To be clear, my exasperation stemmed not from any opposition to the principle—we donated because I, and we, believe emphatically that Alberta's future is in Canada.

What annoys me is that we've had to organize ourselves, raise money, print signs, and consume untold hours of public attention to establish something that, until very recently, most of us regarded as rather obvious: Alberta is part of Canada and would like to remain so.

Governments have actual problems to solve. Businesses have real challenges to navigate. People are busy. Dollars are hard to make. Spending 130 million of them to reaffirm our vows seems unnecessary at best; downright wasteful at worst.

Particularly now.

Canada is living through a period when our closest neighbour appears to have forgotten what friendship is. We don’t need to conjure imaginary foes. We have enough real ones.

At precisely the moment when Canadians might reasonably be expected to pull a little closer together, we in Alberta have turned inward to debate whether we want to be Canadian in the first place.

Even that isn't quite right. Because we didn't really decide to have this conversation.

Whatever one thinks of Quebec's sovereignty movement, there was at least a certain logic to the sequence. A political party openly committed to sovereignty was elected to government. That government then asked Quebeckers whether they wished to pursue it. Quebeckers then said no.

If Albertans were clamouring for independence—if separatist candidates were sweeping elections or a government had been elected on an explicit promise to take Alberta out of Confederation—I'd hate it, but I’d get it.

Instead, we have somehow reversed the process.

Rather than a broad separatist political movement producing a referendum, we are using the machinery of a referendum to create the impression of a broad separatist political movement. We are taking an idea that has largely existed on the political margins and conferred upon it a seriousness and legitimacy it has not earned at the ballot box.

The machinery creates the spectacle. And the spectacle creates the impression—inside Alberta and, perhaps more damagingly, outside it—that Albertans are seized with the question of whether we should leave Canada.

The people I talk to aren't seized by it. They're annoyed by it. Yet everywhere I go, people want to talk about it.

Over the past several months, I've travelled throughout Canada and Europe. 

“So…what's going on in Alberta?”

Which brings us back to Heenan Blaikie.

The lesson isn't that Alberta is somehow about to suffer the same fate, because obviously it isn't. It's that reputation can be altered simply by introducing a question that wasn't previously there.

The conversation itself has consequences.

Every headline about separation tells a story about Alberta. Every investor who pauses, every executive who hesitates and every entrepreneur who wonders whether this is the right moment to commit is reacting not necessarily to the likelihood of separation, but to the fact that we're even discussing it.

Alberta's government commissioned the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy to examine the economic implications of separation. Predictably, the report painted a bleak picture. While a best case scenario, dubbed a “smooth separation” (ya, those are suuuper common) could, under the most favourable assumptions, in just the right light, with the stars aligning, stitch together an economic business case.

Hey, a family would almost certainly become more economically efficient with fewer children. Just like in my business, I could certainly improve margins by eliminating all the staff.

But only if we completely ignored the purpose of the enterprise.

Families, businesses and countries don't exist solely to maximize economic efficiency. They exist to create something larger than the sum of their parts. They require compromise, shared sacrifice, occasional frustration and an acceptance that not every relationship can—or should—be reduced to a spreadsheet.

So the question isn't whether Alberta could make it on its own. The better question is whether we'd be stronger for having left. The report gives us plenty of reason to doubt it. And I, for one, don't believe we would, either. 

More importantly, I worry about what we're sacrificing while we debate it, absent, no less, a clear mandate to do so.

For decades, Alberta has suffered from a branding problem. People elsewhere still picture oil derricks, pickup trucks, and political grievance. What they often fail to see is what Alberta has become: one of the youngest populations in North America, a global energy leader, a growing technology hub, a centre for artificial intelligence research, and a magnet for entrepreneurs and ambitious people from across Canada and around the world.

I see it every day in my work. Now, I’m just a humble executive recruiter, and though I boast a poli sci undergrad, I’m far from a Political Scientist, so perhaps I should retreat to the one small corner of this debate where I actually know what I’m talking about.

