The latest events in Alberta are shocking. I knew there were some very right wing people there, but would not have foreseen people buddying up with Trump's government to try to seperate from Canada. Is it in the realms of possibility this could happen, or just the views of a small fringe group?
The latest events in Alberta are shocking. I knew there were some very right wing people there, but would not have foreseen people buddying up with Trump's government to try to seperate from Canada. Is it in the realms of possibility this could happen, or just the views of a small fringe group?
Historically, Alberta separatism has been electorally fringe. Officially separatist parties have won only one seat, in a rural by-election in 1982, which they lost in the subsequent general election a few months later. Western-backed right-wing separatist parties actually had their best showing ever in New Brunswick(other side of the country) in 1991 where, for complicated reasons I won't go into now, they managed to come from nowhere to form a small official opposition, before getting wiped out in the following election.
As for how popular annexation would be in Alberta right now, an Angus Reid poll shows it to be somewhat more popular in Alberta than the Canadian average, with 15% to 19% compared to Canada as a whole at 10%. I think the same poll showed support cut in half when people were asked about their willingness to endure economic costs.
Albertans are a notably ahistorical people, and unlike, say, Quebec nationalism, Alberta alienation is usually based on economic grievances of the moment, rather than any grand sense of historical context or destiny. Even during the bitter years of the NEP in the early 1980s, complainants rarely evoked the memory of any past injustices, it was all just "Goddam Trudeau isn't letting us sell our oil for as much as we could."
I don't expect any of this to change much just because some separatists managed to swing a meeting with people ar Trump's State Department. I predict a referendum would get somewhere between 10% to 15% yes.
By the way, does anyone know when this meeting between separatists and Foggy Bottom took place? The first Guardian hotlink there takes you to a 2019 article from the same paper, and the second link, to the Financial Times, is totally paywalled.
In general, obviously. Though, honestly, apart from myself and a few other hobbyists, I'd be hard pressed to think of anyone I know who really thinks of Alberta politics with a frame of reference going back more than a decade or so.
Thanks for your insights, Stetson. The Financial Times article was published on the 29th of January. I found it was paywalled on The Guardian Link, but I could read it by searching on Google Chrome. The FT article says the separatists are trying to gather 177, 000 signatures for a referendum on independence (not joining the US), but also that a petition opposing independence gathered 438, 568 signatures last year.
And a Bloc MP solicited the services of RCAF pilots in a future Quebec Air Force a week before the 1995 Referendum.
Louis-Joseph Papineau died an annexationist(*), and still manages to get his insubordinatory antics celebrated every year at the end of May in Quebec.
(*) Weird fact, it was actually a faction of TORIES, led by Mr. Molson of blessed memory, who, ticked off at the state of affairs in the newly unified province, circulated an open letter suggesting annexation. Papineau signed it, presumably thinking Lower Canada could get its own state out of the deal.
Carney got knocked by Indigenous and Quebecois spokespeople a few days ago for say the Plains Of Abraham was where...
...Canada began to make its founding choice between accommodation over assimilation, of partnership over domination, of building together over pulling apart.
While accommodation and partnership have probably been a facet of Canada's sociopolitical scene over the years, it's a bit of a stretch to say that started at the PoA, since it's probably not what the conquered residents of New France were experiencing the day after their defeat.
The Québec Act of 1774 is a fascinating document. The British finally took more than casual notice that they now had a francophone Catholic possession (the language didn't bother them, as most decision-makers, including Wolfe before the battle, spoke French; but religion was the troublesome factor and George III had to be persuaded that only military necessity ruled over his coronation oath). They also were trying to figure out how to deal with the more frisky seaboard colonies and their westward ambitions, and their desire to keep the peace with the aboriginal nations.
While it was an exercise in squaring the circle, its approach had much promise-- the main objection were the settlers and land speculators (including Washington, Jay, Madison, and Jefferson) who were making incursions into Indian territory.
