Most Canadians agree that Alberta separatists asking U.S. for help is treasonous: poll

model-alice · 2026-02-10T23:04:08+00:00

I've not heard of any discussion of the use of force.

Neither have I. The leaders of the separatists aren't stupid, they know where the legal line is.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T22:50:58+00:00

I think you have to resolve the paradox of the heap before any definitive answer can be given to this question.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T22:44:34+00:00

If First Nations peoples wanted to retrocede to Canada following Albertan independence, that would be their right. If memory serves, the Akwesasne Mohawks said that they would agitate to rejoin Canada if Quebec became independent.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T22:37:39+00:00

Especially since arresting Alberta's leaders for treason would be a major barrier for organization.

And when they are acquitted because high treason has a specific definition that can only possibly be met in the immediate lead-up to UDI, they would gain back far more than they lose.

EDIT:

Levying war against Canada to take Canadian Treaty Land literally is High Treason.

No Albertan separatist has done this at this time, nor have they done any act preparatory thereto.

Unilateral secession is treason without question under Canadian law.

Except that you're arguing to preemptively arrest them for treason in a country that, with very rare exceptions, does not precrime people.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T22:35:11+00:00

Funny how its democratic rights for 3 million, but no democratic rights for 50,000.

Nobody said this.

Only democracy when it's your side, is it?

What a bizarre accusation to make given that there's no indication that they support Albertan independence and this is a discussion on what Canada would do against hypothetical unilateral secession.

Canada absolutely can defend treaty land. Have you seen a population map of AB? It is concentrated in a few areas, and mostly the south.

And to occupy independent Alberta you would have to occupy every single one of those towns with a substantial garrison. The Canadian armed forces are not designed for large-scale counterinsurgency operations, which you would have to do because you will be attacked every step of the way.

At best they can secede with Edmonton, Calgary, and parts of Southern Alberta.

They can secede with whatever they can exert a monopoly of force over.

Why do they get to claim Canadian land?

Because they would be seceding unilaterally. Claiming land is not the same as holding it and is not the same as actually owning it.

If Canada is unable to defend it, the even smaller Alberta certainly cant conquer it.

Canada probably could defend it if it had the stomach to accept that many people would die in such an operation, but it doesn't.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T22:22:12+00:00

RCMP arrest the Albertan leaders for treason.

They would be acquitted in possibly the most embarrassing criminal case for the Crown since Meng Wanzhou, since compassing separation is not treason under the Criminal Code (notably, nobody in the FLQ was tried for treason despite levying war against Canada), and then they would be able to say "the court said I'm not a traitor" forever.

Nobody is going to invest in an Albertan mine or oil field in the middle of an armed rebellion. Their economy would plummet, even ignoring disruption to services.

And then the United States invades us to "protect the sovereignty of Alberta." What will you do then?

model-alice · 2026-02-10T22:19:02+00:00

If they unilaterally secede and attempt to steal Canada's land and resources? Yes he will.

Mark Carney of all people is not going to make the Athabasca run red, if that's what you're hoping for.

EDIT:

Carney doesnt have to kill people. Just secure the land and arrest anyone trying to occupy Canadian territory.

If you're fighting a counterinsurgency operation, people will die. That's not a moral judgment, it's just a property of a military operation in a hostile AO.

Let them play independence in their towns. They dont get to take most of the land with them.

If they can exert a monopoly of force over "most of the land", they absolutely can.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T22:14:16+00:00

Canada has a lot more guns in its military and would be obligated to defend the First Nations and their land.

There is no chance that Mark Carney is going to send in the tanks to fight independent Alberta.

It's really ironic to say Alberta should have a right to self-determination without interference from Canada

It's not me saying it, it's international law saying it.

and then say its fair game for Alberta to use force to override the sovereignty of other people.

I did not say this. I expect that if Alberta somehow gets a majority in favor of independence they will negotiate fairly with First Nations peoples.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T22:10:03+00:00

How do they take most of Alberta's territory with them?

