A story from Fox Digital News recently focused on the Alberta 51 Project, saying it is trying to educate Albertans about what it argues would be the benefits of breaking off from Canada to join the US as its 51st state.."I find myself having an affinity toward the US more than Canada because of the freedom, Constitution and just the entire republican system versus the monarchy here, which is really a pseudonym for dictatorship," a source with the Alberta 51 Project told Fox News Digital, which added the source spoke on condition of anonymity due to what he said were the increasingly authoritarian tactics last year of the Canadian government,.The source mentioning arrested Christian pastors and targetting its political opponents by freezing their bank accounts during last year's trucker convoy protests..The Alberta 51 Project was founded in 2022 and is "dedicated to supporting education to all Albertans on why we should become the 51st state of the United States of America," according to its website. .Fox pointed to a story in Western Standard that reported about one-fifth of Canadians in various provinces believe they would be better off under the US government, according to a poll done by Research Co. .The Alberta 51 Project got its legs in response to online comments by disaffected Albertans who wished somehow to secede from the authority of the federal government in Ottawa, reports Fox News Digital.."Albertans have a real affinity with the land, and they have that cowboy spirit, that Indian spirit, that oil-and-gas rigger spirit," he said adding many Albertans desire less government in their lives.."That's not really a Canadian governmental kind of thing," he said. "Basically, in Canada, you have a socialist-style system, and that socialism is kind of like a bad disease that just keeps getting worse and worse as time goes by," he said.."We wanted to dare to poke the Canadian identity bear."."When Trudeau came in, he said some years ago that Canada doesn't have a culture, they're not different. So, they use that for globalism and what they call ‘multiculturalism.’ So, they kind of pooh-pooh any Canadian identity, with the exception of Quebec of course; don't touch the sacred cow.".The source said Trudeau's assertion was insulting to Albertans as well as many traditionalist Canadians who live in Saskatchewan, eastern British Columbia and even westernmost province Yukon, whose worldview he likened to rural Americans in states such as Montana and Texas, reports Fox..The source said the rich natural resources of Alberta and similar provinces have been unfairly siphoned by other parts of Canada since the provinces were established..“Such Canadians are suspicious of big government,” he said, noting the US Constitution was framed by men who had the same attitude and would better fit them. .Canadians have grown more wary of the federal government, which has very dictatorial-style power, the source told Fox.."It's just a rubber stamp,” he said. “Whatever the prime minister says, that pretty much goes. We saw that during the trucker convoy when Trudeau basically shut off everybody's rights and freedoms, and nobody did anything. No one said anything. In Canada, we don't have rights and freedoms like in the US.".Peter Downing, a former officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who founded the separatist movement Wexit, in the wake of Trudeau's 2019 reelection, told Fox News Digital Albertans increasingly began looking toward their American neighbours amid the Canadian government's crackdown during the COVID-19 pandemic..Echoing the Alberta 51 Project source, Downing speculated that Alberta has repeatedly popped up in international media because of its "rugged individual mindset.".“We don't tolerate it," Downing said of Albertans' attitude toward government overreach, adding that most people in the province do not adhere to the "socialist environment" of Ottawa, reports Fox.."Most (Albertans) actually do go to work doing physical jobs, whether it be in the oil field, which is by far our largest industry, or farming or any other kind of primary industry or trade. The people here are younger, and we're willing to do physical work to make more money."."The die is being cast right now, and it's about seeing who blinks first, whether it's the provincial governments or the federal government," Downing said. "For the folks in Alberta, we're at a precipice of our own where we're not going to allow this to continue."
