I'm Not Happy - Post No. 22
If you are not an Albertan, or someone with a tie to Alberta or its people, please bear with me for one more trip into the separatist wilderness. I hope to tie this discussion into something broader.
WHAT IS SEPARATISM ABOUT? I have yet to encounter a coherent, rational foundation for this current round of separatist thought. As I commented in January, grievances mentioned by those favouring separatism tend to be economic, and not religious, cultural or linguistic as is most often at the root of other global separatist movements. Alberta contributes more to confederation than it receives, so the argument goes; national policies tend to harm, minimize or disregard Albertans economic interests, by which we generally mean they are harmful to the energy sector, where our bread is buttered, and those policies are often developed and imposed without consultation with Albertans. These are the most commonly heard arguments.
WHAT'S OUR BEEF? We live in the era of grievance politics: everyone has something they think is not being given sufficient attention or weight: maybe it is climate change inaction, the assault on traditional gender identities, or the reduced importance of foundational institutions like the family, the church or the school. Maybe it's the incursion of artificial intelligence into our lives in ways that we don't grasp and can't predict. Virtually everyone has something they are unhappy about, from the civic obsession with densification that encourages multi-unit infills in established single family neighbourhoods, to public health policies like vaccination, to the perceived harms of immigration.
IT'S IN OUR BLOOD. We would do well to remember that prairie populist movements are hardly a new thing: the Social Credit party formed and led by William Aberhart in 1935 was based on the twin pillars of religious fundamentalism and economic reform. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was founded in Calgary in 1932, evolved into the NDP and eventually formed a government in Saskatchewan. It later made important contributions to national policy discussions, particularly around universal health care. But its origins were agrarian, driven by unhappy farmers who first came together in cooperatives like the United Farmers of Alberta. Rural discontent in Alberta has a long history of making itself relevant in broader political conversations. That is certainly true (again) in Alberta today.
WHERE ARE WE TODAY? Here are a few statistics to start the ball rolling: Alberta ranks first or second in the country in per capita income and per capita GDP: we produce the most economic output, per person, of any province, and our incomes are similarly near the top, per capita. Our cost of living is not the lowest, but it is near the bottom, a result of reasonable housing costs and taxation policy. The combination of excellent household disposable income and relatively low cost of living is hard to beat - we are among the most fortunate people in Canada. Our provincial debt, per person is by far the lowest in the country. Even if you combine federal and provincial debt, we are the least burdened by collective debt.
THE HAPPINESS INDEX. Albertans enjoy high productivity, high incomes, relatively low cost of living and low collective debt. We have natural beauty and strong communities. We must be the happiest people in the country, right? Wrong!! We are the LEAST happy people in the country, according to a Stats Can report from 2025: the smallest proportion of our population consider themselves to be very happy, 38% compared to a national average of 46% and an Atlantic region average of 51%. How can it be that in a place blessed with resources, opportunities and quality of life, the people who live here are not happy? Yes, these are averages, and we have homeless people, addicts, under- and unemployed people, people waiting for emergency medical care and for hips and knees and shoulders and other age-related health care. But looking at the big picture, how can we be so dissatisfied that setting fire to the whole country seems like a good solution?
MAKE THE CASE. I don't know why we are so dissatisfied. Maybe you know. I do know that there has been no economic case made to demonstrate that Albertans will be better off by any measure as an independent nation, separate from Canada. Perhaps there is one, but I haven't seen it, and I doubt that it exists. If your grievance is founded in economics and not in religion or cultural or language, it seems to me that there is a heavy onus on you to prove your complaints are real and can only be addressed using the nuclear option.
EQUALIZATION PAYMENTS - GRIEVANCE NUMBER ONE. Federal equalization payments are often cited as proof that Alberta gives more to confederation than it receives. To unpack that argument, you need to have a grasp of what equalization payments are, and how they are calculated. The federal government collects taxes from everyone, and then gives some of that revenue back to the provinces. There are 3 main kinds of transfer payments from the federal government to provinces, but two of those (Health and Social program transfers) are per capita transfers, where Albertans receive exactly the same amount, per person, as anyone else anywhere in Canada. The only transfer program that differentiates between provinces is the equalization payment, which Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan do not qualify for or receive. So what are those payments and how are they calculated?