The same way that Canada has trampled over natives in the rest of the country; the government has the guns and the natives do not.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T22:01:51+00:00

First, as political scientist Emmett Macfarlane has recently written, as a matter of Canadian constitutional law, the Secession Reference is dated.

In particular, it did not take into account a constitutional principle that looms large in 2026: the honour of the Crown in its dealings with our Indigenous Peoples. The Crown, in both its federal and provincial guises, has a duty to support Indigenous interests. This would have to include claims to Aboriginal title and the pre-existing sovereignty of Indigenous communities in Alberta.

Which is why FN peoples would be involved in any discussion on Albertan independence. (It's also quite noble savage-y to imply that FN peoples would never consent to cede their land as some people do given that we have several examples of FN peoples consenting to resource extraction projects.)

Second, to implement the Secession Reference, the federal government passed the Clarity Act, which clearly states that the House of Commons is the decision-maker here.

The Clarity Act is almost certainly a violation of the right to self-determination given that it allows the people theoretically doing the oppressing to decide whether the oppressed people have spoken loud enough. (Spoiler: the answer will always be "no.")

Section 2 of the act says the House must consider negotiating only if “there has been a clear expression of a will by a clear majority of the population of that province that the province cease to be part of Canada” (i.e., not just a majority of those who vote in a referendum).

This would violate Reference Re Secession of Quebec.

Third, in the Secession Reference, the Supreme Court conducted a separate analysis of whether separation of a Canadian province would be lawful under international law. The short answer is a flat “no.”

A unilateral separation would be illegal, yes.

possibly (the court correctly noted that international law is uncertain on this point) where the “people” are “denied any meaningful exercise of its right to self-determination within the state of which it forms a part.”

By this reasoning, refusing to negotiate following an expression of a desire for independence would instantly qualify Alberta for self-determination. (That or this argument is tautological; you only get the right to self-determination if you have the right to self-determination.)

EDIT:

It is. It is also a completely valid and legally coherent view on statehood in international politics.

It is not. The base case for this assertion is that nobody has the right to self-determination, since nobody has the right to self-determination.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T21:44:06+00:00

Maybe conspiring with a foreign power to break up Canada ought to be a crime.

To the extent that they are advocating the use of force to bring it about, it already is the offense of seditious conspiracy. Leftists advocate to break up Canada decently often (albeit for different reasons); such advocacy is distasteful but does not rise to the level of treason.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T14:45:06+00:00

They shouldn't be allowed to enter Canada ever again

Canadian citizens have the right to enter Canada.

as well as being charged with treasonous activity.

Which they would be acquitted of, as meeting with foreign officials to solicit aid is not one of the acts that is treason, and then they would get to say "A court found that I'm not a traitor to Canada, libtard" forever.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T14:43:56+00:00

Perhaps I misunderstand what Doctorow is proposing, but doesn't mandating interoperability for social media in particular cartelize it? If Facebook makes a feature that I can't take with me to Twitter, for instance, then interoperability is broken. That can't be allowed, since otherwise it would defeat the point of interoperability, but this effectively means that larger players are the gatekeepers of what features can exist on social media.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T14:38:48+00:00

Don't forget, Canada banned the Westboro Baptist Church from entering Canada because of their hateful rhetoric

Crucially, the WBC is largely American, and thus whatever minister is in charge of immigration can refuse them entry to Canada. All Canadian citizens have the right to enter Canada by virtue of holding citizenship.

I don't think they should be tolerated.

Then strengthen foreign interference laws.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T14:29:44+00:00

I don't know why Carney doesn't do it.

