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Notes -
I’d heard there was a nullification crisis going on in Canada- is this true, and to what extent is it driven by that stuff?
Yes, its related. In Canada provinces can create carbon pricing schemes, but if they dont, the Federal government imposes a 'backstop' carbon tax. The revenues of that tax get rebated to people per capita, creating a 'climate UBI' of a few hundred bucks. The incidence of that tax falls hardest on rural people who drive the most since in practice the tax is implemented as a tax on gas and various ways of heating homes. The crisis started when the Liberal government removed the carbon tax from home heating oil which is only used in a handful of provinces which vote liberal as a vote buying maneuver. Sounds uncharitable, but a minister came on TV and said that if other provinces wanted carve outs like that they should elect more liberals.
In response, the conservative government of Saskatchewan -- one of our most right-wing provinces -- promised to nullify the carbon tax by refusing to collect it. Its still a live issue, as the nullification starts Jan 1.
This is emblematic of another thing our government loves to do: alienate its conservative citizens. The danger is that many of those people are highly geographically concentrated on the prairies. And the support is overwhelming. In much of the rural west, the Liberals get about 15% of the vote compared to conservatives with 65%. This sort of thing is partly why I think we underestimate the likelihood that western provinces leave in the next few decades.
If they leave, where do they go? Try to join the US? Create the Dominion of Based Canada?
A smarter US would be trying to get them to join the US.
Why?
Alberta is cold Texas. Who doesn't want more Texas in the US?
Obligatory reminder that Texas is not actually a bastion of freedom
It actually is quite free, that source just dings it for stuff like a high incarceration rate which is irrelevant.
If you download the full spreadsheet and reduce the weight of incarceration rate to zero in the calculations, Texas still ends up at a pitiful #46 on personal freedom.
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