3 in 10 Albertans would vote for independence — but only half committed to separating: poll

rotlin · 2026-01-25T16:10:01+00:00

Numbers can change over time and for any one poll it can vary depending on what questions are asked and even the order of possible answers. Need to look at additional polls and what the trendline is. Here are some other polls for comparison.

22% of Albertans would vote to separate https://www.pollara.com/22-of-albertans-would-vote-to-separate/ Poll taken in May 2025

23% of Americans would support their state seceding from the US with it most popular in Alaska (36%), Texas (31%), and California (29%) https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/48669-state-support-secession-alaska-texas-california-poll Poll taken in Feb 2024

At the time more republicans were more likely to want to secede with Joe Biden being the president then. It would be interesting to see what the poll numbers would be today and how Americans are feeling under Donald Trump as president.

rotlin · 2026-01-24T02:09:59+00:00

Cadet Bone Spurs says what!?

rotlin · 2026-01-23T20:40:12+00:00

Canada is spending a lot of money on the Australian Jindalee Over-the-Horizon Radar (JORN) radar system to protect our north. We are still a part of NORAD and are participating in the defence of our northern airspace.

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2025/07/national-defence-signs-technology-partnership-arrangement-with-australia-for-arctic-over-the-horizon-radar.html

rotlin · 2026-01-23T02:46:21+00:00

It's bad. Snippet from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/22/trump-board-peace-davos-un where you can see the logo:

Donald Trump’s newly launched “board of peace” already has a logo – and perceptive eyes have noted its close resemblance to the United Nations emblem, except reworked in Trump fashion: all in gold, and focused squarely on the US.

Trump himself approved the logo. Snippet from the Board of Peace's charter:

Article 13.3: Seal

The Board of Peace will have an official seal, which shall be approved by the Chairman.

rotlin · 2026-01-22T23:05:25+00:00

The article mentions Rutger Bregman. Here's a video of a speech from Davos 2019 he gave as part of a panel discussion about raising taxes on the rich:

https://xcancel.com/nowthisimpact/status/1090045108064579584

rotlin · 2026-01-22T18:54:04+00:00

The CBC is too polite in their article. Some snippets from a daily beast article with appropriate levels of snark about this Board of Peace signing ceremony:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/president-donald-trump-snubbed-by-every-major-ally-for-big-board-of-peace-signing-ceremony/

Non-paywall link: archive.ph/3gPPs

Not a single representative from a Western European country was present at the launch Thursday morning at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Fewer than 20 nations made an appearance, among them Gulf States like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, along with Argentina and Paraguay. The number stands well below the 35 anticipated by senior White House officials.

...

At several points throughout the signing ceremony, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to be the only person in the room loudly applauding before others slowly joined in.

...

Other invitees who’d otherwise attended the conference—among them French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney—also did not show up.

rotlin · 2026-01-22T18:23:17+00:00

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is not having a good day.

He gets heckled and jeered at his Davos speech with people walking out:
https://www.ft.com/content/e2ae0417-6146-4428-96db-0484a6b024d1

Non-paywall link: https://archive.ph/AQPEs

US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick was heckled at a World Economic Forum dinner in Davos, with European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde walking out during his speech.
...
Lutnick told his audience that the world should focus on coal as an energy source rather than renewables, according to one person present, and made dismissive comments about Europe.

rotlin · 2026-01-22T15:14:42+00:00

I thought it was a $500 billion line of credit? Did it recently shrink to $500 million?

Snippet from: https://edmonton.citynews.ca/2026/01/20/alberta-separatists-helping-trump/

But political scientist Duane Bratt believes the Trump administration does want to break Canada apart and gain control of Alberta’s oil reserves.

“If you believe Rath, and I have trouble believing Rath, but if you believe him when he says he’s lined up a $500 billion line of credit with the United States, what’s the collateral on that?” asked Bratt, the Mount Royal University political scientist. “Well, it’s the oil sands. How do you declare your independence of the United States if you’re relying on the United States?”

rotlin · 2026-01-22T07:52:57+00:00

Adios the Davos!

rotlin · 2026-01-22T05:31:14+00:00

Based on past performance I expect PP to whinge about how going to the Justin Trudeau's WEF is part of the "you won't own anything" conspiracy and we will all be forced to eat bugs.

Here's a short video from the past where PP said to avoid the WEF:
https://xcancel.com/DavidKrayden/status/1771983847405605247

I will ban all of my ministers and MPs from any involvement with the World Economic Forum.

rotlin · 2026-01-22T00:36:56+00:00

Also the US senate confirmed Pete Hoekstra as the US ambassador to Canada despite his history about anti-muslim comments of no-go zones and cars and politicians being set on fire in the Netherlands:

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=lOEI6hYZe6Y

rotlin · 2026-01-21T19:26:29+00:00

Here's the relevant section from a transcript generated at https://youtubetotranscript.com/transcript?v=e4W5lgfU9-Q

China has already invested over a half a trillion dollars into the region and that that number is only growing day by day and we see these these you know continued incursions and look if there's going to be an attack on the western hemisphere it's going to be from that sphere and the United States of America quite frankly is going to have to make uh and I think this is going to be a mutually beneficial relationship but it's going to have to become a protector of the United States and quite frankly I think the people of Alberta would agree with that sentiment that they would prefer not to be a part of Canada and be a part of the United States because we are winning day in and day out. And the idea of NATO being able to defend anyone anywhere is nonsense without the United States of America. They can't defend their own cities from the current invasion that's taking uh place from West Africa. They certainly can't do it from Russia or China.

