Katheryn Speck said she used to be a Canadian nationalist, travelled the world with a maple leaf on her backpack and once lived in Quebec so she could become fluently bilingual.
But on Saturday she was among hundreds of people who rallied at the Alberta Legislature to support separation from Canada, with many in the crowd waving Alberta flags and a few even displaying the U.S. Stars and Stripes.
“I thought it was a beautiful, fantastic country. But now I’m so disappointed. I’m literally crushed that we’ll never be represented in this country and there’s never a chance of changing the government,” Speck said.
Earlier this week, Premier Danielle Smith’s government proposed legislation that would lower the bar for holding a referendum.
I was relieved that the CPC didn’t form government, but we’re still in a lot of danger. Spend any time on X and you can see a full court press going on with propaganda to push Alberta separatism. The same stuff is going on now in Alberta that took place in Crimea prior to 2014, and the online media ecosystem is American. I see a lot of people stating Alberta couldn’t separate because of the treaties, but when a powerful country decides they don’t care about the laws, the courts aren’t going to save you.
“Never been represented” forgets that there were ten years of conservative government before the liberal one.
Are they for real, or are they always this delusional?
Conservatives tend to live in an eternal now- what’s good for me now? This explains why they don’t care about hypocrisy.
“I thought it was a beautiful, fantastic country. But now I’m so disappointed. I’m literally crushed that we’ll never be represented in this country and there’s never a chance of changing the government,” Speck said.
What the fuck. It was only 10 years ago that Conservatives were in power.
I had to read to the bottom for the best part:
“We have the oil, we have the resources. We’re fine,” Westernaier said, noting she believed Monday’s election was rigged.
Why is their sense of national unity tied to the success of an industry? Will PEI vote to separate because Canadians aren’t eating enough potatoes?
Call me crazy, but I don’t want nationalists in this country, full stop. We can love and respect our nation without being worked into a blind, fervent frenzy.
People are real quick to point out that the Nazi’s had “socialist” in their party name, and real fuckin’ slow to pick up that it was preceded by “national.”
I think the actual term you’re looking for is federalist
I think it was the subject of the article who described herself as nationalist
I am not.
Nationalist:
a person who strongly identifies with their own nation and vigorously supports its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.
Federalist:
a person who advocates or supports a system of government in which several states unite under a central authority.
Both pulled from the OxfordLanguages dictionary that Google uses.
And, of course, Nazi is short for the German pronunciation of “National Socialist.”
The problem is not a belief in government. The problem is in the belief that there is something intrinsically better about your nation that gives you justification to look down on other nations. Fuck nationalism.
Sorry, i misunderstood your comment.
I think we both agree that nationalism sucks, but we want a strong and united canada
I always believed that nationalism stemmed from the idea of the innate superiority of your nation over the others. Which I find incredibly problematic for obvious reasons. Now patriotism, on the other hand, I believe is something that we all should strive for.
The dipshits in the crowd waving the American flags are the very reason why the rest of Canada dumped the Conservatives in favour of Carney. They are their own enemy.
Canadian oil with its higher margins and only 10% tariff would easily survive these tariffs, as the currency FX falls they’d be made even cheaper and gain even more investment, while the areas that manufacture cars and who voted Liberal would be hurt the most. You’d think it would be the other way around.
Though I guess the attempt at nationalizing oil revenue in the 80s and the inability to build pipelines in Canada, so that they didn’t have to sell energy at a deep discount, has long sullied Canada for many Albertans. This may have been a subconscious thought for a long time.
I wish we would nationalize all resource extraction nationwide. Fuck private companies owning this shit. I’m Albertan and love watching my coworkers squirm when I bring up this topic.
Me, a Nova Scotian listening to Albertans whine about how underrepresented they are.
Nova Scotia is kinda over represented though.
How?
Average population per riding federally is about 108000 (2021 numbers). For Nova Scotia it’s about 88000. AB, BC, and ON are all around 115000 and Quebec is pretty much the only one right on the average.
Edit: I just did some quick spreadsheet math to see how even it could possibly get with the current total number of seats and making sure the territories each kept their seats: SK -3, NB NL NS PE -2 each, MB -1, NT NU QC YT no change, AB +2, BC +3, ON +7
How do those numbers show NS is over represented?
