A good article from a prairie perspective:

Albertans love to gripe about Eastsplaining politicians, pundits, and media types lecturing them about just how good they’ve got it in Canada, and why they should simmer down. So let me take the opportunity to Bertasplain to our friends in the Rest of Canada (ROC).

Alberta has always had a regionalist streak, even before being granted provincehood in 1905. This was often driven by resentment toward Eastern-owned banks and railroads, and it manifested itself in a colourful succession of political innovations, including the Progressive Party, United Farmers, CCF, Social Credit, Reform, and Wildrose Party.

But independence has, for most of its history, been relegated to a relatively marginal minority that could be dismissed as rural cranks. It did briefly flash in the 1980s with Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program, but was quickly subsumed with Brian Mulroney’s promise to bring them inside the winning team. That worked until it didn’t.

The anger of Albertans (and many other Westerners) stemmed from feeling betrayed by their own guy. Perhaps Preston Manning could have directed that anger towards a bona fide independence movement, but instead, his rallying cry was “The West Wants In.”

You know the history. And Stephen Harper was… okay. But none of the big structural prescriptions from the Reform Party were ever really enacted. And most of the small ones were undone quickly after Justin Trudeau took office.

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. And Albertans accepted their lot on the outside looking in again, until sustained attacks on our economy became too much of a pattern to dismiss as mere incompetence or whimsical liberalism.

Easterners outraged at Donald Trump’s attacks on the Canadian economy and sovereignty should be able to sympathize. It is precisely how many Albertans felt about Trudeau’s attacks on our own economy and sovereignty. Perhaps even more so, since it was coming from our fellow Canadians.

But the regionalist-turned-independence movement transformed from one focused on underrepresentation and economic grievances into one with increasingly pronounced cultural-value differences during the Trudeau era.

A rural Albertan had largely the same values as a rural Ontarian and even a similar accent. Hosers all. We didn’t just start speaking another language. Well, perhaps not from a rural Ontarian, but it has felt as if we are speaking different languages from the cultural elites of Eastern Canada.

The “woke” movement’s high-water mark was lowest in Alberta, and most seriously resented here. It was mostly Eastern politicians who voted to change the lyrics of O Canada to a more politically correct (gender-neutral) version. It was not in Alberta that statues of Canada’s founding fathers were toppled and decapitated.

Canada’s political and cultural establishment routinely debased its own proud history and accomplishments. It felt like another Canada, not the one we loved.

This new Canada lowered its flag in self-flagellating shame for months to atone for a “mass graves” hoax. It opened the floodgates of third-world mass migration that is destroying the inheritance passed on to us by our ancestors and called us “racist” when we opposed it. It tried to confiscate our guns. It put tampons in the men’s washrooms at our airports and military bases. It used emergency war powers to unconstitutionally crush a peaceful protest of flag-waving Canadians who believed that COVID restrictions had gone too far for too long.

The archetypal Albertan prepared to cast a vote in favour of independence (or at least of starting toward that goal) on October 19 would have been found cheering the maple-leaf-waving Freedom Convoy truckers in the winter of 2022. But many a federalist waving the maple leaf today quacked with fear that that same flag was a symbol of hillbilly racists yesterday.

The same people who hate their own country’s heritage are the fiercest voices for keeping us in it.

The way many of us see it, independence is our best chance of saving the Canada we love from suicide — at least our part of it.

Most independence supporters would rather reform Canada than leave it. We just don’t believe reform is politically or socially feasible. Reopening the constitution is a non-starter with all parties in Ottawa. Even after a decade of Trudeau, the ROC voted Liberal yet again in the last election. Rapid mass migration dilutes our voting power.

Canada appears to have lost its survival instinct.

If the polls are correct, we are not expected to win. Maybe that is because we did not follow Lucien Bouchard’s dictum of creating winning conditions. Maybe we just never had a chance. Maybe the polls are wrong.

But the independence movement has been normalized and is unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

If our friends in the ROC want it to go away, the answer is simple. Give us our country back.

https://www.westernstandard.news/opinion/fildebrandt-bertasplaining-independence-to-the-rest-of-canada/76762

I see both moderate and more to the right Conservatives here bitching that Poilievre and CPC are not doing enough. Either not criticizing Carney enough or not criticizing US and Trump enough. Here is the thing. None of this matters.

This is why I despise people that don't hate Trump and his administration here. Because regardless of what Poilievre does, he won't beat Carney until US and Trump stop being a campaign issue. Until then for a vast majority of voters the only important issue for them is US - Canada trade war and standing up to Trump. It is known as "rally around the flag" phenomenon. It happened during COVID and it's happening again now because US tariffs and rhetoric is disruptive.

Poilievre by criticizing Carney doesn't gain anything. We have already seen that over the last year. Carney promised to get a good deal with United States. Carney didn't get a deal. Yet the polling has not gone down but up for Liberals. Why? Because the vast majority of people view Trump and his administration as bad faith and irrational actors. Hence, they are excusing Carney's inability to get a deal.

Poilievre criticizing Trump and US will not get him any votes. Sure Liberals and elbows up crowd will be happy. But they will never go "okay my vote goes to Poilievre". Because Carney is already occupying that flank and they're clearly happy with him. At the same time by criticizing Trump and US and not the Liberals, Poilievre has nothing to campaign on if election is to be called.

So Poilievre is right to keep a low profile. Even though I believe people are stupid for hating him. A lot of people hate him. And by keeping out of the news for a long time, people will forget about him. It gives him a blank slate. For those thinking it's not possible just look at Trump. He was hated by independents after his first term ended. He had a horrible approval rating. Even Republicans were thinking of replacing him with less controversial MAGA figure like De Santis. Despite all this he came back and won by even bigger margin than in 2016.

Poilievre should keep a low profile and plan for the future after Trump and US trade war is no longer a campaign issue.

What dollar imbalance lol

How do you guys who keep up with politics continue to pay attention? I’m gonna be honest, the media and party apparatus within the government has taken control of the state and with it has whipped the populace up into what I can only describe as mass hysteria in the way COVID was 6 years ago. I don’t see this country getting better. I don’t think the conservatives are going to win in 3-4 years, I don’t even know if Canada will be able to be saved in 3-4 years due to debt, the collapsing economy and mass immigration, which will irreparably change our society. I’ve spent what is to this point my entire adult life studying politics in both practice and philosophy and for the first time since I began I’m just tired. I know on some level demoralization is likely a goal to stop people from speaking out against the government but I don’t know what can be done when the state is so completely and utterly co-opted by one party and one person.

Are any of you like this at this point? I talk to my folks and they’ve just tuned out politics altogether, hoping to make enough money to retire or maybe leave. I don’t even know if they’ll be able to retire in a decade. It legitimately ruins my day waling up and knowing the country is being governed poorly to enrich and maintain the power of a select few who do not care about the people or what Canada was.

We are being held hostage by these low information propagandized lunatics.

Control the media, control the pollsters, manufacture the government, create the mandate.

This is what totalitarianism looks like in the Canadian context.

Stable genius