EDMONTON —Jeanne Milne moved to Alberta 30 years ago from Ontario. She had worked in this province in summers past and says she fell in love with its “entrepreneurial spirit.”“It didn’t matter how old you were, whether you were male or female. If you had a good idea, people would listen,” recalls the Calgary consultant.Within a few years, she said, considered herself an Albertan. She’s recently felt as though others are questioning that identity, as the Wexit conversation has seized hold of the public’s attention.“All of a sudden people are saying, ‘Well, are you a Canadian first or are you an Albertan first?’ And I think that`s such a destructive conversation to have. It underplays who we are,” she said.Wexit, the latest emergence of separatist sentiment in this province, surged after the federal Liberals won a minority government at the Oct. 21 federal election, even as Alberta failed to elect a solitary MP for the red team.But while Alberta is seeing higher levels of support for the attention-grabbing movement, polling indicates there is a quieter majority in this province who are turned off by the idea of separation. The rise of separatist rhetoric has left some of them worried and others questioning whether their futures lie elsewhere.Lori Williams, a political scientist in Calgary, said it’s pretty clear that those opposed to Wexit are a majority in the province. “Some of them are concerned that this will stoke anger from other provinces towards Alberta,” she said.She said although many Albertans would like to see more help or understanding from the rest of Canada, talks of Wexit will only widen the divide.“They are concerned that some of these tactics, some of these demands, might be worse for Alberta, as in they won’t generate gains but rather risk losses,” she said. Milne, for her part, says that although the entrepreneurial spirit that attracted ...
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