“In the weeks and months ahead, Albertans will have an opportunity to discuss our province’s future, assess various options for strengthening and protecting our province against future hostile acts from Ottawa, and to ultimately choose a path forward,” she said in a statement Tuesday.
“As Premier, I will facilitate and lead this discussion and process with the sincere hope of securing a prosperous future for our province within a united Canada that respects our province’s constitutional rights, facilitates rather than blocks the development and export of our abundant resources, and treats us as a valued and respected partner within Confederation.”
Ms. Smith’s new proposals also include reintroducing corporate and union donations to parties, constituency associations, prospective candidate associations, leadership contestants and third-party election advertisers, including those campaigning in referendums. It also eased spending limits, among other changes.
Both the provincial New Democratic Party and the UCP previously took steps to limit the amount of corporate and union money in the electoral system.
Frankly I find it amazing that Albertans aren’t the most acutely aware how fragile their economy is. They’ve suffered several oil crashes, even two in the last decade or so, and yet they feel like they’ll do better without Ontario and Quebec to prevent a total economic crash any time oil prices dip?
And this is at a time when oil prices are already starting to fall, with pretty much every forecast blaring out that oil will become nearly worthless by the end of the century, if not within the next two decades?
Oh, and this is even before considering that the only other province that has a snowball’s chance in hell to give Alberta a hand once there’s no federal government to force the provinces to work together (even marginally), is Saskatchewan. I strongly doubt that BC would allow Albertan oil to pass through their province if the Feds wasn’t there to make them play nice together. Maybe natural gas, but definitely not oil. And in such a case, the only significant buyer of Albertan oil will be the the US, and I would bet actual money that the first thing they’d do would be to ask for a discount on oil, because they know it is litterally the only thing preventing Alberta from becoming a 3rd world economy.
Yeah, it’s sort of a failure of their education system that these people can’t put 2 and 2 together. I really hope they’re smart enough not to FAFO on a referendum, but the fact that Smith keeps pushing for it is a big deal.
I believe that she could stir up enough fervor that the province votes to leave because they’re high on false promises. If they do, there’s no “take-backsies.” It’s a one-way ticket out of the country no matter how many people suffer for it.
