'It’s awkward': Why Alberta's separation debate tends to live mostly online

“Starting a separatist movement is like starting a war,” says Mark Milke, the founder and president of the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy. “You think you’d be home by Christmas and you’re still in the trenches four years later.” That was Milke’s blunt assessment of the Alberta independence movement, shared over sushi in a downtown Calgary restaurant during Stampede week. (I was the one in full cowgirl regalia; he showed up dressed for “summer in the city.” Milke picked the restaurant, which explains why we were eating sushi and not beef.) Milke understands Western anger; he...