Alberta's gamble could well see it shirking its place as a vital part of Canada for life as a middling appendage to the U.S.

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Alberta’s separatist movement is busy collecting signatures across the province, in hopes of reaching the 177,000 needed to request a referendum on quitting Canada.

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The government isn’t automatically required to approve, and an anti-separation organization has already delivered more than 450,000 signatures insisting the province remain forever Canadian. But the issue should be taken seriously, if only because the persistent lack of respect discerned from Ottawa is the basis of many Albertans’ displeasure with Canadian governments.

The separatists maintain the province would be better off outside Confederation because the new state would have full control over its resources, taxes and other income, and how the money is spent.

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“We’re just tired of being taken advantage of by the east,” Albertan James Dunsmuir told Global News after people lined up to sign the petition in Red Deer. “A lot of our money goes east and not a lot comes back and we’re not treated very well out east and I think we’d just be better off ruling ourselves.”

An independent Alberta wouldn’t have to contribute to the federal equalization program that this year paid $13.6 billion to Quebec but nothing to the three westernmost provinces.........

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