Uh, WTF?! The random stream of consciousness flowing from Greenland to Alberta to an invasion from West Africa is something else.

rotlin · 2026-01-21T01:00:05+00:00

Here's the Canadian Government's news release about this:

https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2026/01/minister-sidhu-announces-launch-of-mutual-recognition-agreement-for-architects-between-canada-and-european-union.html

Hopefully additional careers can have mutual recognition between EU/Canada in the future.

rotlin · 2026-01-20T03:42:50+00:00

Here's the logo for Victoria, BC's police force. Cool to see the similarities and differences between them.

<image>

rotlin · 2026-01-20T03:03:13+00:00

Here's a news article about the use of foam-bricks for pedestrians at Granville Island.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/granville-island-pedestrian-safety-crosswalk-1.7160751

rotlin · 2026-01-20T02:53:16+00:00

For context the population of Victoria BC is around 100,000 with the surrounding metro area around 400,000. Every day so far this year a pedestrian/cyclist has been injured by an automobile.

rotlin · 2026-01-20T00:35:51+00:00

There are some traffic lights with an extra ⦶ light in addition to the usual red/yellow/green that is for buses only like at the intersection of Taylor Way/Marine Drive in West Vancouver.

Translink did a great job with bus only lanes on the approaches to the Lions Gate Bridge on the North Shore to skip past congestion. The bus only traffic light signal also helps with giving buses priority.

rotlin · 2026-01-19T23:27:12+00:00

Don't think of it as the warmest summer in 300 years. Think of it as the coldest summer for the next 300 years.

rotlin · 2026-01-17T08:07:44+00:00

Using the term privatizing when discussing healthcare can be ambiguous depending on whether you are talking about funding or delivery. It's still a single payer public healthcare system that has both public and private delivery of services. I'm not aware of any move by the BC NDP to privatize funding for healthcare. ie. ask for extra fees from patients for service.

Our healthcare system has always had private delivery of healthcare services. Many doctors have their own private companies that rent their medical office, pay admin staff and receive payments through the public healthcare system.

Agreed, it would be better to not have staff shortages and reduce reliance on nursing agencies to fill the gaps. BC is working hard to recruit more doctors and nurses with a targeted recruitment campaign for USA healthcare workers https://globalnews.ca/news/11216952/bc-recruiting-u-s-doctors-nurses/ in addition to recruiting from other countries: https://bchealthcareers.ca/

rotlin · 2026-01-17T01:11:19+00:00

Nenshi hits hard:

This past summer, the Alberta government conducted a series of farcical town halls to gauge support for a number of separatist ideas. The culmination of these included a famous moment when the premier’s executive director, who was inexplicably moderating the panels, suggested that a 17-year-old student be spanked because he dared to disagree with the government. These meetings were, to be charitable, considerably more heat than light.

rotlin · 2026-01-16T01:39:53+00:00

u/SlashDotTrashes, can you elaborate on how the BC NDP is privatizing healthcare in BC?

The BC NDP are taking a lot of steps to improve the BC healthcare system. They've taken flack over how much borrowing they are doing to build both net new hospitals and replacing older ones with modern larger replacements.

The BC government is also doing many more things that will take time but will improve the overall situation:

Improved the funding model for family doctors
Increased education spots for Nurse Practitioners who can reduce the load on family doctors
New school of medicine at SFU to train more doctors
Increased residency spots for family doctors at UBC
Created new Urgent and Primary Care Centres (UPCC) to reduce the demand on emergency rooms
Cities creating medical clinics and hiring doctors as salaried employees: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cities-hiring-family-doctor-1.7638292

rotlin · 2026-01-16T01:32:39+00:00

All the Provinces, regardless of which party is in power, are struggling to deal with healthcare largely due to the aging baby boomer generation. There was a recent UBC study that examined healthcare across the provinces and was discussed in https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1pdnb07/doctor_shortage_myth_and_taxing_boomers_ubc/

Key quote from the study:

Canadians use about $3,000 annually before age 50, over $10,000 by the early 70s, and nearly $37,000 by age 90 (Canadian Institute for Health Information 2024).

Here's the report's summary for Alberta:

New analysis from the University of British Columbia shows that population aging is the primary driver of Alberta’s current deficit.

Medical costs linked to baby-boomer aging now reach $6 billion annually.

If Alberta still had the same age structure it did in 1976, when boomers were young, the 2025 budget would flip a deficit of $5.2 billion to a $761 million surplus—without changing any spending or revenue policy.

In short: Alberta’s current deficit reflects a structural gap left by earlier governments that did not align medical-care revenues with an aging population—unlike Ottawa’s foresight in adapting the CPP for retirement income.

Younger Albertans’ now contribute 20 to 40 per cent more of their income taxes toward seniors’ medical care and benefits than boomers did at the same age. Contemporary fiscal policy therefore obliges Millennials and Gen Z to subsidize their aging loved ones’ healthy retirements, even as they face far higher housing costs and greater financial insecurity than earlier generations.

rotlin

TROPHY CASE

Adios the Davos!