I spend my days selling Alberta. When we recruit people into Alberta, candidates ask predictable questions about schools, housing, taxes, healthcare, commute times, career opportunities, and quality of life. Increasingly, they ask about politics. 

Lately, they ask about separation.

They’re not constitutional scholars. They're risk assessors. Executives are paid to manage uncertainty, not volunteer for it. The same is true of investors, entrepreneurs, and companies deciding where to deploy capital. 

And increasingly, the same is true of the people we are trying to convince to build their lives here. And that's what makes this more than merely irritating. By elevating separation into a province-wide debate, we create uncertainty and then force ourselves to reassure people about the uncertainty we've created. 

Which sounds a lot like my meeting with the Managing Partner of Heenan Blaikie.

You see, separation isn't the only question on the ballot that gives me pause.

Albertans are also being asked about restricting access to provincially funded services based on immigration status and requiring proof of citizenship to vote provincially. 

Whatever one's views on the policy merits of each proposal—and reasonable people can certainly disagree—there is another question worth asking: What does this look like to the people we’re trying to recruit? We spend an enormous amount of time and money convincing talented people to come to Alberta. We tell them about the jobs, the opportunity, the lifestyle, the schools, the affordability, and the extraordinary things being built here. 

The same government that spent millions on the Alberta is Calling ad campaign, explicitly pitching those from away on Alberta’s affordability, jobs, and quality of life, is now lending legitimacy to a separatist movement that has long existed on the political fringes.

Recruitment doesn’t end when someone accepts the offer. The onboarding is where the real work resides. It’s a pretty quick pivot from Alberta is Calling to Alberta is Leaving.

An excellent website produced by the Dignity Forum asks what happens when political disagreement stops being a disagreement about ideas and begins turning the people on the other side into the problem. That is a dangerous habit for any society to acquire. And Alberta should be especially careful about acquiring it.

We are a province built by newcomers. We need more talented people, not fewer. We compete every day with Toronto, Vancouver, Houston, Denver, and dozens of other places for entrepreneurs, physicians, engineers, executives, and investment capital.

And we're already fighting a stubborn caricature elsewhere in Canada about who Albertans are. We shouldn't be volunteering fresh material for it.

The point isn't that Albertans shouldn't be frustrated. We have the right to ensure the rest of Canada understands the extraordinary contribution Alberta makes to the country. But I think they get it. And I fear we’re being a bit, well, high maintenance.

More importantly, demanding a better deal within Canada and demanding separation from Canada are not remotely the same thing. And if separation is just being floated as leverage, we should be careful about overplaying our hand.

Ask Britain.

And while we debate ourselves, the world keeps moving. The world is looking for energy, talent, innovation, capital, and opportunity, and Alberta possesses every one of them in abundance.

That's the Alberta I’ve spent my career trying to sell.

Which brings me, one last time, to Heenan Blaikie.

By the time I sat through that very odd meeting in November 2013, the die had been cast. Whatever damage had been done could no longer be talked away. Within weeks, there was no firm left to defend.

Alberta is not that. Not remotely. We are strong, prosperous and ambitious, with advantages most places in the world would envy. Our problem isn't that Alberta is failing. It's that we're needlessly introducing doubt about a place with an extraordinarily compelling story to tell.

I wish we hadn't gotten here, and I’m not even sure how we did. I resent the time, money, and oxygen this is consuming. I can’t escape the irony that organizing against separation inevitably lends the separation movement some of the legitimacy I don't believe it has earned.

But here we are.

A cavity doesn't disappear because you're annoyed about having to go to the dentist. Once the problem exists, annoyance is not a strategy, and neither is apathy. If this question is going to be put to Albertans, those of us who believe strongly in this province's future within Canada need to say so, loudly and unambiguously. 

We need to organize. We need to participate. And we need to get out the vote.

Talk to your friends. Talk to your family. Talk to your neighbours. 

Those conversations have consequences.

Regards,

Adam