Some historians believe that it was the Québec Act which was a prime cause of 1776. The Declaration itself complained of: abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. Westminster's approach of legislating first, asking questions later, might have worked with the taxation question, which was strongly protested in Liverpool and Glasgow, but with the two bugbears of Catholicism and the Indians also on the table, I wonder if any gesture would have settled the colonists.
In any case, the basic principle of the Act, to seek a way of governing a Catholic population in a Protestant empire, can perhaps be seen as succesful. Historian Jocelyn Letourneau claims that Québec had the most vigorous and effective Wesminster-style parliament around.
I reccomend the YouTube Channel Atun Shei Films. The host has some wickedly funny series, two of which The Witchfinder-General of the Colonie of Massachsetts Bay (my esteemed coreligionist) and another on the causes of the American Revoluntion. In that one the Quebec Act is front and centre. The channel describes that Puritan Massachusetts, still in its "The Pope is the Antichrist" phase was aghast at the Quebec Act's tolerance and wanted the Act gone.
A few years later those Puritans had to eat their words as the Thirteen Colonies allied with *gasp* Catholic France and received assistance from the French Army. That caused a real attitude adjustment.
The Witchfinder-General of the Colonie of Massachsetts Bay (my esteemed coreligionist)
Within the UCC, is your specific confessional ancestry Congregationalist? Because I believe that's the technical classification for the theotaxonomy in question.
[Further discussion on my part was badly formatted, and removed from this text purely in the name of aesthetics.]
The UCCcan, like the Church of South India, was a bottom-up merger, hence everybody is everything. There are no doctrinal reservations or flavors, a Minister is a Minister everywhere.
What a congregation was before 1925 is trivia now. Everybody has shared ministers so often it doesn't matter anymore.
I've got family on all sides of 1925. But as the UCCan has a large cohort of postwar congregations that have never been anything but United Church, it really is a case that the seams healed very well.
The UCCcan, like the Church of South India, was a bottom-up merger, hence everybody is everything. There are no doctrinal reservations or flavors, a Minister is a Minister everywhere.
What a congregation was before 1925 is trivia now. Everybody has shared ministers so often it doesn't matter anymore.
I've got family on all sides of 1925. But as the UCCan has a large cohort of postwar congregations that have never been anything but United Church, it really is a case that the seams healed very well.
Thanks.
Yeah, I knew the UCC today doesn't distinguish between ancestral strains, either institutionally or, in general, culturally.
Though my paternal grandparents were both pre-1925 Presbyterians, and my grandmother, at least, would still occassionally explain her background and outlook as "Presbyterian". So I've occassionally identified that as my paternal family's faith(*).
FWIW, I'm Unitarian myself, and North American Unitarianism evolved, in large part, out of Congregationalism, though few UUs, at least in Canada, have it as a literal ancestral religion.
(*) Mostly in Korea, where few people have heard of the UCC, but many would know Presbyterianism.
That is disappointing insofar as the UCCan historically had a very strong missionary presence in Korea and still has very strong links with the Presbyterian Church in Korea.
And Korea gave us the Very Rev. Sang Chul Lee, our 32nd Moderator.
That is disappointing insofar as the UCCan historically had a very strong missionary presence in Korea and still has very strong links with the Presbyterian Church in Korea.
And Korea gave us the Very Rev. Sang Chul Lee, our 32nd Moderator.
Most Korean Christians I've met just identify as "Christian", and you usually have to press them to find out which denomination. And Christianity is now such a "domesticated" faith over there, most Christians, while aware of missionary activity, would not have it as any substantial part of their direct experience. Even so-called "mission schools" are staffed by Koreans, and are not universally used by Christians(*).
One of my students was a Presbyterian minister, serving(unlike the majority) with a liberal, WCC-allied denomination, and he actually brought up Dr. Norman Bethune one day in conversation. He was also friends with Chung Hyun-kyung, the theologian who created a stir(at least in those circles where people would care) by performing a shamanistic ritual at a WCC conference in '91. I think I once mentioned Sang-chul Lee to him, but I can't recall if he knew about Lee.
