FILDEBRANDT: Only in Alberta would those who hate Canada drape themselves in the Canadian flag

The elbows-up crowd want you to know that Alberta nationalists really hate Canada. The would-be redneck Switzerland of North America hates the maple leaf and its people. Don Braid, of the American-owned Calgary Herald wrote in his column, "Alberta’s key separatist leaders often seem propelled by pure hatred of Canada."He goes on to quote a few people affiliated with the independence movement who say that Mark Carney is not a real Albertan and that there is potential for American recognition post-referendum. "The leaders think a good secessionist soldier must first prove absolute loyalty to Alberta. Increasingly, to do that they must also demonstrate contempt, even hatred, of Canada itself.".It's a curious argument to be made, for when I think of a real "Canada hater", I think of those who would topple statues of Sir John A. Macdonald. Those who changed the lyrics of O Canada to make it politically correct and gender neutral. Perhaps those who accuse Canada of being an illegitimate genocidal state founded on stolen native land. Those who demand ritualistic shaming with land acknowledgements, lowering the Canadian flag on Parliament Hill for five months and kneeling for "Black Lives Matter" in atonement. These people cheered or stood by as more than 112 churches were burned to the ground or seriously vandalized..They insist that Canada is a racist slave state, despite being one of the first places in the history of the world to abolish it in 1834, and massive curtailing of it well before that. They believe that Canada is so irredeemably racist that it must be demographically altered through unlimited mass migration. These are the "Canada haters". They tear down its monuments. They erase its leaders and its founders. They drag its struggles through the mud. They curse its achievements. They have no respect or appreciation for the inheritance passed to us by those who built Canada from nothing but a vast, untamed, and hostile wilderness. They have no sense of our responsibility to pass on a country stronger than we found it to our posterity. .These people are uniformly on the federalist side in Alberta's independence question. That is not to say that every federalist in Alberta is a Canada-hater. Far from it. There are many good-faith federalists who oppose independence for their own reasons, and they genuinely love Canada. They are Canada-first, and not Alberta-first. That's perfectly legitimate. But they must awkwardly share the federalist camp with those who genuinely hate Canada.Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi has tried to fashion himselves as a leader of the federalist camp, and it should make for an awkward fit. As Calgary mayor in 2021, he tried to change Canada Day from a celebration of Canada into a "truth and reconciliation" event, complete with self-flagellating guilt rituals. Earlier that year, he pushed to erase the names of two of Canada's founders from public schools in Calgary..The motivations of Alberta nationalists are hardly homogeneous. For many, there is a deep understanding of the structural and historical injustices of confederation, and a belief that major reform is not possible after many decades of trying. There is also a different ethos in our social and civic foundations from those of the United Empire Loyalists of Ontario and the French Canadians of Quebec. These nationalists never hated Canada. They tried fruitlessly to work within and reform Canada, and have given up trying. But more recently, there is a whole new group of Alberta nationalists. They see Canada as crumbling under the weight of national self-doubt and shame, unlimited mass migration, runaway debt, and economic stagnation. They want to save a slice of the Canada that was by falling back to fortress Alberta. I call them redoubt-Canadians. .I would need some serious empirical polling data to back my thesis up, but I'd chance to say that this group is made up disproportionately of Albertans who came here from other Canadian provinces. They came here from failing Eastern provinces for opportunity and for what Alberta stands for, at least in our own mythology. They don't hate Canada. They love it passionately, but they see it going to hell. And that it is very possibly past the point of no return.Canada's combined national debt is $4 trillion, or 127% of GDP. We will never pay this back, and neither will our children. And our children will inherit a country unrecognizable from our own. Ottawa imported nearly 2 million migrants between just 2021 and 2024. As of 2021, 23% of Canada's population was born on foreign soil, a figure which is surely higher now. No society in mankind's long history has ever assimilated that kind of influx — even from similar neighbouring countries — without radical alteration. The federalists say they want to "save Canada", but what Canada are they trying to save? The Canada that we inherited, which was prosperous, safe, and had at least some sense of shared identity, is gone. .Pierre Polievre's Conservatives represented at least an impulse to address Canada's terminal decline, but even what they offered was relatively thin gruel. But even that timid proposal to change course was rejected by most voters outside the West. Alberta nationalists may be upset with Eastern voters, resent structural and constitutional unfairness, and angry at Ottawa's barriers to resource development while siphoning off Alberta's wealth to buy votes elsewhere. But they do not hate Canada. They do not hate her proud history and achievements. They hate what Canada has become and where it is going, and they do not want to go down with the ship.

FILDEBRANDT: Only in Alberta would those who hate Canada drape themselves in the Canadian flag

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