Alberta separatists say Ottawa prioritizing pipeline doesn’t halt independence push

Alberta is on the fast track to get a new oil pipeline to the B.C. coast – but leaders who want the province to quit Canada say that doesn’t move the needle for them on wanting to stay in Confederation.

“This doesn’t change the system whatsoever,” Cory Morgan said in an interview.

“(The separation issue) is much deeper than the pipeline for people like me and the dedicated, independence supporters.”

Morgan, an online political commentator and organizer behind the Pathway to Independence separatist group, has been one of the public faces in the debate over whether Alberta should stay or go.

In just over two weeks, Albertans will go to the polls in an Oct. 19 referendum on whether to stay in Canada or launch a second, binding referendum on separating.

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Premier Danielle Smith called the vote, saying the debate is intensifying and needs a resolution one way or the other. Critics have said Smith is just whipping up fringe grievances to placate separatists in her United Conservative Party.

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She has said she will vote to stay in Canada and has touted joint provincial-federal projects like a pipeline as an example of how the country is better together.

On Thursday, she reiterated that message as she and Prime Minister Mark Carney shared the lectern in Fort McMurray, announcing a big leap forward for a Pacific Link pipeline to take Alberta oil to the B.C. coast.

The line has now been declared a major project in the public interest. That helps streamline timelines and consultations that could see shovels in the ground a year from now.

Keith Wilson, co-leader of separatist group Let Alberta Decide, says the pipeline announcement is, ironically, a great example of why it’s time Alberta left Confederation.

He said the project has taken too much time, political capital and governmental resources just to get Alberta’s resources to market.

He said rather than have authority under law to marshal its own natural resources, Alberta was going cap in hand to Carney to avoid lengthy assessments and consultation.

“(Ottawa) created a bypass route where you require the personal blessing of His Majesty Prime Minister Carney and if you get that blessing, which was bestowed upon us here in Alberta today, you may get permission to go to the next step,” Wilson said in an interview Thursday.

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Jeffrey Rath, a lawyer for the separatist group Stay Free Alberta, posted to social media Thursday that Alberta should still go its own way, and take the new pipeline – and its billions of dollars in revenue — with it.

“Keep all of the money in Alberta,” Rath wrote.

“Don’t share any of it with Ottawa or any anti-pipeline provinces like Quebec.”

But in Fort McMurray, the ground zero of Alberta’s oil industry, the local leader says he understands why residents have been upset with federal government rules he says have hamstrung energy development.

Sandy Bowman, mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo,  said Thursday’s pipeline announcement shows the value of co-operation. On Oct. 19, said Bowman, he’s voting to stay in Canada.

“This announcement today shows that when you have our provincial government and our federal government working in the same direction, big things are going to happen,” he said.

“When Fort McMurray does well, Alberta does well. And when Alberta does, Canada does.”