This story is Part 2 of the Road to the Referendum series. Part 1 can be found here. More on what to expect from the series can be found here.
When driving through Lloydminster, the signs showing pride in being a border city are everywhere.
Saskatchewan and Alberta symbols welcome people as they drive in.
Throughout the community, names highlighting its border city status are on businesses.
There’s also obvious, large red markers of where the border divides the city.
Real estate agent Michael Dewing is all too familiar with how each province works.
“I carry two real estate licenses. One in Alberta and one in Saskatchewan — but luckily in the same country,” Dewing said.
“(The border) affects my business no matter where I show property in the region, because we work in 5,000 square miles around the city on both sides of the border.”
Albertans will head to the polls this upcoming Oct. 19 to vote on 10 referendum questions, one of which will ask residents of they want to remain in Canada or if they want the government of Alberta to commence the legal process to hold a binding separation referendum.
Amidst the conversations about Alberta separation, Dewing is faced with uncertainty and questions about what it would mean for not only business, but his personal life.
“For us as a business, it’ll be completely different regulations and a lot red tape to get through… For a consumer there’s a lot to consider. Like, are we going to need a different passport to go five miles out of town? Does the Canadian money stop here and now it’s a different currency?” Dewing said.
“We’re not really sure what’s going to happen.”
Dewing fears Alberta leaving Canda would create a risky situation for consumers and banks.
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“We might even see things like mortgage financing completely pull back in our region because of it. Just so much uncertainty.”
There is not clear answer on what would happen to Canadian passports, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canada Pension Plan, military or trade — but some experts have their own theories.
It would be extremely complicated to start a new country, University of Alberta law professor Gerard Kennedy said.
“There would have to be a negotiation between Canada and Alberta, to negotiate the terms of departure and issues like that would have be considered,” Kennedy said.
“An independent Alberta would certainly have no right to use the Canadian currency or to have its citizens cross the border without a passport.”
Kennedy said when it comes to trade within Canada, the federal government can facilitate the movement of resources from Alberta to B.C. or further east allowing goods to get to international markets.
“That ability to facilitate will be gone. Now, the independent Alberta would have to negotiate with the province of British Columbia, and the federal government in a separate country. That would be how that would work,” he said.
For policing, he said he would be surprised if the feds were to have the RCMP service an independent state.
Pensions is where it will get really complicated, Kennedy said, and one of the things that would have to be negotiated.
“Alberta has clearly put a disproportionate share of payments into the Canada Pension Plan… You’re going to have to get some actuaries and lawyers to hash that out.
“It won’t be simple.”
Kennedy stressed this is all quite hypothetical.
“This is only going to happen in the case of a clear majority of Albertans, in response to a clear question of wanting to leave,” Kennedy said.
Mitch Sylvestre is spearheading the separatist movement.
He said the Alberta Prosperity Project is planning give a clearer picture on what would happen if the province became its own country.
“I have a very competent group of people that are right now two or three weeks into the process of writing what we call a white paper,” Sylvestre said in an interview with Global News last month.
“We are going to release all of that stuff so people can look at it and feel some kind of comfort in what the steps are going forward.”
As the conversation of separation is discussed across kitchen tables across the province and Canada, the border city is in a unique position.
The 31,000 locals already know what it’s like to live somewhere divided — for people like Dewing, the uncertainty and questions are stressful, not knowing what could become of the line that defines Lloydminster.
“I actually had a phone call from a B.C. buyer that was moving to our region and she was pretty adamant that she wanted to stay somewhere on the Saskatchewan side right now, within an hour of the city for example, but the reason why she absolutely wanted to be on the Saskatchewan side was because of the uncertainty and volatility happening in Alberta,” Dewing said.
“There’s so many unknowns just right here in the city… A lot of farmers have farmland on the Saskatchewan side and the Alberta side, I mean they’re next door to each other. Right now they can manage that, but again, are they going to be able to if it’s a completely separate country across the street from them?
“I don’t know.”
Not only is Gerard Kennedy a Liberal, but he lost his provincial leadership bid to Dalton McGuinty, and still served in his and Kathleen Wynne’s governments.
