Not Canada, but Alberta – That’s Where the Wealth Is

Trump talked about making Canada the 51st state, and there’s more to the idea than first meets the eye.

By F. Andrew Wolf, Jr.| May 25, 2025 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags:  Articles, Opinion, Politics

My Take - They talk about all these conservatives in Alberta, but the problem with that is a Canadian conservative is more like RINO's here in America.  And this last vote shows they fail to think!  It's my view any Canadian province that's allowed to leave Canada and become a U.S. state will in effect become a Trojan Horse for liberals.

  However, if this gets into play what first should be done is demand Alberta become an independent nation, just like Texas.  After we can see how they run their government, statehood can be talked about.  

It's my view America isn't in need of any more states.  Let Canadians fix Canada, or not!  Canada has problems, and it's their problems, there's no need to make them our problems.  RK

Thousands of Albertans have been holding rallies and signing petitions to vote for separation from Canada. The Liberals just achieved their fourth consecutive win in the country that Donald Trump wants to make the 51st state. The people of Alberta have a long-standing complaint – Ottawa treats them unfairly while reaping enormous economic benefit from oil and gas resources. While the call for a “divorce” from Canada is not new, it has regained momentum in the wake of the election.

The US President should pay attention to these rumblings. Number 51 should be the province of Alberta – it makes more sense for America economically than Canada – especially now with the latter’s reinforced political resentment towards the president.

According to a recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute, 3 in 10 Albertans would vote to leave Canada. Jeff Rath, a Canadian constitutional lawyer and advocate for Alberta’s separation from Canada, will soon lead a delegation of like-minded Albertans to Washington, DC, for meetings with senior Trump administration figures.

Joining forces with the US could make sense for both countries; Alberta holds the third-largest oil reserves in the world, trailing only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Moreover, it sits atop rich deposits of coal, lithium, and other critical minerals that America (i.e. Trump) is actively seeking.

Rath’s plan to meet with White House officials has also caught the attention of high-profile voices on the American right. Conservative advocate Charlie Kirk posted a video in March of Rath agitating for annexation with the remark: “Okay, if Alberta wants to become the 51st state, that’s a decent idea.” Elon Musk agreed.

The western province could hold a public referendum on breaking away from Canada next year if a citizen-led petition gets the required number of signatures, Alberta Premiere Danielle Smith said Monday.

Alberta, with a population of roughly 5 million, borders on the US state of Montana and is a key driver of Canada’s economy. It’s the leading producer of fossil fuels for the nation, accounting for 84% of total crude oil production and 61% of total natural gas production in 2023. In 2024 Alberta was second only to Ontario in terms of GDP growth, while its per capita GDP is the highest of all of Canada’s provinces.

Trade with the United States made up 89% of the province’s exports in 2023. Last year alone, Alberta exported $156.3 billion south to the US. Crude petroleum made up the majority of those exports, totaling $113.4 billion, or 73%.

Nationally, the US is Canada’s largest foreign customer, accounting for $595 billion in 2023 – 89% of total exports – according to ATB Economics.

Yet it’s the data just presented that works against Alberta’s secession – Ottawa will be loathe to permit such action. It will not want to sever from its sovereignty much of the wealth responsible for the Canadian economy.

This means nothing will happen without US influence, US capital, and considerable attenuation of Trump’s rhetoric. But it would be a good fit along with Greenland. Just as the latter provides access to the Arctic, Alberta offers abundant natural resources and a conservative populace.

Although the province is considered a conservative stronghold, under Canada’s decade-long Liberal leadership, Ottawa has blocked pipelines, canceled multiple oil and gas projects, and introduced a carbon tax – policies that Smith described as “anti-energy, anti-agriculture, and anti-resource development.”

Only one province has ever held referenda on separating from Canada: Quebec, in 1980 and 1995, both of which showed a majority of Québécois preferred to remain – but only after a huge and caustic political upheaval.

