Dear Jamie: Alberta Independence Isn’t a Myth, It’s a Movement

Alberta Independence is obviously catching on when "independent Journalists" published in the National Post, a Canadian Government subsidized news outlet, are attacking Alberta Independence. Attacks on independence include irrelevant personal attacks aimed at people advocating independence, blanket derision of Alberta indigenous rights, and fear mongering based on the creation of a fictional, dystopian, Alberta economic future.

Jamie Sarkonak compares an Independent Commonwealth of Alberta to a unicorn farm and then goes on to invent any number of hypothetical pitfalls that would turn an independent Commonwealth of Alberta into an "economic basket case".

Little Jamie seems very upset that someone is going to take her Canada away. The good news for her is that after Alberta declares its independence this year or next, she will get to keep her Canadian citizenship and passport and join the "brain drain" that she envisions fleeing Alberta for the warmth and comfort of federalist Toronto. She could join a wave of "Loyalists" returning to the bosom of their "Upper Canadian" pretensions. Albertans will wish them well and hope that the door doesn't hit them on their ass on the way out.

Ms. Sarkonak has no background in economics or business other than as a journalist with a history degree. She denigrates Alberta Independence and the Alberta Prosperity Project alleging that we are divorced from the economic realities of independence based on her own purely fictional hypothetical scenarios. She doesn't understand that APP has had the benefit of input and expertise from many diverse members of Alberta business and society including Indigenous leaders, bankers, economists, senior executives and entrepreneurs in the Alberta, oil and gas industries.

It is a FACT that the Commonwealth of Alberta would not levy federal income tax, GST, carbon tax, excise tax, capital gains tax and will no longer send 70 billion dollars a year to the Canadian Army of Tax Collectors that now outnumber the men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces. It is not "naive" to think that on this basis (coupled with Alberta's massive resource base) that Alberta could afford the lowest taxation rates in the western hemisphere. A constitutionalized flat 10% income tax and 10% corporate tax would lead to an economic boom that would further flood the Commonwealth of Alberta Treasury.

Jamie seems very upset that Albertans are completely fed up with the status quo that sees tens of billions of Alberta tax dollars going to Quebec to subsidize socialism in Quebec while Alberta can't afford to pay its doctors without borrowing money by running deficit budgets.

It is comical that someone could conclude that an independent country with the world's 3rd largest oil reserves, with a well-educated population, a culturally entrenched work ethic and conservative values would become an economic basket case. The real economic basket case will be Canada absent Alberta.

Trudeau has run up a multi-trillion dollar debt without the consent of Albertans. Mark "Carnage" Carney plans even more debt to the point where more than half of every of every tax dollar once again services the massive debt socialist Canadian politicians have run up with cash give aways through idiotic programs like CERB and Universal Basic Income, now called enhanced unemployment insurance.

Alberta Independence should in fact be called Alberta Self Preservation. Unless Alberta votes to "leave Canada and form a separate country", Alberta WILL become an economic basket case like the rest of Canada. As things stand now Canada only has 3 provinces that are NOT considered so weak economically as to not be classified as HAVE NOT provinces.

Alberta needs the ability to charge lower taxes than the US and eliminate all ideologically motivated federal regulation of Alberta business to reinvigorate investment in Alberta. Oil and gas investment in Alberta will completely dry up and divestitures of Alberta assets will continue at a greater pace once the Trump Tax cuts are made permanent. Investments in US oil and gas in a Paris Accord free, lower taxed regime will sky rocket at Alberta's expense unless Alberta can get itself out of Canada. Why would anyone want to invest billions of new money in Alberta with Mark Carney killing pipelines and LNG exports for the benefit of his Brookfield partners in the Qatar Sovereign Wealth fund.

Jamie Sarkonak completely fails to address how Albertans will become wealthier or more prosperous if we stay in Canada. At best she suggests that Canada will somehow suck less ... money out of Alberta if we could negotiate meaningful changes within the federation. She completely ignores the fact that Albertans have been trying this for years including electing an Albertan named Harper, who quickly became co-opted by the Laurentian Elites and who accomplished little or nothing in terms of restructuring the Canadian federation. The real naive view is held by anyone who believes that Alberta can effect a change of its financial circumstance within Canada. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

The slogan for Jamie Sarkonak and her fellow federalist propagandists seems to be

CANADA - "SAFE AND EFFECTIVE" .

We all know how well that turns out.

Jeffrey R.W. Rath, B.A. (Hons.), LL.B (Hons.)

Foothills, Alberta

March 7th, 2025