The leaders of the Alberta independence movement say Premier Danielle Smith is inflating the cost of separation if Albertans vote in favour of wanting to leave Canada.
“Keep in mind, this is going to be a negotiated divorce,” said Jeffrey Rath, general counsel for the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP).
“I don’t know why Danielle thinks that she’s going to threaten us with a $400-billion cost. It’s obviously a lot less than that, but who cares? Let’s just get out. We’ll be so much better off.”
On Monday, Smith said the cost to separate would be in the hundreds of billions to create a new national government.
“I came up with almost $400 billion worth of transitional costs that we’d have to assume in addition to somewhere between $25 (billion and) $50 billion worth of annual costs,” said Smith.
“So, I think people just need to look at this, at the facts, and see whether or not what is being proposed is realistic.”
Smith pointed to things such as regulating banks, post offices, railways, assuming control of Alberta’s portion of the Canada Pension Plan, employment insurance, border control, old-age security and child tax benefits, paying the province’s share of the national debt, NATO commitments and telecoms.
Smith said Alberta would also have to renegotiate trade deals and possibly deal with tariffs.
“If you reject your allies, then they reject you,” she said.
“I think that we have to be very realistic about what it is that we’d be looking at for dollars and cents.”
Rath...
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