More on that 51st state idea

A recent substack essay by Rod Martin: Should Alberta Become the 51st State?" makes what I think is a largely irrefutable socio-economic case for having voters in Alberta and Saskatchewan break out of the Canadian confederation to join the American one instead. Making the change would give us:

1. legally enforceable rights;

   (Canada has a Constitution Act and a Bill of Rights, but the government can, as Trudeau demonstrated during the trucker protest, set both aside at will -and the cost of opposing the state on any issue from human right charges to traffic tickets is so exorbitant that "justice' in Canada is, as a practical matter, available only to the rich and well connected.)

2. some representation at the federal level and more constraints on political action at the state level;
3. direct and largely unimpeded access to the world's most advanced technologies, largest markets, best schools, and a military tradition in which it is possible for an English speaker to be promoted without having parents who attended Upper Canada College; and,
4. enormous opportunities for personal and social economic gain triggered, both here and elsewhere, during the assimilation period as our resources find new and expanded markets, our people take advantage of reduced regulation, and investment monies flood in.

If people in either Alberta or Saskatchewan were asked a simple question clearly designed to give the provincial government more leverage against federal overreach - something like:

"Do you want the provincial government to develop a detailed plan for separation from the rest of Canada which can be voted on in a later plebiscite if negotiations with the federal government fail?"

I would vote for it, and think that 90% or more of the people in both provinces would too.

In contrast, I do not think that a straight up question about becoming the 51st and 52nd states would get 15% support in either province right now.

The most basic problem is that the people who have done the most shouting about either independence or union with the United States generally seem to think that if only they were in power the thing would magically get itself done - and that level of stupidity both invites and rewards the intensive FUD campaign the no side would undoubtedly launch.

If western voters are to make an informed decision about the future of Canada - and lets not kid ourselves: Alberta and Saskatchewan are the transportation and economic linchpins without which the rest of Canada will see their political stability and standard of living collapse - they will need to see a number of clearly defined options, each with a reasonable "morning after" plan.

Consider, for example, the following five options - listed in order of likely support in western Canada today:

1. continue the status quo;
2. continue the Canadian confederation, but without Quebec;
3. form an independent country on the Westminster model;
4. form an independent country on the American model; or,
5. petition the U.S. Congress for admission as a state using the Texas state constitution as a model.

Of these, option one is the likely short term default because the federal government will now try to defuse western separatism by promising, and possibly enacting, extensive change - change whose effects they will actually slow walk and so smother in process that nothing actually happens - i.e. it will probably take more disappointments and a few more years to trigger real revolution here.

Option two, in contrast, offers a viable solution to Canada's ills - in the short term it's tough on the Maritimes, but giving the Quebec separatists what they say they want instead of continually buying them off turns the rest of Canada into an economic powerhouse worthy of a downstream economic union with the United States to erase the border without erasing the country. Oddly, this may also be easier to get done than any option other than merely continuing the status quo, because ending western equalization payments to Quebec will significantly strengthen the separatists there and if, as I expect, the current liberal leader, Mark Carney, is revealed to be more than a bit player in the Epstein drama, the next federal election could see the separatists sweep Quebec.

Options three and four require that most banana republic of all political entertainments: endless constitution writing and re-writing - and that's a hopeless process today because the experts pretty much worldwide willfully blind themselves to the successes of the American constitutional system to insist on the virtues of dictatorial one party rule - either via some variety of "people's republic" or through a Westminster-style pretend democracy in which an elected government leader nominally subordinate to a titular but powerless head of state, puts on a good show; takes orders from the country's financial or hereditary aristocracy; and, covers for an unaccountable bureaucracy which makes and enforces day to day decisions affecting the hoi polloi.

Option five is the one most people are least likely to vote for now, and most likely to accept in the long term because it's the one the others lead to - so the only real question is whether people here are going to do the quintessential American thing: i.e. doing the right thing only after trying everything else, or just accept the obvious and get on with it - and I know which way I'm betting.