(*) I believe the government basically determines what schools a student goes, based on location, academic needs etc, not the religious affiliation of parents. Roughly analagous to a Canadian doctor scheduling your MRI at a Catholic hospital, just because that's the most convenient location.
Most Korean Christians I've met just identify as "Christian", and you usually have to press them to find out which denomination.
For the record, IME Korean Catholics have a more defined sense of social identity, distinct from Christians in general, and are more likely to answer "Catholic" than "Christian" when asked their religion. Though of course they regard themselves as being as theologically Christian as anyone else.
IME China distinguishes between ‘Christian’ and ‘Catholic’. I don’t know how that is perceived within or by those respective groups.
Almost all Korean Catholics, I think, regard themselves as Christian, even if they are more likely to call themselves "Catholic".
Protestants certainly regard themselves as Christian, but how they regard Catholics might depend on what type of Protestant they are. I've met a number who hold to the "Babylonian mystery religion" view of Catholicism, but most did not seem preoccupied with that.
I have, more than once, had a conversation like this with a Korean.
KOREAN: What is your religion?
STETSON: None right now, but growing up, we were Catholic.
KOREAN: Oh, yes. Maria.
I don't think these people all neccessarily believed Catholics were guilty of pagan goddess worship, but Mary seemed to be widely recognized as a distinguishing mark for Catholicism.
Comments
'Canada separatists accused of ‘treason’ after secret talks with US state department' https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/29/david-eby-alberta-separatism-treason?CMP=share_btn_url
Historically, Alberta separatism has been electorally fringe. Officially separatist parties have won only one seat, in a rural by-election in 1982, which they lost in the subsequent general election a few months later. Western-backed right-wing separatist parties actually had their best showing ever in New Brunswick(other side of the country) in 1991 where, for complicated reasons I won't go into now, they managed to come from nowhere to form a small official opposition, before getting wiped out in the following election.
As for how popular annexation would be in Alberta right now, an Angus Reid poll shows it to be somewhat more popular in Alberta than the Canadian average, with 15% to 19% compared to Canada as a whole at 10%. I think the same poll showed support cut in half when people were asked about their willingness to endure economic costs.
Albertans are a notably ahistorical people, and unlike, say, Quebec nationalism, Alberta alienation is usually based on economic grievances of the moment, rather than any grand sense of historical context or destiny. Even during the bitter years of the NEP in the early 1980s, complainants rarely evoked the memory of any past injustices, it was all just "Goddam Trudeau isn't letting us sell our oil for as much as we could."
I don't expect any of this to change much just because some separatists managed to swing a meeting with people ar Trump's State Department. I predict a referendum would get somewhere between 10% to 15% yes.
In general, obviously. Though, honestly, apart from myself and a few other hobbyists, I'd be hard pressed to think of anyone I know who really thinks of Alberta politics with a frame of reference going back more than a decade or so.
Though this sequel definitely isn't as good as the original,
I still maintain that Social Credit is a gateway drug to separatism, which makes me worry about BC.
Then there is the Quebec Representation Office in Paris and its shenanigans.
Louis-Joseph Papineau died an annexationist(*), and still manages to get his insubordinatory antics celebrated every year at the end of May in Quebec.
(*) Weird fact, it was actually a faction of TORIES, led by Mr. Molson of blessed memory, who, ticked off at the state of affairs in the newly unified province, circulated an open letter suggesting annexation. Papineau signed it, presumably thinking Lower Canada could get its own state out of the deal.
https://www.thewrit.ca/p/avi-lewis-has-wide-lead-in-ndp-leadership
https://bluntobjects.substack.com/p/q4-ndp-leadership-donations-by-federal
Bottom line: Avi Lewis is running away with it, both in total raised and number of donors.
While accommodation and partnership have probably been a facet of Canada's sociopolitical scene over the years, it's a bit of a stretch to say that started at the PoA, since it's probably not what the conquered residents of New France were experiencing the day after their defeat.
While it was an exercise in squaring the circle, its approach had much promise-- the main objection were the settlers and land speculators (including Washington, Jay, Madison, and Jefferson) who were making incursions into Indian territory.