The bitter feelings can be traced back to the 1980s, when then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program tried to centralize control over Albertan oil. Albertans, who had enjoyed an economic boom thanks to high oil prices, felt as though their natural wealth was being pillaged by Ottawa, which lowered prices to benefit poorer Canadians. Although the program was ended by Trudeau’s Conservative successor, Brian Mulroney in 1985, the wounds never fully healed.

Recently, Smith’s government has introduced legislation to lower the threshold for referendums initiated by citizen petition. In order to pass the threshold, a petition would need about 177,000 signatures.

But leaving is not as easy as voting in favor of a referendum. Albertans will need political and economic support from the US if separation is to occur followed by statehood.

For Discerning News Hounds

Canada’s constitution does not allow unilateral separation. Following the unsuccessful referenda on separation in Quebec, the federal government enacted the Clarity Act in 2000. The act stipulates that the national parliament’s House of Commons determines if the referendum on a province’s independence demonstrates “a clear expression of a will by a clear majority” of the provincial population.

As the saying goes: the Devil is in the details.

The outcome of the recent election has heightened long-running tensions in conservative regions. In Alberta, the Conservatives won 34 out of 37 seats, and similar dissatisfaction has been observed in neighboring Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

Let us not forget that prior to Donald Trump’s rhetoric about “Governor” Trudeau and the “51st state,” Canadians were looking to the Conservative Party to rescue an economy that Trudeau and the Liberals had run into the ground. Let’s see how long the “knee-jerk” reaction of the electorate remains before Canadians realize they overreacted and that Alberta has a legitimate point that happens to coincide with America’s national security interests.

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Andrew Wolf, Jr. is director of The Fulcrum Institute, an organization of scholars dedicated to the classical liberal tradition. He has also been published stateside in American Spectator, The Thinking Conservative, and American Thinker, as well as abroad in International Policy Digest, Times of Israel, and The Daily Philosophy, among others.

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Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

Democrats Want to Colonize Puerto Rico by 'Decolonizing' It

By Daniel Greenfield December 21, 2022 @ Sultan Knish Blog

There have been six referendums on Puerto Rico’s status. Three of those referendums happened in the last ten years. In the 2020 referendum, 52% of Puerto Ricans voted to become a state and 47% voted against.  Democrats and their media, obsessed with rigging the senate by adding two senators, hailed this narrow victory as a clear mandate for statehood.   It’s actually a near split with a mere difference of 60,000 votes.

Compare that to the Alaska statehood referendum which passed by 83% or the Hawaii referendum which cleared by a somewhat more modest 68% but still hit the 2 to 1 mark.

House Democrats, with the complicity of a few of the worse Republicans, managed to pass the Puerto Rico Status Act. The bill only states that it must pass with a “majority of the valid votes.”

That’s not a reference to voter fraud, but to the 2017 referendum in which statehood won by 97%, but only because everyone who didn’t support statehood boycotted the referendum, and the 2012 referendum in which there were 500,000 blank ballots submitted as a protest.

(Puerto Rico’s statehood referendums are as dysfunctional as the territory itself.)

A serious statehood referendum for Puerto Rico would at least ask for a 2 to 1 majority. Democrats will however be perfectly happy if they win a referendum by the population of a square mile of Manhattan, even if it’s against the will of nearly half of Puerto Ricans.

And they call this “decolonization”.

Plenty of Hawaiians resent the United States, but they still want to be part of it. Puerto Ricans would like the benefits of citizenship while maintaining political independence from America.

That’s the so-called ‘commonwealth’ option.

The Puerto Rico Status Act lists three options on the referendum, ‘Independence’, ‘Sovereignty in Free Association with the United States’ and ‘Statehood’. Sovereignty or Commonwealth would allow Puerto Rico to make treaties with foreign nations and still retain our citizenship.

The model for this is the British Commonwealth and its former colonies in the region.

But America isn’t a monarchy. We don’t have a king who is going to formally be Puerto Rico’s monarch even as it signs treaties with Communist China. Nor do we have some obsessive need to prop up an outdated empire by having a bunch of third world countries acknowledge Charles III or Biden I. A commonwealth status for Puerto Rico has no constitutional basis at all.

That hasn’t stopped Pelosi and House Democrats from passing such a bill anyway. And 16 Republicans, who probably barely even read it or understood it, from voting for it anyway.

