251–260 of 382 posts
If Trump didn’t threaten annexation of Canada, this would have a much higher probability of success. It would also likely lead to Alberta becoming the 51st state
the separatists are the people that heard trump say that, and said YES PLEASE
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Everyone who didn't vote and had the ability, voted yes as well. If you don't vote you go along what the majority wants. So for me 52% is correct. You have to vote for what you want or at least against what you don't want. Otherwise you are an enabler.
That makes no sense to me. They didn't know the outcome beforehand; had odds fallen the other way, your argument would have stated that they voted no. Were they in a superposition before the results came in, voting both yes and no simultaneously?! We can't know what they want if they don't or can't vote. Putting "they voted yes" in their mouth sounds insulting to me, but I'm an outsider to the UK so maybe it's wrong…
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I mean.. it's not like it's Alberta that produces the oil. Oil is concentrated in smaller places than that, so why shouldn't those places then separate from Alberta?
Incorrect. If you've ever been through Alberta you'd already know that though. Oil & gas fields, and wells, are distributed over much of Alberta. https://static.aer.ca/prd/documents/catalog/Map90_Oil_Gas_Fi...
without doubt there is a main concentration around Lloydminister though, and the developed oil sands at least are all in one place
Many commenters seem to be appealing to an almost religious defense of present political borders. That attitude is untenable: there is nothing sacred about national boundaries, they are mere political artifacts like rules, regulations, tax codes, etc. If the people want to change them, they absolutely have the right to do so. https://unifixion.substack.com/p/political-boundaries-are-no...
Yes, also the right to self-determination is an unalienable human right. I find it sort of fascinating because people really do have a fanaticism about this that they don't have for other political artifacts. Nationalism is a powerful force. And people will special-plead themselves silly arguing why one group should be given self-determinism and others shouldn't, including invoking federal laws, untestable prediction…
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Maybe you can help illuminate something that confused me about the result of the referendum. I thought it was worded such that voting yes would lead to a committee determining the details, and that that would lead to a second referendum? It felt like the UK population was tricked into voting for a 'sure I'll hear out your plan' which then turned into 'cool, we'll make a plan and then begin implementing it'.
> Maybe you can help illuminate something that confused me about the result of the referendum. I thought it was worded such that voting yes would lead to a committee determining the details, and that that would lead to a second referendum. The wording of such a famous referendum shouldn't be hard to find if you want to know the wording Edit: just realised I still had this tab open from checking something for another…
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Yes, also the right to self-determination is an unalienable human right. I find it sort of fascinating because people really do have a fanaticism about this that they don't have for other political artifacts. Nationalism is a powerful force. And people will special-plead themselves silly arguing why one group should be given self-determinism and others shouldn't, including invoking federal laws, untestable prediction…
What about the right of not being determined by others? Say, the 10% who vote no.
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Everyone who didn't vote and had the ability, voted yes as well. If you don't vote you go along what the majority wants. So for me 52% is correct. You have to vote for what you want or at least against what you don't want. Otherwise you are an enabler.
That makes no sense to me. They didn't know the outcome beforehand; had odds fallen the other way, your argument would have stated that they voted no. Were they in a superposition before the results came in, voting both yes and no simultaneously?! We can't know what they want if they don't or can't vote. Putting "they voted yes" in their mouth sounds insulting to me, but I'm an outsider to the UK so maybe it's wrong…
You could also just say they didn't exist if it makes you feel better. But calculating the percentage from the eligible voters gets you no where. They didn't vote. It just makes the number smaller. Whatever. It doesn't change anything. It's not first to 50% of eligible votes. It's the majority of voters.
But I am angry at everyone who doesn't vote if they can. Especially if they complain that this isn't what they wanted.
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I mean.. it's not like it's Alberta that produces the oil. Oil is concentrated in smaller places than that, so why shouldn't those places then separate from Alberta?
From this article it sounds like it's the people of Alberta that want to vote on succession. Including the ones that don't literally live on an oil field.
kinda red deer ish? west of the queen e?
the actual oil industry and workers are either in the cities, or from out of province, and work seasonally-ish on the oil fields. dunno if its true anymore, but there used to be a joke that it was all newfies, who'd work just long enough to get unemployment, then head back home til it runs out, then around again.
Neither group has any particular incentive to have alberta be independent, nor a US state. The businesses might want to replace the newfies and albertans with more predictable undocumented latino labour, but they dont have experience in how to do that or hide say, injuries, from the government.
that said, a vote still isnt a bad thing - itll shower alberta with federal attention to get things alberta wants, like pipelines east, west, and north, and Id love to have the alberta grid connected to newfie hydro, rather than having quebec sell newfie power to americans
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But the meaning of "people want" is very delicately depending on the geographical area and moment in time.
Yes, and here "Canadians want" is used to say "the people within 100km of the St. Lawrence want". (That's actually part of the problem.) Claimed identity isn't a suicide pact and consent of the governed isn't equally geographically distributed. AB sees, correctly, an inordinate amount of tax per capita go out for the privilege of policies intended to kneecap that region's development. The justifications for those pol…
Not only that, but the Feds typically use their outsized tax revenue from Alberta to “invest” in Quebec to buy votes via propping up unviable businesses, subsidies, outsized proportion of public sector jobs, and federal spending in general.