Some historians believe that it was the Québec Act which was a prime cause of 1776. The Declaration itself complained of: abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. Westminster's approach of legislating first, asking questions later, might have worked with the taxation question, which was strongly protested in Liverpool and Glasgow, but with the two bugbears of Catholicism and the Indians also on the table, I wonder if any gesture would have settled the colonists.
In any case, the basic principle of the Act, to seek a way of governing a Catholic population in a Protestant empire, can perhaps be seen as succesful. Historian Jocelyn Letourneau claims that Québec had the most vigorous and effective Wesminster-style parliament around.
Interesting. Thanks. And @Sober Preacher's Kid.
A few years later those Puritans had to eat their words as the Thirteen Colonies allied with *gasp* Catholic France and received assistance from the French Army. That caused a real attitude adjustment.
Within the UCC, is your specific confessional ancestry Congregationalist? Because I believe that's the technical classification for the theotaxonomy in question.
[Further discussion on my part was badly formatted, and removed from this text purely in the name of aesthetics.]
What a congregation was before 1925 is trivia now. Everybody has shared ministers so often it doesn't matter anymore.
I've got family on all sides of 1925. But as the UCCan has a large cohort of postwar congregations that have never been anything but United Church, it really is a case that the seams healed very well.
Thanks.
Yeah, I knew the UCC today doesn't distinguish between ancestral strains, either institutionally or, in general, culturally.
Though my paternal grandparents were both pre-1925 Presbyterians, and my grandmother, at least, would still occassionally explain her background and outlook as "Presbyterian". So I've occassionally identified that as my paternal family's faith(*).
FWIW, I'm Unitarian myself, and North American Unitarianism evolved, in large part, out of Congregationalism, though few UUs, at least in Canada, have it as a literal ancestral religion.
(*) Mostly in Korea, where few people have heard of the UCC, but many would know Presbyterianism.
And Korea gave us the Very Rev. Sang Chul Lee, our 32nd Moderator.
Most Korean Christians I've met just identify as "Christian", and you usually have to press them to find out which denomination. And Christianity is now such a "domesticated" faith over there, most Christians, while aware of missionary activity, would not have it as any substantial part of their direct experience. Even so-called "mission schools" are staffed by Koreans, and are not universally used by Christians(*).
One of my students was a Presbyterian minister, serving(unlike the majority) with a liberal, WCC-allied denomination, and he actually brought up Dr. Norman Bethune one day in conversation. He was also friends with Chung Hyun-kyung, the theologian who created a stir(at least in those circles where people would care) by performing a shamanistic ritual at a WCC conference in '91. I think I once mentioned Sang-chul Lee to him, but I can't recall if he knew about Lee.
(*) I believe the government basically determines what schools a student goes, based on location, academic needs etc, not the religious affiliation of parents. Roughly analagous to a Canadian doctor scheduling your MRI at a Catholic hospital, just because that's the most convenient location.
For the record, IME Korean Catholics have a more defined sense of social identity, distinct from Christians in general, and are more likely to answer "Catholic" than "Christian" when asked their religion. Though of course they regard themselves as being as theologically Christian as anyone else.
Almost all Korean Catholics, I think, regard themselves as Christian, even if they are more likely to call themselves "Catholic".
Protestants certainly regard themselves as Christian, but how they regard Catholics might depend on what type of Protestant they are. I've met a number who hold to the "Babylonian mystery religion" view of Catholicism, but most did not seem preoccupied with that.
I have, more than once, had a conversation like this with a Korean.
KOREAN: What is your religion?
STETSON: None right now, but growing up, we were Catholic.
KOREAN: Oh, yes. Maria.
I don't think these people all neccessarily believed Catholics were guilty of pagan goddess worship, but Mary seemed to be widely recognized as a distinguishing mark for Catholicism.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jivani-washington-trip-9.7072956
You mean he should become an independent?
You mean you wish Doug Ford was no longer premier? Why?