1/3 of #Albertans feel they'd be better off as an independent country. Anyone reading this who is surprised, hasn't been paying attention. Of course I'm sad to see the number. I am a traditional coast to coast to coast Canadian.
I was 19 when I moved from my home in Quebec to Alberta. And one of the most attractive aspects of living in Alberta for me was the patriotism I felt everywhere around me for Canada. I never met a Mountie in Quebec. I never spent a moment in a National Park. I never saw the
Enthusiastic support for Canadian Forces in Quebec that I felt every day in so many ways in Calgary and Edmonton & every other city, town, village and farm, in Alberta. Those were snail mail days. And I would write my dad about how great it great it felt to be an Albertan.
It's a place, Dad, where I can be loud & proud of who I am. And he said something that made me laugh at the time. He said it must feel like you're in the States. We used to go to the States a lot when I was a kid, whether it was to visit family in Brooklyn or Cleveland, or just
day trips to Vermont and upstate New York. We took summer vacays in places like Atlantic City & Cape Cod. And one of the things my father always admired about the U-S was how proud people felt about their country. My dad said he'd love to hang a Maple Leaf outside his little
piece of heaven, his store. And he would have hung one outside him home as well, if he felt it was safe. Sadly, it wasn't. I told him if he was an Albertan no one would quesition him about showing his Cdn colours & our day trips wouldn't be to the States.They'd be in #Alberta
Can't tell you how proud I was to put a decal of a Canadian flag on my motorcycle. I remember driving to Banff and walking into one of those tourist shops and buying that maple leaf and plastering it on my HONDA 500. I have loved Canada since the moment I landed in this country.
But it wasn't until I became an Albertan that I became a VISIBLE Canadian. And so when I read today that 1/3 of #Albertans feel they'd be better off living outside of Canada, it makes me sadder than I can express with my own words. So permit me to borrow @PaulBrandt's words.
"I have been Alberta Bound for all my life And I'll be Alberta Bound until I die" My mailing address is in #BritishColumbia but a big chunk of my heart never left Alberta, and it never will, no matter what she decides to do. My love for my neighbour is unconditional.
I know that nostalgia won't move the numbers into the pro Canada column. That requires real work. At the moment I don't see a single nation healer among any of the provincial or national political leaders. I want to believe that one or some will rise to the occasion.
The price of failure is too high. Let's not kid ourselves about how serious this is. If Canada loses #Alberta, Canada loses Canada. globalnews.ca/news/6127133/a…
