JIM BENNETT WRITES ABOUT SEPARATISM IN CANADA:

But it’s not Quebec we’re talking about here. It’s four provinces west to Alberta, where the top issue on the agenda is not Francophone nationalism, but Kyoto. Or “Ki-ota,” as it’s pronounced in Canada’s cowboy country. (As I said, they speak differently out that way.)

I have written previously about the curious post-colonial cringe that infects the intellectual and political classes of certain of Britain’s former colonies of settlement. This cringe leads to a rejection of the most obvious interpretation of the cultural identity of the nations they inhabit — that they are, for the most part, distinct nations, but ones that share a great deal in common with the cultures of other English-speaking nations.

One result of this peculiar political culture is a need to endorse the transnational progressive project of global governance through U.N. treaties. This has led Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to sign the Kyoto treaty on limitation of carbon monoxide production. Unlike many transnational progressive treaties, which merely erode the national cultures of signatories, Kyoto carries an immediate and significant price tag for Canadian industries, farms and, ultimately, consumers. Meanwhile, its benefits, if any, are problematic and widely debated.

Furthermore, the pain will be spread unevenly throughout Canada, and energy-producing Alberta with its wide-open Western pattern of population will suffer disproportionately. Normally, such a high-impact treaty would require substantial negotiation in Canada’s more consensus-oriented political system. However, Canada has also developed a particularly unchecked executive power.

We might take ’em in as states. Then again, we might not. But I think Quebec should become part of France regardless. Each deserves the other.

UPDATE: Colby Cosh says that Bennett is absolutely right:

Despite the lack of a serious instrument for the expression of separatist values, separatist sentiment is virtually universal amongst people born and raised in Alberta. The class of federal-government beneficiaries here is small. Most Albertans are vaguely aware that Confederation, for us, is a huge financial ripoff, with outgoing net government transfers amounting to thousands of dollars a head every year. It is a mystery to us exactly what we get for our federal taxes nowadays. Sit down and try to work it out sometime if you’re an Albertan, remembering that health, welfare, and education are provincially funded and administered. What, are they spending the money on our elite, powerfully equipped armed forces?

Asked outright “Stay or go?”, most Albertans (real Albertans, not people who came over from Montreal at age 16) will tell you “Go”, privately. It’s not just the rural loonies, either: as a rule, the more you know about trying to run a business, the more likely you are to answer “Go”. I have a lot of trouble making Easterners understand this. If any well-known leader decides to step up and give a voice to Alberta separatism, they will learn. And fast.

Hmm. I’ll take Alberta as a state, but only if Colby promises to come with it.