An advocacy group in Alberta, Canada, is trying to educate residents of the province about what the benefits would be of breaking away from the country to join the United States as the 51st state.
“I find myself having an affinity with the United States more than Canada because of the freedom and the Constitution and the whole republican versus monarchy system here, which is really an alias for dictatorship,” she told Fox News Digital a source from the Alberta 51 Project. .
Founded in 2022, the project is “dedicated to supporting the education of all Albertans about why we should become the 51st state of the United States of America,” according to its website. About one-fifth of Canadians in various provinces believe they would be better off under US government, according to a survey conducted by Research Co. earlier this year.
The source who spoke to Fox News Digital did so on condition of anonymity amid what he described as increasingly authoritarian tactics by the Canadian government, which he noted has arrested Christian pastors and targeted his political opponents by freezing their bank accounts during last year’s trucking convoy protests.
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau comments on the truckers’ protest during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada on February 14, 2022. (Dave Chan/AFP via Getty Images)
The source said the project was initiated in response to online chatter among disaffected Albertans who wanted to somehow separate themselves from the authority of the federal government in Ottawa, which he noted is located in eastern Canada and exhibits a mindset that often diverges from that of Canadians in the more conservative western provinces.
“Albertans have a real affinity for the land, and they have that cowboy spirit, that Indian spirit, that strict oil and gas spirit,” he said, adding that many Albertans have a desire to be left alone by the government.
“It’s not really a Canadian government thing,” he said. “Basically, in Canada, you have a socialist-style system, and that socialism is kind of a nasty disease that keeps getting worse and worse as time goes on.”
“We wanted to dare to hit the bear of Canadian identity,” he said. “When Trudeau came in, he said a few years ago that Canada doesn’t have a culture, it’s no different. So, they use that for globalism and what they call ‘multiculturalism.’ ‘except Quebec, of course; don’t touch the sacred cow.”
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario on Monday, March 6, 2023. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press via AP)
The source said Trudeau’s statement was offensive to Albertans and many traditional Canadians living in Saskatchewan, eastern British Columbia and even the westernmost province of Yukon, whose worldview he compared to rural Americans in states like Montana and Texas. He also said that the rich natural resources of Alberta and similar provinces have been unfairly diverted from other parts of Canada since the provinces were established.
Such Canadians are suspicious of big government, he said, and noted that the US constitution was formulated by men who had the same attitude and would have suited them better. The source said fear of their government has gripped many Canadians in recent years.
“The monarchy is the supreme ruler and its representative is the prime minister and the governor general,” he said. “And really, it’s just a rubber stamp. Whatever the prime minister says, it’s pretty much fine. We saw it during the trucking convoy when Trudeau basically blocked everyone’s rights and freedoms, and nobody did anything. Nobody said anything. In Canada, we don’t have rights and freedoms like in the United States”
“Trudeau, at heart, is a fascist; he’s a communist at heart, he’s a globalist,” said the source, who said the prime minister “will never be held to account” because his administration also appoints judges of the country.
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Many people in Alberta, which boasts the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies, have physical jobs, Peter Downing said. (Digital Camera Magazine via Getty Images/File)
Peter Downing, a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer who founded the separatist “Wexit” movement in the wake of Trudeau’s re-election in 2019, told Fox News Digital that Albertans have begun to look more and more towards their American neighbors during the Canadian government’s crackdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Echoing the Alberta 51 Project source, Downing speculated that Alberta, which has seen more clergy arrests during the pandemic than anywhere else in the Western world, has repeatedly featured in international media due to its “robust mentality individual”.
“We don’t tolerate it,” Downing said of Albertans’ attitude to the government hype, adding that most people in the province do not subscribe to Ottawa’s “socialist milieu.”
Alberta has made international headlines during the COVID-19 pandemic for multiple arrests of clergy. Pastor Artur Pawlowksi, above, was arrested in May 2021 after keeping his church open during the lockdowns. (Artur Pawlowski)
“Most people actually go to work doing physical labor, whether it’s in the oil field — which is by far our largest industry — or agriculture or any other type of primary industry or commerce,” he said. Albertans. “People here are younger and we are willing to do physical work to earn more.”
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“The die is cast right now, and it’s about who blinks first, whether it’s the provincial governments or the federal government,” Downing said. “For the people in Alberta, we’re at a precipice where we’re not going to allow this to continue.”