It is what it is, I’m not complaining, but your MPs represent less people than average. NS isn’t even that disproportionate, PEI and the territories are way worse.
MPs/100,000 people
BC 0.86
AB 0.87
SK 1.24
MB 1.04
ON 0.86
QC 0.92
NB 1.29
NS 1.13
PE 2.59
NL 1.37
YT 2.49
NT 2.43
NU 2.71
Canadian average 0.93If you want to argue whether or not population is actually a good measure of over/under representation that’s fine, but you can’t argue some people’s votes count more or less than others.
That makes more sense. I genuinely didnt understand what you were getting at with your previous numbers. This isnt Reddit. It was a genuine question.
But yes, I would argue that Alberta has more actual influence due to its far greater economy. Oil money brings with it influence. We shouldnt pretend Canada is above that.
Nova Scotia simpy isnt that big a player in day to day decision making at the federal level. There isnt as much at stake.
Pissed that the rest of Canada won’t build pipelines for them. Give them better access to refineries in other provinces. Clearly, leaving the country is the solution.
This is like moving out on your own because your roommates won’t clean up after you, and make you pay your share of the bills.
I’d say it’s more like insisting your parents legally give you their basement as a separate property.
“I thought it was a beautiful, fantastic country. But now I’m so disappointed. I’m literally crushed that we’ll never be represented in this country and there’s never a chance of changing the government,” Speck said.
Maybe you could just campaign for electoral reform instead of separating? Since you’re landlocked and all? These people are idiots.
Fascists get very, very upset when the rest of us, the reasonable people, don’t want fascism. They are disappointed in us when we don’t want to be ruled by their rulers.
They are truly stupid and harmful human beings and they should be loudly ostracized in every community in which they dare to advocate for fascism.
Could you guys trade them for California? And maybe Washington?
I’m leaning more towards them emigrating somewhere else. If they wanna go that bad, cool. Lots of people out there who would love to buy their property and live peacefully in Alberta.
Send ‘em down to carve out a piece of Montana. Call it Alberta South. That way Trump gets his 51st state and we get to be rid of the separatists.
She can yap about it all she wants, there is no support for separatism outside the rabid Wildrose twats. Albertans may vote heavily PC, but this is a complete non-starter.
Extreme fringes make insane demands that are not popular within Alberta, and the headlines say “Albertans demand X!”
It’s worth worrying about and opposing, sure, but I assure everyone that plenty of that worrying and opposition is going to come from within Alberta from its actually-sane people.
This is heartening to hear.
The one thing I don’t get - the article doesn’t really go into why former Canadian nationalist Katheryn Speck had such a dramatic change of heart. Like, c’mon.
This all has remarkable parallels from the Anschluss between Germany and Austria in the 20s and 30s. There was support for it in the 20s, but Hitler said Austria should join with Germany and how wonderful it would be. He used agents to influence pro-unification. Some Austrians agreed, and even tried an coup to overthrow the government and join with Germany.
In 1938 Austria was finally bullied into holding a referendum, but it looked like the outcome would be against unification. Hitler marched his armies in to Austria less than 24 hours before the referendum and annexed the country.
It was 5 years after he rose to power in 1933.
Trump will come for us, and it’ll be traitors like this that give him the excuse to do it.
Hitler marched his armies in to Austria less than 24 hours before the referendum and annexed the country.
Based on your account, annexing Austria before the referendum indicates Hitler didn’t need an excuse. Not marching would have saved resources, but clearly he was going to take it regardless. I doubt Trump will need an excuse either - if that’s what he intends to do.
If you could mobilize 1000 people to achieve your goals instead of 10000 people, why would you mobilize the 10000? And if the 1000 doesn’t work, trying only costs you 10% more than not trying and then having to go with the more expensive option. And coming in before the result that would delegitimize your claim is simply pragmatic.
The same as Hitler, Trump won’t need an excuse, but why would he choose the more expensive option? Now we’re talking about Trump, so well thought out plans aren’t the norm, but he does like to save a buck…
