Dumbass of the Week: Alberta Separatists
They got spanked and don’t even know how bad it is, yet
This week’s award was never really in doubt.
On Monday, the Alberta referendum on separation finally happened. Remain took roughly 75 percent. By Tuesday morning, the headlines had settled on the scary number: A quarter of Albertans want out.
Separatist organizer Jeffrey Rath was thrilled. He told CNN he was proud his movement went from nothing to winning over a quarter of voters in a year and a half. That’s a lovely thing to say right after losing three to one.
But let’s do the math nobody on TV bothered with.
A quarter of who, exactly?
About 3 million Albertans were eligible to vote. Roughly 470,000 picked the separation option. That isn’t a quarter of Albertans. It’s about one in six.
The 25 percent figure only works if you pretend the million-plus people who stayed home don’t actually live in Alberta.
And who stays home? People who are fine with how things are. Nobody skips a vote because they’re burning to secede. Angry people show up. Content people make supper. I can’t prove every non-voter is a quiet federalist, but I’d bet the farm most of them aren’t secretly sewing new flags.
They didn’t even vote to leave
Here’s the part that should sting. Those 470,000 people didn’t vote to leave Canada. They voted on whether the government should start the legal process for another vote. A referendum on a referendum. Even some separatists grumbled about the wording.
So the movement’s grand showing was half a million people saying “maybe later, with paperwork.”
And that paperwork is a monster. Earlier this year, a judge threw out the separatist petition because the province never consulted First Nations, whose treaties predate Alberta itself. Forty-seven of 48 chiefs and councils publicly opposed the question. First Nations turnout was strong enough that some polling stations ran out of ballots.
Leaving would mean constitutional negotiations, treaty obligations, pensions, borders, a currency, and a bill nobody has priced honestly. It isn’t a simple divorce. It’s a divorce where you also build a new house, find a new job, and explain it all to the neighbours who were there first.
The real number
My guess? Walk those 470,000 through what the exit actually costs, and half of them find something better to do on a Monday.
That leaves about 235,000 hardcore separatists, or roughly one in thirteen eligible voters.
That’s not a movement. That’s a well-attended Facebook group.
Meanwhile, UCP co-founder Jason Kenney says the party now faces a “reckoning.” The next provincial election is October 2027. Danielle Smith has a year to explain why she put a question on the ballot that Albertans answered with a hard no.
And the award goes to
So congratulations, Alberta separatists. You pushed for the fight, got your vote, and lost 3-to-1. Then you called it a victory.
Confidence like that deserves recognition.
Alberta voted. Alberta stayed. The rest is spin.
Sources:
Not only was it a solid rejection of separation, it also cost us about $140,000,000 of our tax dollars. We need new hospitals and schools and more teachers, doctors and nurses. What a waste of time and money this has been. It has also been extremely divisive and torn families and communities apart. I am so tired of the chaos!