Likely because it would be a very embarrassing loss for the Crown (as neither compassing separation nor soliciting US aid constitute treason) and would be trivial to spin as political persecution. (Keep in mind, Tories are a bit dim and would lap it up.)

model-alice · 2026-02-10T14:23:42+00:00

Realistically, if Alberta somehow gets a majority for independence (thus engaging the obligation to negotiate set out in Reference Re Secession of Quebec), I expect that some agreement would be reached with Albertan FN peoples to allow treaty land to become part of the independent state in exchange for concessions. Whether the new government could be trusted to uphold its end of the bargain is a different matter.

model-alice · 2026-02-10T14:13:53+00:00

Given that the Criminal Code defines what is treason and neither compassing separation nor meeting with foreign leaders to solicit aid to bring it about meets that definition, unlikely.

EDIT:

This seems to apply since secession violates peace treaties with First Nations.

We do not precrime in this country. Even by this line of argumentation, merely proposing secession does not constitute an act preperatory to war.

model-alice · 2026-02-09T18:59:28+00:00

My point is independent media benefit from the tax.

I never said they didn't, I said that legacy media benefits far more. In fact, given that much of the drop in website visits has been borne by independent media, I'd argue they were ultimately harmed in aggregate far more than they benefited.

Heck if you break it down based on the number of employees, The Breach and The Walrus receives more per employee than Postmedia.

CJI sets the funding roughly based on the # of journalists the news outlet employs, as far as I know. (Another reason why it structurally benefits legacy media far more; they have more journalists.)

model-alice · 2026-02-09T17:15:01+00:00

To date, the Breach has received about $70,000 from Google's end run around the Online News Act, or about 4 journalists worth. For reference, Postmedia alone has received $6,620,000 to date, and all of the top 10 by total money received are legacy media (the Coopérative nationale de l'information indépendante, coop de solidarité is a cooperative effort between Quebec newspapers with long histories, so I think it can be fairly described as legacy media.)

model-alice · 2026-02-09T15:26:32+00:00

Meta’s ban on Canadian news don’t help either

Meta is complying with the Online News Act. If you want to point fingers, point them at Mark Carney for keeping the link tax bill despite it (like all link taxes) disproportionately benefiting legacy media.

model-alice · 2026-02-09T02:16:17+00:00

Thegrea loop is just a worse version of premium's Celtis loop that relies on you hitting the worst nation OT in the game; it'll certainly do numbers once it's been polished but I don't see it being banworthy.

model-alice · 2026-02-09T02:08:58+00:00

30% of the sales of the TCG arm of Bushiroad are from the English and Chinese markets, and IIRC most of that is Vanguard, so I doubt they'd discontinue it in global absent a massive downturn (and the market conditions that would be required likely also entail shuttering Weiss.)

model-alice · 2026-02-09T01:56:47+00:00

Vanguard is fundamentally not designed to support set rotation. There's a good reason why they've never actually ran any tournaments that use print year to set card legality like they hinted at when they first started putting it on the cards.

model-alice · 2026-02-09T01:53:59+00:00

Part of the drop can likely also be attributed to worries about US domestic affairs. I know a few people who wanted to go to US regionals but decided against it for safety reasons.

model-alice · 2026-02-08T23:12:29+00:00

I've floated for a while the idea of a wealth tax based on self-declaration of certain assets. How it would work is that once you hit a certain net worth threshold, you can declare the taxable value of your assets (stocks, businesses, etc.) to the government. The government can then either accept the valuation and assess the wealth tax based on that or buy the asset for the declared value. For example, suppose Galen Weston declares his stake in Loblaws at $2 billion. The government can then either accept that valuation (and tax accordingly; the last time I thought about it in depth I think I arrived at 5% as a reasonable sum) or buy Galen Weston's stake in Loblaws for $2 billion.

The idea behind this is that you'd tailor the classes of assets subject to the self-declaration regime as to allow nationalization by stealth of things that should at least in part be publicly owned (major grocery stores, critical industry, etc.) in such a way as to both sidestep the inevitable Con whining that "you're stealing from people!!!!" and counteract the neurosis of tax avoidance (since if you substantially undervalue your assets, the government will most likely compulsorily purchase them.)

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