HOW DO WE GET US SOME OF THAT EQUALIZATION MONEY? The policy goal of equalization payments is to ensure that regardless of the economic strength of their province, Canadians will have reasonably similar access to services no matter where they live. Although the policy was implemented in 1957, it became a constitutional imperative when added to the Constitution Act in 1982. For the first 8 years, until 1965, Alberta received equalization payments. No complaints about unfair transfers were heard from Albertans in those years.
TRUTH VS. ILLUSION. There is a misconception that Alberta writes cheques to send money to unfortunate provinces, like Quebec. That isn't how it works. The payments are made by the federal government to qualified provinces in accordance with a formula. Like Alberta, Ontario and BC also contribute more money to the federal government through taxes than they receive back. Albertans make more money per person than other Canadians, and therefore pay more income tax per person than other Canadians. We are net contributors - we receive less money from the federal government than we pay in taxes. We don't actually pay more, it's that there is more of our money in the equalization pot because we earned more, and paid more in tax per capita. We are not taxed more heavily, and we do not send money to Quebec - on a per capita basis though, we paid more into the pot than a fisherman in Nova Scotia, and we didn't get anything out of that pot (nor did BC and Saskatchewan, who also don't qualify for equalization because of their relative economic strength). This brings to mind the complaint that we contribute more to CPP than we take out, that we don't get a fair share of CPP money that we contribute. That is because our population is younger (with fewer CPP recipients) and our incomes are higher (more contributions). It has nothing to do with built-in unfairness.
WHAT'S THE HARM IN ARGUING FOR SEPARATION? If you dig deeply enough you will uncover the policy arguments for and against the current system of calculations to determine who gets equalization payments, and why, and how much. The arguments and the calculations are complex, and may well discriminate unfairly against certain economies, as Newfoundland and Labrador and Saskatchewan and Alberta have argued. But arguing that Alberta should separate from Canada because of the challenges of negotiating a fair equalization formula is a strategy that ignores the harm of separation talk. That talk, never mind the act of separation itself, risks all manner of unintended, unforeseen and unpredictable consequences. For a recent lesson in the law of unintended and unforeseen consequences, see Brexit. What began as an anti-immigrant movement ("we can't let someone in Brussels control our borders") became an unmanageable and unpredictable economic dumpster fire. Not the populist movement's finest hour. Who could have predicted, for example, that Brexit would breath new life into the Scottish nationalist movement, or ignite a reexamination of the possible reunification of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland? But it did. Alberta separatists would do well to study these lessons.
NOT RIGHT NOW. PLEASE. There is probably never a good time to disturb political and economic stability in the pursuit of ill-defined and imaginary fixes to perceived harms. But I would suggest that this time, when our political leaders are trying to respond rationally and proportionately and strategically to an erratic and perverse next-door neighbour, is a particularly bad time. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named threatens our livelihoods and our sovereignty and tries our legendary tolerance and good humour. Side note to Premiers Doug Ford and David Eby: you do not need to direct your liquor boards to stop buying US products - Canadians can and will make those decisions for themselves. Give us some credit: you're not helping. A quick look at the reduced air routes and traffic between Canada and the US should convince you that we can be trusted. As the US becomes ever more addicted to tariff revenue to pay the interest on its staggering national debt, US taxpayers will eventually realize that they are the ones being taxed in the name of national objectives (like Trump Worship or Trump Family Enrichment or free access to the Strait of Hormuz) they never signed up for. Canadians don't pay US tariffs - Americans do. That penny will drop eventually.
WHAT'S NEXT? In October, Albertans will vote. Not about whether to separate, but about whether to hold a referendum to separate. As silly as that sounds, I will be looking for a way to speak up for the majority of Albertans who are both proud Albertans and Canadians. Lying on the floor in a fetal position has been tried, and it didn't help. Speaking up, I guess, is next.
