As with any time you deploy an average... (And I'd expect better on this forum of all places)

Show me the distribution. Show me the median not just the mean. Show me the standard deviation.

Otherwise ... abused.

Yes, we all know oil is an extremely profitable (and environmentally destructive) commodity. That doesn't make the typical Albertans somehow responsible for holding up all of confederation. Just means oil is making some people very rich. For now.

I'm from there and my family is in Alberta. I can tell you now that the oil industry ain't doing jack squat for them.

I would think Ontario is the centre of Canada as it has the most people and the financial centre. Google's AI says 38% of GDP. And the problem Alberta faces is who wants to separate, what do they want to do afterwards and what ground do they actually own (vs. treaties that predate Alberta).

When Alberta at least catches up to Quebec in practicing being independent (runs its own police, collects its own taxes, has its own pension system, maintains foreign services, ... They might decide the extra taxes to pay for such is less "fun". And they need a border to ship stuff through.

Texas would be a G7 nation for about a week if they seceded from the US. Being the logistics hub for a country only works if you’re part of that country.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say if Canada wasn't willing to let Quebec leave, and they've tried with significantly more effort than Alberta ever has, then they're not going to let Alberta go.

>The only thing really stopping Alberta from leaving is whether or not BC, Ontario, and Quebec are willing to fight a war to stop it.

Unlike the individual US states, Alberta never joined Canada. It was not an entity that existed prior to Canada's confederation. Alberta was basically pencil-whipped into existence by carving out a chunk of an already existing territory (the Northwest Territory).

Despite American and Russian destabilization campaigns in Canada, there is no legal mechanism by which Canadian provinces can unilaterally secede.

>And that gets a lot more complicated if the US also wants Alberta to go independent....

Recent past polling overwhelmingly showed Albertans in favor of remaining in Canada. This latest frenzy is widely known to be a foreign influence operation.

The AHSTF performed poorly because successive Albertan provincial governments slashed contributions to it, not because of the ghost of the NEP. It was established in 1976, then contributions were cut in half in 1983, and eliminated entirely in 1987. The NEP was gone by 1985.

What hurt Alberta was every cyclical crash in oil prices, and their steadfast refusal to implement additional revenue streams like a provincial sales tax while spending instead of saving their resource-boom surpluses.

Cancelled pipeline projects? Ottawa doesn't cancel pipeline projects. All the problems with pipeline projects are caused by environmental reviews etc, which fall under legislation brought in by Stephen Harper, an Albertan.

It's much the opposite, Canada just spent $34B to ensure the Trans-Mountain pipeline got built. Alberta is the one that gets the resource revenue, but it's Ottawa that has to pay for your pipelines. That's hardly fair.

Alberta has one legitimate grievance, the NEP. Which is a plan that was cancelled by Mulroney over 40 years ago.