Danielle Smith promises Alberta separation referendum if signatures warrant

Gods I'm so sick of these clowns acting as people with jobs when what they really do is shout nonsense and waste taxpayer's money.

If signatures warrant? That’s hilarious. She’d do it if it got less than 1% of the population to sign.

What a great distraction from her ongoing scandals.
Anyone in Alberta who thinks separating will help Alberta is an idiot. If you join the US, you'll be Puerto Rico Norte, exploited for resources and excluded from the Union. If you think Trump will honor any deal he makes I don't even know what to say to you.
If you go it alone you'll be a landlocked nation of 4 million, with absolutely no leverage against the two big economies surrounding you.
Hell, even if they do this referendum and it fails, you've lost your negotiating leverage with Canada because we'll all see how it's an empty threat.
Quebec is clear eyed enough to see now is not the time to talk about separation.

“To be clear from the outset, our government will not be putting a vote on separation from Canada on the referendum ballot,” Smith said on Monday.
“However, if there is a successful citizen-led referendum petition that is able to gather the requisite number of signatures requesting such a question to be put on a referendum, our government will respect the democratic process and include that question on the 2026 provincial referendum ballot, as well.”
...and if they can't get the required number of signatures, they'll just keep lowering the requirements until they do. "With respect to the citizen-led democratic process", of course.
- We won’t won’t pursue a referendum on separation unless…?😳

I don't know why it's called a seperation when they'd clearly be joining America. I'm having a hard time fathoming how this isn't treason with the thinnest veil ever.
- I am not a lawyer, but by my understanding, treason's pretty narrowly defined as being involved in armed insurrection, assisting the enemy in time of war, or passing official secrets to an enemy country. If Smith has done anything like that, she's managed to keep it very quiet. If she has, at any time, advocated the use of force to drive the federal government out of Alberta, she may have committed a different (also very serious) crime, sedition. I'm sure there are people trying to figure that out right now.
  If she hasn't done any of that, she's in the same position as Quebec separatist politicians back in the day: stupid, misguided, and trying to harm the country, but technically not treasonous.
  In the event she did hold a referendum and not enough of the remaining sane Albertans turned out to vote in it, the federal government would be best served by quietly dragging its feet on the messy proceedings required to let them leave (while pointedly going through the motions of setting up temporary border checkpoints), bombarding the population with propaganda, and hope that by the time Smith's term ends, buyer's remorse has made things swing the other way.

American here. If you're an Albertan, and you really think you'll get a better deal down here, then I have a bridge to sell you, and a ticket to CECOT.
Elbows up, my friends and neighbors to the north. The stupidity is being exported.

There seems to be a degree of confidence here that they wouldn't choose to leave. Don't be so sure. BC and Saskatchewan may vary a bit politically, but Alberta (with the exception of the two urban centres) has pretty much solidly been in the camp of "fuck the rest of the country, we got ours" for as far back as I can remember... and I'm 46.
- They can't actually leave. The lands are indigenous and have not been ceded to the province or the crown. There are treaties allowing the crown to use them (in this case, as the province of Alberta), but basically it's as though I've got a tenant in a bedroom saying he's going to keep the bedroom, stop paying rent, and he owns it now.
  
  Ah yes the most extreme right wing will surely care about law and order as well as indigenous treaties

I'm of the opinion, that if the wrong actions are taken, we're in the opening stage of what is essentially another Crimean Crisis.
and the Crimean Crisis directley led to full scale war less than 10 years later

https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/the-week-that-was
This has a nice prediction on Canada 1/3 down the page, where they will use this crisis to push an energy corridor east.
Obviously a 25% tariff on steel and manufacturing in Canada is a death knell for the east, and only a 10% tariff on oil puts Alberta in a favorable position. Which pit provinces against one another, ensuring Carney would win, and would be favorable to push a pipeline for LNG. To ultimately defund Russia.
Carney is in a meeting right now and they are praising each other like crazy. Its quite absurd actually given how Trudeau was treated.

hé, I'm in Québec, I'd need a nice ride in buses with thousands of others Canadians to tell Alberta we love them!