Putting both the commonwealth and independence on the ballot is supposed to split the nationalist vote and allow statehood proponents to get their bare majority. But as clever as Pelosi and House Democrats think they are, Puerto Rican politics has been based in no small part over debating this issue for generations and suspecting every referendum of being rigged.

The nationalists will accept nothing short of independence. And their terrorists remain heroes to many. Especially New York City’s Puerto Rican politicians. Commonwealth supporters keep arguing about what their imaginary ideal of an impossible relationship looks like. And statehood proponents can only hope to carve out a narrow referendum victory that, if past history is any guide, will be preemptively sabotaged by everyone else who disagrees with them.

Puerto Rico is much too dysfunctional to manage statehood or much of anything else. Anyone who has watched the aftermath of natural disasters play out has seen a little of how broken and corrupt its governmental structures are. And the only real argument statehood proponents have is that with two senators they’ll be able to wrangle a lot more money to go to Puerto Rico.

That much is undeniably true. Puerto Rico has the example of multiple broken cities across America whose citizens don’t work for a living, they vote for a living, and whose politicians exist to trade support for cash. But most Puerto Ricans also know that all that money will, like the massive amounts of aid after every hurricane, find their way into the pockets of politicians.

There will be little left over to improve life for ordinary people.

But Puerto Rico is also so broken that there may be no choice. It exited bankruptcy this summer after its debt was cut by 80% without fixing any of the issues. It has a 44% poverty rate and 60% are on Medicare or Medicaid. Crime is high. The murder rate is four times that of America.

There are more Puerto Ricans living in the United States than there are back home.

Statehood has no purpose except to give Democrats two senate seats and inject even more money into what is already the most corrupt place around. “9th mayor in Puerto Rico this year accused of corruption” is how a typical AP headline sums up the state of affairs.

Responsible officials and activists in Puerto Rico are trying to clean up some of the mess. They have little interest in yet another referendum that isn’t going to do anything about the real problems. They would rather maintain the status quo as a territory without another bout of infighting over proposals that serve no one except fanatics and the politically corrupt.

Democrats are obsessed with statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington D.C., not because they care about either place, but because they have a road map for rigging the senate. And while there’s no doubt that D.C. statehood would lead to two Democrat bloc votes that would be as corrupt as they would be loyal, Puerto Rico’s politics are a whole lot more complicated.

Puerto Ricans were supposed to help turn Florida blue, but Gov. DeSantis won 56% of the Puerto Rican vote. And back home, Puerto Rico is more conservative than the Puerto Ricans living in the United States. Puerto Rico’s legislature has been moving on abortion bans Judge Juan Perez-Gimenez, a Carter appointee, kept on fighting the Supreme Court’s gay marriage position in two decisions, longer than most other federal judges. On a variety of social issues, Puerto Rico is more socially conservative than almost all Democrat areas in the United States.

But, despite the attempts to align the country’s parties with Democrats and Republicans in America, or our political movements, Puerto Rico is not America. Its politics and worldview fit within the culture of the region. Puerto Ricans have their distinct identity and want to be who they are. The current status quo is the best of a bad bargain that would either try to merge a foreign failed state into America or give it the independence to fail on its own.

Puerto Ricans have failed to provide any kind of enthusiastic support for statehood across six disastrous referendums. The two most legitimate referendums in the 90s, which had the highest turnout, stalemated when voters chose the status quo or commonwealth over statehood.

Much like the EU, Democrats want to keep Puerto Ricans voting until they vote their way.

Democrats are attempting to force a narrow victory that they can use to drag Puerto Rico into the United States, even if 48% of the population is opposed, for their own political power. Whatever the outcome, much of Puerto Rico will view it as an illegitimate conspiracy. And they will react accordingly. Puerto Rico can only ever become an unwilling and hostile state.

After the history of Puerto Rican political terrorism, which included an assassination attempt on President Truman, there’s little doubt that Democrats know this and don’t care. All they can see is the possibility of two free senate seats. But most Americans and Puerto Ricans should care.

