inputs. We would need to buy in what we need for fertilizer, seed, chemical.... heck, you could likely also run into water issues from any water sheds that originate in BC and travel through into Saskatchewan. In today's age of water regulation, it's not going to be so simple a negotiation as just using what's on your land. Alberta cuts off a large portion of water that flows into Manitoba and Hudson's Bay. The run off of Saskatchewan grows the water bodies, but they start/further establish here. If we manage to still produce crops that can compete pricewise even with potential input struggles, we still have that issue of getting the exports to market through other nations. Transport costs would go up, the train companies and lines are owned by American and a small portion of Canadian, not Albertan. What contracts do they have that gives any negotiating power on their lines through Alberta? Would it be easier for them to just build a line around Alberta?

Where is Alberta's labour and workforce coming from to support these sectors that will suddenly be so profitable? A large portion of oil industry workers are not from Alberta, they're from other provinces. Are they going to want to essentially become citizens of a different nation? You can no longer just have people from NFLD or Sask drive over and work for the winter, it becomes more complicated than that. So the thought it Alberta has enough labour to support most of what will be required, ok, maybe, but where would that leave agriculture? Ag already struggles to find employee's, you put more pressure on the labour force, no way Ag is coming out better in that department. It doesn't pay good enough and has worse hours, and worse employers if you want to be honest. Ag would have to up its game with benefits, OT pay, schedules, etc. Can farms pencil that in?

Can the cities in Alberta survive a transition of sovereignty? We are not self sustaining. We need imports, especially the urban centres. How is Alberta going to support it's population in supplies, like that panic inducing toilet paper, if we need to now import via other nations and negotiate those deals. What cost is that going to add to our cost of living? People say we can producer our own oil and energy, but I'm sorry, my day to day living uses a lot more than just oil and energy. Almost everything we use day to day would need to be imported. Furniture, fruits and veggies, vehicles, clothes, hygiene products, appliances... look around your room right now and think is any of that made in Alberta and if it is, is it made at scale, or can that scale be upgraded easily enough, to support the population? People are mad that we have to see solar and wind farms out on our pristine land, that we're losing production to these kinds of things. Are you willing to trade those for factories and industrial areas to try and support what we would need to make ourselves?

Some of these issues could be slightly offset if it was a Western separation vs just Alberta, but only offset, not eliminated.

[Blaithin]

Oh, and who’s buying our products.

Will Canada want to buy our resources if we don’t meet their climate targets? Possibly not.

Will America?

When exporting to markets frequently you have to meet their criteria. Just because you don’t line Canada’s federal regulations doesn’t mean separating would get you out of meeting those regulations. Similar such regs could be a requirement to be able to sell into available markets so separation can leave the industries no farther ahead.

We can’t just rely on “China is too big to care about regulations, we’ll sell to them”. They’ve proven they’re not too big to tariff the shit out of us if they want too.