There is a difference between being cunning and being conniving.

Alberta separatists are conniving, and conniving people are gullible by nature.

They can’t help themselves. They are untrustworthy, entitled, grandiose, and out of touch with reality.

There is a fantasy to play out where they can rig the world to be Forever Winning.

And reality doesn’t care for your fantasies.

Alberta is not going to separate. The support isn’t there, for one, especially now. People who want to stay are certainly not going to allow a handful of discontent people to carve up the entire province.

And there is no way Alberta can survive as a nation. The US Right is not giving support out of the goodness of their hearts: they would immediately take over, grab the natural resources of whatever little was left of the carved out province, and then turn Alberta into a unincorporated territory and commonwealth where there would be no voting rights.

And then laugh in their faces.

There is no other outcome, and if separatists thought being part of Canada was bad, they would be shocked at how badly they’d be treated by the US.

A cat hunting a mouse is not chasing the mouse to make sure it does well. It toys with it until it finishes it off. That’s what predators do.

However, the referendum will fail, despite the cringey machinations of both a desperate predator and a gullible prey.