Row after a row of Canadian flags flies at the top of the high posts on Céspedes cared in a city in the south of Alberta that also houses the prime minister of the province, her husband and her dog.
Kathleen Sokvitne has lived on the street in High River, Alta., About 60 kilometers south of Calgary, for 30 years.
She says that these flags show that not all Alberta us agree with renewed efforts to separate from the country.
“The suggestions that the number of people who want to separate is that growing worries me,” said Sokvitne, standing in his entrance path.
Sokvitne said that the statements of Prime Minister Danielle Smith, as well as the introduction of his government of a bill, which makes it easier for citizens to trigger referendums, allow separatists. Smith has said that those who want to separate are frustrated with Ottawa and “are not marginal voices.”
“She is manipulating the people of this province to believe that we must seriously look at the separation,” Sakvitne said. “It’s ridiculous. Not everyone thinks like that. I don’t agree.”
After talking with several residents in Alberta, from High River in the South to Edmonton in the north, opinions on separatism are as diverse as the province itself.
Some shelters are frustrated with Ottawa, and a small margin wants to separate. Others argue that separation would be reckless.
Only a few blocks from Sokvitne’s house, musician Richard Engler drinks coffee with his friends outside a local restaurant, since he said he agreed with Smith.
The prime minister has said that he does not support the separation of Canada, but that Alcbertanes have genuine complaints with the federal government.
“However, deep down, we are Canadians,” said Engler, 76.
Engler said that frustration comes from the historical and current complaints that some people, including their own family, have against Ottawa.
“Western Canadians have been penalized for living here,” he said. “We need our jobs … We need infrastructure and need energy corridors to be able to do all that.”
To the north of High River in the center of Okotoks, a community of Calgary bedrooms, the owner of a cell phone repair workshop, says that these complaints can be resolved through conversations.
“I love living in Canada and I don’t want to separate,” said Muhammad Iqbal, owner of We Fix Phones.
Iqbal, 39, said he emigrated to Ontario from Pakistan in 2001 before moving to Calgary in 2008. He said that Canada should be more appreciated by Canadians because he has allowed generations of immigrants like him to prosper.
“All this of separatism … I don’t know why it is happening and why.”
Further north in Didsbury, the owner of a business, Jim Penner, said the separation would be reckless.
“Complaints must be negotiated and working instead of going to the end of threatening to leave,” Didsbury Computers said from inside his business.
“There is absolutely no benefit that can see [separating] financially or politically. “
Penner, 60, said his family has lived in Didsbury since his grandfather moved there.
His father, who was a farmer and vocal separatist, did not agree with the way the government controlled him and his livelihood, so Penner said he understands where frustrations could come from.
“Alberta and the West have been condemned to the ostracism in many ways. I can understand. I am not happy with the way the federal government has done things,” he said. “But let’s work on it as reasonable adults and don’t make a tantrum.”
But in an interview in a Tim Hortons alley in Gasoline, a popular transport corridor north of Didsbury, the leader of the Alberta Republican Party, Cameron Davies, said the separatists are not launching one.
His party is asking for a referendum about whether Alberta should separate. Davies, 35, said the separation would give Alberta the opportunity to renew his relationship with Canada and the rest of the world in his own terms.
“It is not different from being in an abusive and toxic relationship,” he said. “We have to leave that relationship, and we can restore relationships or not with the limits.”
Davies said the membership of his party has doubled to 20,000 members from the federal elections that saw the liberal minority government of Prime Minister Mark Carney re -elected.
He said that most members are between 25 and 45 years old and feel that previous liberal governments have hindered life.
He said they feel that the system is working against them.
“Young people find it more and more challenging to buy their first house, to pay daily life,” he said. “Hockey and nostalgia do not pay the invoices and will not keep Canada together.”
Jesse Allen, 22, a shepherd in Lloydminster, a city to horcajadas on the limit of Alberta-Asakatchewan and incorporated by both provinces, while sitting a few Davies tables in the coffee that agreed.
“Albertaos have no voice, there is no voice on the table and that must change,” he said.
He said, however, he would only vote “yes” in a referendum to separate if the rest of the west of Canada, including BC and Saskatchewan, also joined Alberta.
In Red Deer, Alta., Anita Ewan, 34, a professor at the University of Capilano and mother of seven children, questioned why the Alberta government committed to the separatist cause in the first place.
Ewan, 34, said he also works with marginalized people and the elderly. She wonders what would happen to them if Alberta separated from Canada.
“The separation would reinforce that gap that already exists,” he said. “Marginalized people will be more marginalized.”
In an village east of Edmonton, Sherwood Park’s resident, Karen McClain, said she wants Albertaos to work with Ottawa instead of threatening to leave.
“The squeaky wheel gets the fat,” he said.
“The more you do you make, the more that message comes out and it seems that everyone wants [separatism]When it is a small number of people. “
