The Telos of Alberta

The discourse of Alberta separation has hit its tribalistic and yelling-past-each-other phase; hopefully there’s an end to it, one day. Surprisingly, it isn’t just on social media where bad-faith statements and appeals to emotion usually are. Federal and provincial leaders are speaking as if they were making facebook posts and tweets and amplifying the worst takes on the whole thing. It’s by design, in my opinion, and there is a risk with them obfuscating a very serious conversation that has so many good points that ought to be the focus of our discussion. There are so many important points to be made for both staying and leaving, and none of that can be heard in such a tumultuous fray.

I believe one thing that is occurring, and it’s very worth resisting, is politicians and public leaders, in bad faith, defining who a separatist-leaning Albertan is, creating a strawman and then ‘othering’ anyone who would even consider that notion. It’s right from the Covid and managerialist’s playbook and it silences what would be good faith discourse without their meddling.  

A surprising narrative that’s emerged is that the separatist movement is a foreign-funded operation, and that a separatist-leaning person is merely a duped low-information Albertan that can have their emotions hijacked into making a terrible decision for the province to benefit these foreign actors. But to have Alberta separation be some clandestine operation means that the history of this sentiment has always had some nefarious benefactors (and have been playing the long game since 1905). No, the feeling I get is that while economic grievances get the headlines, they’re also instructive as to why that belief has existed for decades. I also don’t believe it’s some bad legislation or an extended stay of a mercurial Liberal federal party that was the straw that broke the buffalo’s back. Separation, then, is a presented solution to some long-simmering feelings that things here are not getting better. That some beliefs about our way of life, deeply held, are systematically being deconstructed. Is an Albertan culture one of those things erasing in front of our eyes?  And if so, for separation to be the right choice, it must be because it’s a matter of a culture’s survival, and that it must then be defined for it to be saved.

So, what is an Albertan?

Culture can be the remnants of a people who went through the survival stage of taming the wilderness, building a society, learning and refining a way of life that goes beyond survival, and then thriving. Think about those who first worked the land in Alberta. They had to endure those first few brutal winters, with enough food grown or caught to last through it. No help from the state, so a high-trust culture had to form because everyone else had to survive along with you. It’s no surprise that communitarianism was and is strong here.

After that hard work was done to not just live through winter but thrive with abundance, the other notable aspect of Albertan culture is its balancing of this focus on the commons and the greater good with the compact of social and economic mobility based on the fundamentals of work ethic and dogged determinism. Entrepreneurial risk-taking with the social safety net for others who respected the effort and that the source was those creating wealth, not the government.    

That belief, and the ties that bind a person to a shared set of values can be such a force. Actively punishing that, as we can see with a lot of recent federal policies, can be an incredible destructive force.

What the debate could do is begin the discussion about a telos (or inherent purpose) of a nation. What is the telos of Alberta? Is the goal to create something new or is it to preserve what was built? What was the telos of Canada? Is what it is now forever altered and one that Alberta cannot continue to partake in?

Potentially, the telos of a new nation of Alberta is a course correction back to that positive force, if we are truly built on those values. Feeling aggrieved because we are taxed too much and aren’t getting as much money as we could is not what this whole debate should be predicated upon. It is merely part of an economic value alongside all other values Albertans can believe themselves to hold. If most of us can agree to a shared set of values, and the current and future telos of Canada is and will be incompatible, then yes, we do have to go our own way; it’s an existential imperative.

But if instead this is a disagreement and a bad economic decade or two, then separation would be a short sighted mistake. Because then what Alberta is, is a telos of Canada distilled through our history of western expansion, a productivity borne of abundance in natural resources, a sustainable value of stewardship of the land, survival of the winters and a productivity that showed ambition and gumption had individual and collective rewards in our corner of the Dominion of Canada. We will always be a part of that greater narrative.

Small town, rural Alberta is a great place to be to see what still exists and what might be lost when it comes to a people’s set of values and their effects on social cohesion. You can compare what life was like ‘back then’ and see what’s changed, and if any encroachments (or influences) are any better. It’s also nice without all the billboards and corporate simulacrum of culture that’s been sold back to the urban population.   

 Awhile ago, the Shopping Cart Theory was introduced to me, and I found it incredibly useful. Objectively, a cart’s usefulness ends as soon as the car is loaded up. The impetus to return the cart, compared to discarding it right there, shows a concern for the commons and a marker of self-governance. It’s also a visual phenomenon of both valuing the next shopper’s ease at getting their groceries, as well as bringing order to somewhere you have no other reward in doing so but by valuing it yourself. An orderly parking lot is a sign of a shared social value and a quick reminder you are among others that share something. Now, consider the opposite, and the carts all higgledy-piggledy and strewn about in parking spaces.

Surprisingly, it becomes more difficult to return a cart when a parking lot is in disarray, simply because it demarcates that individual decision and if it rewards them. The commons is no longer a shared concern, and something is lost. If we are no longer self-governing stewards of the commons, we won’t notice the guy with mobility problems or the harried mom with three kids who could use a hand returning their carts. We’ll instead see the mess and that exacerbates the demise of one of our society’s easy to follow injunctive norms. What then?

I’ve devoted (probably) way too much time on such a silly thing, but I did so because in thinking of grocery stores, we could potentially apply it to any number of values we believe we have as a people. We could think of it as a common good; we could be happy it’s gone, and we could see if separation is a way of preserving or rejecting it, informing our choice in the matter.

One such example: 60% of the landmass of Alberta is provincial crown land (10% federal) and the current ethos is to make some of that workable land and a profitable partnership between private and public. Leasing agreements for grazing, oil and gas as well as recreation are all part of this shared space. After separation, should this all become available for private ownership, or do we value it as is? Do families get an opportunity to purchase, or will it instead be open to the greatest source of capital, meaning giant corporations and private equity firms, outbidding and then owning to do as they see fit? If everywhere is now for sale, then parcelling out those working lands to the detriment of family-owned farmland can be just as ruinous as the Net-Zero hokum. Economic values will come up against cultural ones, and some tough declarations of what wins out needs to be made. Do we consider 60% of the land to be the commons?

I think it’s worth talking about values and doing our best to predict the best possible outcome based on staying in Canada, accepting the status quo while advocating for change and being optimistic in seeing those changes in our unified nation; or separating and choosing the best form of government structure to suit those values. I don’t think Alberta is looking for special perks (a la Quebec) but instead are just looking for a way to no longer be punished for what it is.

Albertans can be proud that with their prosperity they have done much good to improve the commons. Taking away that prosperity also takes away that ability to maintain the commons and it would be good for all to remember that.

I hope those conversations can occur; might I suggest one at an affordable grocery store with a well-sorted parking lot? Whichever direction we take to get those things back, well, that’s the thing.