One of the "separatist" leaders is hiding from the law in Texas. He can stay there.
If there was any legitimacy in this process, the petition that got 150% of the votes in less time would have been addressed first rather than this sham, likely fake one, run by bad actors provably funded by foreign entities.
We've seen some interesting cases of this, in Spain and in the Donbas of the last years.
I think the outcome of people voting against it is a great outcome. You have the freedom. You paid for the vote (its expensive) and "they" did not win. Hurray for unity at the highest level.
"Voting with your feet" is an option available to almost everyone except North Koreans.
I'm not at all sure if voting to splice a country should be a thing you can do, maybe there is more merit in some international right to a proportional vote on something (no FPTP system) so you get better representation of all opinions, but simply saying "you can always go somewhere else" seems a bit too simple
Regardless, "voting with your feet" is an individual action. Voting at home is a collective one, representing the will of not just you but the people from the place that you come from and were born into. Only one of those reflects the ideals of democracy, if that's really the ideal being strived for
When you leave you cut all important ties to the polity, you surrender your ability to participate in democratic processes and you revoke control over yourself and your property. It’s the nearest thing to direct violence you can do without crossing that line
This happened in ww2 Germany. many left. Hitler never got 51% of votes. Yet he managed to take over.
Canada owns the natural resources. The Albertan separatists want to take it from them on top of being politically separate.
Democracy hasn't been hardened against social media and I'd prefer not to be another failed experiment like Brexit where we allow for foreign money to intentionally damage society.
Yes it feels wrong for the US to be giving money to influencers to influence the vote, but it's not like those voters are being coerced. In their opinion, Alberta would be better as a separate country.
Whether that opinion is enlightened or not has no bearing on it being democratic or not.
Which one is that?
One of the separatist leaders was found guilty of misappropriating more than 1.3 million CAD from his elderly aunt and uncle’s bank accounts:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/dennis-modry-misappropriated-...