Democrats claim that they want to ‘decolonize’ Puerto Rico, but what they actually want to do is colonize it. And that’s why plenty of Puerto Ricans remain hostile to their proposal.

Puerto Rico doesn’t want to be America, it wants to be Puerto Rico.

The latest referendum push is a bad idea that America and Puerto Rico are better off without.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.

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Thank you for reading.

Why Stop at DC? Neocon Bill Kristol Wants Cuba in the Union Too!

Woke, never-Trump neocon Bill Kristol's argument for D.C. statehood: Annex Cuba?

By: Andrew Moran March 25, 2021Articles, Liberty Rewind, Politics

 Truth, justice, and the neoconservative way. In the post-Trump era, progressives and neocons are trying to keep the romance alive after both ideologies achieved the shared endgame of ousting the former president from the White House. It has been unclear how the alliance could keep the flame going without a common enemy. Like any relationship, it is the little things that add up to mean a great deal to love’s survival. Bill Kristol, the neoconservative in chief, is whispering sweet nothings in leftists’ ears by championing statehood for the nation’s capital. But he may have soured his appeal by taking it a bit

 

Cuba’s Future is Kristol Clear

Democrats are trying everything to sustain their power with President Joe Biden at the helm. From the advocacy of lowering the voting age to 16 to keeping the borders open to illegal immigrants, the donkeys are concerned that America’s current framework might not allow the party to stay in charge past 2024. But the Democratic Party has another trick up its sleeve.

The House Oversight and Reforms Committee is holding a hearing on granting statehood to Washington, D.C., with congressional Democrats arguing that the 700,000 people residing in the district need better representation. Despite being an obvious power-grab for the left side of the political aisle to accumulate more seats, Kristol agrees, tweeting that the country’s growth is reason enough for another state. He also thinks that Puerto Rico and maybe one or two more should join the Union.

But one name on his list is forcing a collective bipartisan scratching of the head – or palm to the face.

“One reason I’m for DC statehood: The growth in size of the republic–and our distinctive manner of growth, admitting states with equal status–has always been a sign of our vigor. 60 years at 50 states is enough. Time for DC, Puerto Rico, Cuba (as soon as it’s free), 1 or 2 more?”

Is Kristol unaware that Cuba is a sovereign nation? Is he recommending an invasion of Havana? Kristol may have concealed his odious positions on MSNBC and CNN to the new generation of political observers over the last four years as he lamented on former President Donald Trump any chance he had. But his imperial itch gets scratched every now and then, drawing a rebuke from both sides.

Ted Cruz

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted: “Trump Derangement Syndrome in full flower: Bill Kristol is now a Democrat. Cuban statehood is too far out there even for Bernie (maybe)….” Former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson simply asked: “Are you kidding…?” Former Republican Congresswoman Nan Hayworth called him “a very silly and ignorant man.”

Political activist Daryle Lamont Jenkins labeled Kristol as a “colonizer,” while CNN contributor Frida Ghitis wondered why Cuba would become part of the United States. Perhaps if The Bulwark’s editor at large ended his tweet or followed up with “Orange Man Bad,” he would have garnered more support from his leftist brethren for an apparent policy position that only neocons could get behind.

The Privilege of Neocon Adventurism

For the last four years, the left discovered an unlikely ally in the neoconservatives. They, too, possessed the hatred of the billionaire real estate mogul that consumed every fiber of their being. Despite endorsing policies that were responsible for the deaths of millions of people and the destabilization of entire regions, progressives either forgave or forgot the records from the likes of Kristol, Max Boot, Ralph Peters, and the folks from The Lincoln Project. Some of them not only loathed Trump, but they also became woke by conceding their white privilege and the villainy of lighter skin pigmentation. In today’s toxic political climate, wokeology extends absolution to bloodthirsty pundits – so long as they howl at the moon about white supremacists hiding under every bed in America. Or the go-to get-out-of-jail card: Trump is Literally Hitler™. Neoconservatives will need to grovel since they have, as Liberty Nation’s Tim Donner recently opined, witnessed their influence crumble.

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Read more from Andrew Moran.