Toronto Star Opinion Piece: I spend my summers in Alberta. It’s hard to believe this province wants to tear the country apart

Katherine Govier C.M. divides her time between Toronto and Canmore. Her most recent novel is ‘The Three Sisters Bar and Hotel.’  ‘Reclaiming Canadian Sovereignty’ edited by Bob Rae will be published by James Lorimer in September.
There’s a collection of essays coming out in September, called ”Reclaiming Canadian Sovereignty,” edited by Bob Rae. I have an essay in it. I thought we could celebrate the publication at the town library, but the board making the decisions said no. Couldn’t happen; their charitable status says they can’t be political. Terribly sorry.
I was stunned. Is our country’s future a taboo subject? I went to the town arts centre where, fortunately, they are happy launch the book. I asked, what is going on at the library?

“They’re afraid,” I’m told. “They have to go to the provincial government for money.”

I spend my summers in the blue-sky Rocky Mountains, which makes a wonderful break from Toronto. It’s all shades of green here, with blue green spruces, dark green Douglas pines, and lime birches. It is calming. So it’s hard to believe that this province wants to tear the country apart.

Separatism? I see no signs of it. Except this. This regretful self-censorship. Don’t mention the nation. It might be trouble. People I tell aren’t surprised.

I suppose the fear of consequences must be real. But it is invisible.

Still shocked, I had coffee with my friend Elani at Eclipse, where the lineup for their on-site roasted beans goes out the door. Like me she grew up in Alberta. She practises medicine on the west coast and comes back to see her parents. I ask her, is there separatism in town? Are feelings high? It goes both ways. “Oh, yes,” she says, citing a tradesman who fired an employee for passing on his separatist views to his customers.

This place is the picture of peace and prosperity. The dump trucks are beeping away behind the park as a new hotel is being built. New condos are going up all over town. There is road repair. Tourists crowd the bagel shop on Main Street. Neighbours walk their dogs on leash because of the bears. Elk meander in the park behind. Young parents stroll their babies on the river bank. Hikers. Canadian flags in front of the grocery store. Tourists pouring down the highway westward to the National (whoops! Excuse me) Park. The Three Sisters peaks presiding, majestic, above.

And it feels like home. I was born in this province. I return for family, but would I still, if I had to get a visa? Detractors of Premier Danielle Smith’s nine-question referendum are putting up lawn signs in far off Calgary reading “No to the 9!” But this mining town with a healthy number of retirees from across the country seems blissfully unaware.

Only on the news do I see guys in cowboy hats pressing grievances. In person they are nowhere to behold. Dinner table arguments? None. Messages in the local daily news? Not a peep. Maybe there, a friend points, naming a town 100 kilometres south and east.

Today the clouds are lifting from the mountains. We smile with relief: the smoke is gone too. We’re vulnerable here: forests surround us, and weave through the town. The local Fire Smart team was out all winter clearing the underbrush. I walk to the mailbox and look into the forest. It’s funny what happens when the underbrush is gone. You can see clear through these glades of trees to the sunshine on the other side. You see each tree as a single entity, standing on its own, not as an indivisible part of a dark forest.

You know the expression “you can’t see the forest for the trees.” Here on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, which is the forest? And which are the trees? Am I, a “proud Canadian” (as we are called now) not seeing the “forest” of separatist feeling because I concentrate on the “trees” standing content with the status quo?

Or are the separatists with their 10-gallon hats of self-interest and grievance only dreaming that there is a “forest” of people like them — racist, greedy, and lying — to be taken up in their cause?

I prefer to believe the latter. These hard to find separatists are, as we say here in the west, all hat and no cattle.