UPDATED: The Enemy Within

Especially given the Trump-led attacks on our sovereignty, I find my heart is open to almost all of my fellow Canadians. Across the nation, people are banding together with a renewed sense of purpose and unity as we confront our greatest political threat of the 21st century. It is all to the good.

Unfortunately, that sense of unity, for me,  does not include Alberta, given that the good citizens there elected a government apparently quite happy to collaborate with the enemy. For a good examination of Danielle Smith's perfidy (which she frames as defending her province), check out David Climenhaga's newest post.

But there is yet more Albertan mischief afoot. A former Medicine Hat MP wants to explore closer ties with the U.S.

LaVar Payne is listed among the attendees of a press conference set for [March 27] in Calgary to launch the “Delegation to Washington” project. It hopes to determine the level support in Washington, D.C. toward an economic union or statehood for an independent Alberta, according to a release.

It states that a list of nine issues recently outlined by Premier Danielle Smith following a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney last week “has all but guaranteed an independence referendum to be held in Alberta this calendar year.”

Albertans are outliers in their reaction to Trump's stated intention of annexing Canada. While only nine per cent of Canadians hold with such talk, an enthusiatic fifteen per cent of Albertans would happily be absorbed. And there is an organization called the Alberta Prosperity Project, which is unhappy with Alberta's current status within Confederation. One of its founding members is lawyer Jeffrey Rath.

Rath made news after appearing on U.S.-based Fox News on March 6, stating he would push for direct talks with the U.S. officials about Canadian support for becoming part of the U.S.

“(It is) a steering committee of people looking to come to Washington on an exploratory basis and meet with a representative appointed by President Trump to explore the benefits of either Alberta becoming an independent sovereign nation with economic union with the United States, becoming a U.S. territory or pursuing full statehood,” he told the interviewer. “Those are our goals.”

And Danielle Smith seems to be right on board with those goals. 

Smith said after her meeting with Carney on March 20 that a “specific list of demands” needed to be addressed by the next prime minister within six months to avoid an “unprecedented national unity crisis.”

They include guaranteeing pipeline access, repealing the federal emissions cap, clean electricity plan, electric vehicle and single-use plastic targets, and pipeline legislation, along with leaving industrial carbon prices to provinces.

“I made it clear that Albertans will no longer tolerate the way we’ve been treated by the federal Liberals over the past 10 years,” she wrote on social media at the time. 

“I encourage all Albertans to get involved in what is likely one of the most pivotal and important elections in our nation’s history, and to support the party and candidates that have consistently advocated for freeing Alberta from federal overreach and the repeated economic attacks.”

I, and I am sure, most other Canadians, are disgusted by Alberta's selfishness. During a time when the rest of us seem united and resolved to resist American attacks on our country, that province is acting like the fifth columnist of Confederation, happily treading the path of absorption by that noxious 'neighbour' to the south. 

UPDATE: If you still have any doubts about where Danielle Smith's loyalties lie, I would invite you to judge her by the company she keeps.