Thats a revealing action. Die hard Liberal preceeded and succeeded by such other die hard Liberals as Bob Rae and Cherri Denovo. Needless to say, Ontario has had 3 consecutive Conservative governments of Doug Ford since his tenure.
I would say the same thing if a Conservative was hidden in a similar way.
Take what you will of his opinions but the legalities noted in his commentary are fairly sophmoric. They would, for example, own Canadian dollars and could continue using that rate, or they could, if beneficial, adopt a different currency or create their own. Its not a big “what if” conundrum.
A border would be negotiated as always. Maybe a municipal referendum would settle the matter.
Passports? Again, a basic negotiation.
The better idea, of course, would be to better represent all Canadians and the diversity of opinion and culture from sea to shining sea, rather than abusing temporary majorities.
Gerard Kennedy is a Liberal who who was a MPP in Ontario for 10 years and otherwise ran two failed campaigns to lead the Liberal Party of Ontario and the Federal Liberal Party of Canada.
Funny thats mentioned nowhere. Wouldn’t want to highlight potential bias or anything.
I do not support separation whether it is Quebec or Alberta but it is interesting to note that its Liberals that have twice lead governments that generated votes to leave Canada.
i want fridom thats why we should separate fridum of speich and fridem to have guns. canida is turning into a distopin shietwhole. gooo kenny
You people do know that if Alberta separates, you will continue to get your CPP, after all you did pay into it. Also, in some circumstances, you will continue to get OAS. you simply become a out of country recipient. Just GIS will end. This is all from Canada gov websites. Look it up for yourselves.
Not a lot of straight facts. More “feelings” based than anything. For example, statement the Alberta certainly have no right to use Canadian currency. False. Any country can use any other countries currency. Happens all the time. There’s a lot of valid issues, but let’s keep it real.
These are things these separatist azzholes dont think about. They are shallow, anti Canadian and cannot think that far beyond. Face it, Smith promised something to Trump when the separatist movement gains hold.
Saskatchewan needs to separate with Alberta, then there would be no issue,, hopefully all the elbows up loser will leave . to enjoy their Canada over ran by immigrants ,high inflation .no jobs, as their country gives away all their tax money to other countries but their ow
…all issues the separatists don’t mention, let alone discuss. For example, NONE of Alberta’s major cities support it. IF Canada is divisible, Alberta is divisible. Then there is National parks, airports, prisons, military bases, treaty lands….the list goes on and on. there would literally need to be votes in EVERY district, municipality, town etc etc…what happens to the economy while all this is dragged out? Albertans are being played like a big mouthed bass by foreign interests.
Smith wants her own police force. She has been grooming the Sheriffs for that for years now. She is also pushing to pull out of CPP and make an APP. – Those moves will be very costly. Seniors do not like the idea of our pensions dwindling with APP rather than growing. We are proud of the RCMP. Ask Surry how their police force is doing…
And you are right, there may be border crossings at the Canada/Alberta borders. We can probably keep the banks, but there will have to be an Alberta Dollar rather than CAD. And he is right, mortgages will be very hard to get in the unknown currency. And we would have to get the Country of Alberta passports. It might foul up tourism for quite a while. However, other countries have changed after wars, and they survived. The real question is, do we want the cost and problems this will create? – what exactly is the benefit…
Being our own country will not get us pipelines to the coasts. It will cost us to replace all the federal services.
I would say they will vote which way they want to go.
Man, the concept of pure and proper democracy is truly lost on you socialist creatures that pass off as journalists.
For Pete’s Sake, has anyone heard of dual citizenships? Carney has three, Ireland, Britain and Canada. It allows him to move freely between those countries.
No concern here, separation will never happen. These ‘nutters’ will fade away once the cost to Alberta is revealed.
Much consideration is being given to if Alberta becomes its own country while assuming the borders would then be patrolled like the US/Canada border, I think a far more likely scenario would be an open ‘economic zone’ where Canadians and Albertans can pass unhindered, in which case the impact to citizens would be minimal