Alberta is staring down the snout of “a big lie,” argues Patrick Lennox.
asserted
Lennox → star → lie
A colossal deception has led to Monday’s pre-referendum vote, which offers Albertans two choices: “Remain a province of Canada” or “hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.”
asserted
Alberta → lead → Canada
The right choice is obvious: Albertans should vote to remain.
asserted
Albertans → vote → ?
But Lennox, an author and international relations scholar, writes in his new book “On Treason,” that even being forced into this position amounts to “psychological warfare.”
asserted
forced → write → warfare
The domestic political actors who’ve triggered this vote have entered into an “alliance with the Trump administration’s continual and escalating efforts to have us question our right to exist as a sovereign nation.”
asserted
us → trigger → nation
And Lennox has a word for that: “Treason.”
asserted
Lennox → have → that
To assault the public with lies both big and small, transmitting them in great quantities and at high velocity, has been the modus operandi of the separatists.
asserted
assault → assault → separatists
And it draws from a well-studied playbook.
asserted
it → draw → playbook
When Nigel Farage first started campaigning to yank the United Kingdom out of the European Union, he did so by pushing bizarre, hallucinatory conceptions of how Brussels meddles in Brits’ day-to-day lives.
asserted
Brussels → start → lives
He yammered them at rallies and painted them on buses.
asserted
He → yammer → buses
When Donald Trump told the voting public his 2020 election victory was stolen, he did so by weaving together laughable tales of bamboo paper ballots (imported from China) and sentient voting machines.
asserted
he → tell → China
Other populists the world over point to migrants and refugees and insist they are weapons of nefarious political actors lurking in the shadows.
asserted
they → point → shadows
The U.K. is poorer and more miserable for Brexit, democracy is collapsing in the United States and Europe is still electing extremists who have plenty of grievances but no real idea how to remedy them.
asserted
who → collapse → them
It is impossible, Lennox argues, to divorce what is happening in Alberta from the broader trend of the liberal world slamming the car door on its hand.
asserted
world → argue → hand
A former RCMP intelligence officer based in Edmonton, Lennox uses his book to chronicle the rise and follies of Alberta’s independence-seekers — the lawyer being sued by former clients, the disgraced surgeon, the political Loki fined $120,000 by Elections Alberta for financial violations.
asserted
Lennox → base → violations
He tours among the conspiracy theorists who, buoyed by the so-called Freedom Convoy, are responsible for advancing this crackpot scheme to split Alberta from Canada.
asserted
who → tour → Canada
And he captures how these weirdos, whose past efforts have attracted no more than a few thousand supporters, colluded — or at least claimed to collude — with Trump’s effort to seize Canada.
asserted
efforts → capture → Canada
These losers would still be on the political margins were they not being validated by one person: Premier Danielle Smith.
asserted
they → validate → person
Before returning to politics, and even since becoming premier, Smith has openly allied with independence activists.
asserted
Smith → return → activists
Because Smith, despite what she says, is a willing consumer of this big lie.
asserted
she → say → lie
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Smith came to believe in a version of Canada that she experienced online — in which Canadian democracy was in twilight, evil forces had seized the levers of power to silence patriots and the health establishment was profiting from the deaths of thousands (if not millions).
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establishment → come → thousands
Believing in this big lie required Smith to see her fellow citizens in Victoria, Toronto, Ottawa and Quebec as the traitorous ones.
asserted
Believing → believe → ones
Even as she ran for office promising to work within the federation, Smith was secretly plotting to run through the emergency exit.
asserted
Smith → run → exit
There is a genuine disgruntlement in Alberta, I know.
asserted
I → be → Alberta
As journalist Tyler Dawson writes in “The Republic of Alberta,” his recent book about the vote, “while Alberta may not have a great nationalist novel (like Quebec), there are any number of open letters, reports from government and think tanks, and manifestos to back the views of discontented Albertans, separatists or not.”
uncertain
Alberta → write → Albertans
This all turned the idea of an independent Alberta from an absurd fantasy into something more tangible.
asserted
This → turn → something
There are plenty of “normal” Albertans, Dawson writes, “who believe something is deeply wrong with their province’s place in Canada.
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something → be → Canada
That’s all quite reasonable.
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That → ’ → ?
A significant portion of Quebec has, famously, never been happy with our arrangement as a country — the majority of seats in the National Assembly are now held by sovereigntists.
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majority → hold → sovereigntists
My native Nova Scotia bitterly fought Confederation, worried that annexation to Canada would allow its fishery to be plundered and doom the province’s most lucrative industry.
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fishery → fight → industry
Certainly, some will vote for independence without really wanting it, perhaps believing it will buy Alberta leverage in negotiations with Ottawa.
asserted
it → vote → Ottawa
But this isn’t about self-determination nor figuring out which configuration of self-governance would most benefit Albertans.
asserted
configuration → figure → Albertans
This vote is predicated on lies.
asserted
vote → predicate → lies
The instigators lie about a plot to destroy Alberta, they lie about the state of our conflict with Washington, they lie about the bountiful abundance that awaits their province as an independent republic — it’s lies all the way down.
asserted
it → lie → republic
When my colleague Richard Warnica spent time with Mitch Sylvestre, the man whose name sits atop the referendum petition, he heard beliefs “dangerously disconnected from reality.”
asserted
beliefs → spend → reality
You cannot separate the instigators of this cause from its outcome.
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You → separate → outcome
As we’ve seen time and time again — from Brexit to MAGA — paranoid populism only dresses up in the concerns of regular people.
asserted
populism → see → people
But at the earliest opportunity, proponents of these big lies revert to form.
asserted
proponents → revert → form
Given power, they will continue to pursue their imagined enemies, line their own pockets and find new windmills to tilt at.
asserted
they → give → windmills
Whatever the separatists claim, they do not care about the rights of First Nations people nor the concerns of working Albertans.
uncertain
they → claim → Albertans
…and 5 more, not listed.
The Aporia
