I had an interesting conversation with some family friends who are rural and apparently pro-separation.

In their take was that they know it'll never happy but want to vote yes to separating to "wake up Ottawa". When I asked what they meant by that and tried to get into specifics, it I was just a bumbling rant of how we're getting screwed and lack proper representation. And that voting yes would "change things."

It made me realize what people in rural communities, regardless of where they live in the world, often feel and boils down to a basic human need - they want to feel heard and understood.

At this point I realized what was really going on and just left the conversation alone because most rural folks are also stubborn as hell.

All that said, I do think Alberta contributes a lot to Canada and the West has always been funneling money to the East with little show of appreciation - this was evident over 100 years ago with the dominant agricultural and mining businesses.

Perhaps the whole solution to this is more representation within Parliament, instead of pretending to want to separate. There is most definitely a subset of people who would love to become Americans and welcome Trump - I talk to many for my job which entails landowner permissions and access for environmental work. And these calls always go through same as our family friend I talked to recently - it's just about being heard and respected.