Issues separatists do not want to discuss – Part 8

Posted on July 23, 2026 by Ryan Dahlman

Issue Seventeen: Indigenous Peoples

Treaties with Indigenous Nations were all made between each of the Nations and the Crown, in right of Canada, before 1905, when Alberta first existed. The land we now call Alberta was, and still is, subject to Treaties 4, 6,7,8, and 10. The numbered Treaties are some of the documents comprising Canada’s Constitution. We are all Treaty people, but Alberta is not a party to those Treaties. An independent (not part of Canada) Alberta will have a weak to non-existent claim in law to much of the Indigenous Nations’ ancestral lands, only two examples being significant parts of what we now call Edmonton, and much of what we now call Calgary.

In addition to the problems arising from the facts and law described above facing an independent Alberta, it can be realistically expected that Indigenous Peoples will not wish to negotiate new treaties with an independent Alberta, preferring, instead, to either themselves separate and reclaim their ancestral lands, or to remain  in Canada and keep what they have under the numbered Treaties, described above.

Beyond all of the above, and in light of the disaster settlers have imposed on Indigenous Peoples in all of the Americas in the last 434 years, it is logical, I suggest, that Indigenous Peoples will not want to be part of an independent Alberta. An appropriate old saying might be: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Indigenous Peoples are not foolish.

Question 17(a)—Please describe the separatists’ plan to for an independent Alberta to exist and to be governed without the lands owned by Indigenous Peoples?

 Question 17(b)—How much rent will an independent Alberta be able to pay, annually, to Indigenous Peoples as landlords, for a significant part of Edmonton, and for most of Calgary, among other lands in Alberta when many Albertans become perpetual tenants?

  Question 17(c)—If Indigenous Peoples and their lands do stay in an independent Alberta, will the government of that independent Alberta ratify and adopt the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as Canada has done?

   

  Gregory R. Côté, Irvine