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Conrad Black: Canada better hope Alberta doesn't leave with its wealth

The province could be the wealthiest per capita petrostate in the world

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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 (and therefore foolish) country in the world, and the country with the highest suicide rate in the world because our crumbling health-care system now champions the virtues of early death, as well as being one of the most unsafe advanced countries for Jews to live in, because of widespread antisemitic bigotry.

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The latest nonsensical saga is about the status of Alberta, which has generated a number of queries to me from U.S. and European media friends who are legitimately interested in Canada and hope that it will step up and make the contribution that it could to intelligent governance in the world. I have responded as sensibly as I can that if Alberta is not allowed to export its oil and natural gas and satisfy foreign demands for it, there is likely a majority in that province who would prefer to secede from Canada. Albertans are loyal Canadian federalists and have carried water on both shoulders in taxes and equalization and transfer payments. But they are aware that if they did secede, they could dispense with any income taxes at all and would be the wealthiest per capita petrostate in the world, with a fine agricultural and some manufacturing economy, as well. Edmonton and Calgary would probably grow to have populations greater than Toronto and Montreal within a decade.

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