It is painful to reflect on this, but I think we are disserving ourselves if we do not recognize how absurd this country appears to many well-disposed and intelligent foreign onlookers. We are now seen as the most absurdly woke and politically correct country in the world, and the country with the highest suicide rate because our crumbling health-care system champions the virtues of early death, as well as being one of the most unsafe advanced countries for Jews to live in, due to widespread antisemitic bigotry.
The latest nonsensical saga concerns the status of Alberta, which has generated queries from U.S. and European media friends who are legitimately interested in Canada. I have responded that if Alberta is not allowed to export its oil and natural gas, a majority in that province would likely prefer to secede. Albertans are loyal Canadian federalists and have carried water on both shoulders in taxes and equalization payments. But they are aware that if they seceded, they could dispense with any income taxes and would be the wealthiest per capita petrostate in the world, with a fine agricultural and some manufacturing economy. Edmonton and Calgary would probably grow to have populations greater than Toronto and Montreal within a decade.
The Legal Absurdity
My foreign friends are incredulous as I unravel the facts: Indigenous people are contending in court that Alberta has no right to hold a secession referendum without the authorization of the tiny minority of Albertans who are Indigenous. Simultaneously, other Indigenous groups are petitioning to prevent construction of the pipeline upon which the result of a secession referendum would depend. These facts have been publicized in Canada, but I see very little collective self-awareness of what a uniquely asinine state of affairs this is.
Historical Precedent
I had a rare recourse to a rhetorical question nine years ago over the Ktunaxa Nation case, where a report that a deceased high priest had allegedly dreamed that a ski area would cause the spirit of the grizzly bear to desert the mountain, depriving his band of religious inspiration, proceeded to the Supreme Court. Despite my aversion to rhetorical questions, I asked: 'Are we all mad?' The Supreme Court rejected the claim but did not suggest it was frivolous.
Now, because of our multi-level legislative cowardice before the Charter of Rights regime that permits every court to masquerade as an autocratic legislature, we have brought the Governments of Canada to a standstill. Courts will decide whether Native claims of ubiquitous sacred burial sites prevent construction of a pipeline, without which our richest per capita and fourth-largest province might choose to secede. All will be in abeyance while other courts determine whether the 3.5 per cent minority of First Nations Albertans have a right of veto over holding a referendum on independence. Any other serious country would have elaborated a suitable doctrine of eminent domain decades ago to prevent spurious legal self-strangulation.
