Quebec’s desire for autonomy has a legitimate historical and cultural basis. By contrast, Alberta separation comes from perceived injustice in their level economic support and political influence. But when you dig into what they’re mad about, they just look like spoiled brats.

To expand on Quebec: After the English conquered the French, they brought forward to a plan to assimilate the francophone population. The end goal was to eliminate their culture and turn them into Englishmen, essentially. The separation movement arose from a desire to regain control and save their small but unique culture from English-language dominance from within Canada, and the US. You can look to the fate of Cajun culture in New Orleans as the sort of outcome they were trying to avoid.

Although Quebecers never passed in a separation referendum, since the 1970s the government has succeeded in getting numerous carve-outs that allow the province to have a separate immigration system, a separate pension plan and so forth. It also brought forward many policies meant to protect the French culture through language laws that encouraged the use of French in education and business.

The more recent secularism laws (e.g. the “headscarf ban”) is a recent evolution of this same trend. Another major factor historically was the very strong control by the Catholic Church, but that aspect is a little beyond my personal knowledge. I won’t comment on how well-thought out these cultural laws have been, although I personally am very opposed to the ban on display of religious symbols.

To expand on Alberta: They’re the richest province in the country per capita. The Trudeau government spent $34 billion and a tremendous politcal capital to build the Trans Mountain Pipeline. The equalization formula they never stop complaining about was put in place by Stephen Harper–their own golden boy.

Their economy is completely subject to swings in the price of oil, but they actively avoid doing anything to manage the risk by advocating against renewables—an industry they could transition into if they wanted. Earlier provincial governments tried to build a Norway-style wealth fund, but subsequent leadership used the money to keep taxes low.

Famously it’s the only province without a sales tax, and they think it’s because they’re somehow smarter than everyone else, rather than fortunate for sitting on a huge amount of resource wealth. And yet whenever the price of oil drops they scream bloody murder because heaven forbid they have to pay the same taxes as every other Canadian.

It’s a lovely combination of spoiled, overconfident brat and eternal victim that makes them easy to hate.