My media career started in Montreal when the Parti Quebecois, a separatist party, was in power. Francois Legault, the current premier, was a 43 year-old cabinet minister in Lucien Bouchard’s PQ government.
I was a lot younger too.
He always seemed out of place among the separatists in Quebec. Years later his wife Isabelle told me that she won him over on the question of whether La Belle Provence should leave the country.
I wonder who will convince those in Alberta and Saskatchewan who want to leave that they are better off in a United Canada.
Last September I was out at the Canada Strong and Free event in Calgary. Some of you will have seen my interview with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith at that event.
Despite what some say, Premier Smith is not a separatist, not in my view anyway. She’s doing the best she can in a bad situation, and if you don’t think Alberta has been in a bad situation over the last 10 years or so then you haven’t been paying attention.
But too many aren’t paying attention, which is why too many people I know are considering the separatist option.
When I first met Keith Wilson he wasn’t an Alberta separatist, he was a lawyer fighting for land rights. Now, 15 years later, he’s all in on the separatist movement.
Sadly, I know a lot of people who are smart, well educated, connected and willing to organize who are now in the separatist camp. These are names that if you are from Western Canada, or know the area, you would know, recognize and respect.
They are also names that if you write for Canada’s co-called newspaper of record, let’s say your name was Andrew Coyne, well then you would dismiss them as inbred yokels.
That is part of the problem, there are real issues in Western Canada, not just Alberta, and the Central Canadian media ignores those issues or is outright dismissive of them.
Enjoy my conversation with Keith Wilson, an Ontario boy turned Alberta separatist. And if you have ideas for how to keep Alberta in the country, drop a comment below.
