Saskatchewan beats Alberta and Quebec in wanting to leave Canada if Carney wins: poll

Saskatchewan is the province that wants to leave Canada the most if Liberals win the upcoming election in Canada, a new poll finds. Around 33 per cent of residents from the central prairie province “say they would vote to leave federation, whether to form their own country or to join the United States,” if Liberals form the next government, according to the survey by nonprofit Angus Reid Institute . As the federal election approaches and Canada-U.S. relations remain tense amid a trade war and talks of Canada becoming the 51st state, the topic of secession, particularly in the west, has also come up recently. The leader of the Reform Party of Canada Preston Manning said “a vote for the Carney Liberals is a vote for Western secession — a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it,” in an article he penned in the Globe and Mail . Liberal leader Mark Carney and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre both spoke out against Manning’s remarks. Carney said Manning’s “dramatic comments” were “unhelpful,” while Poilievre said he disagreed with him . “We need to unite the country,” said Poilievre. Despite the candidates not seeing eye to eye with Manning, Canadians did seem to base at least some of their answers in the survey on potential election results. The recently released data from Angus Reid shows that who the winning party will be matters greatly to residents of Saskatchewan in particular. Saskatchewan’s 14 federal ridings have remained entirely Conservative for the past two elections. That could be why the predominantly Conservative province is the most likely to plan an escape route if Liberals win. The percentage of residents from Saskatchewan who said they would vote “yes” to leave Canada to become an independent country went from 20 per cent, initially, to 33 per cent, if Liberals won. Meanwhile, the percentage of residents who believed the province should join the United States went from 17 per cent, initially, to 23 per cent, if Liberals won. (To the south, Saskatchewan shares its borders with American states North Dakota and Montana.) Residents from Alberta and Quebec were tied at a close second (30 per cent) when it came to wanting to become independent if Liberals won. The provinces that followed were British Columbia (17 per cent), Ontario (13 per cent), Manitoba (12 per cent), and Atlantic provinces, which were grouped together, at 10 per cent. Alberta had the highest percentage when it came to wanting to join the U.S. if Liberals won, at 27 per cent, followed by Saskatchewan at 23 per cent. British Columbia, Ontario and Manitoba were in the middle, at 19, 16 and 15 per cent, respectively. On the lower end of the spectrum were the Atlantic provinces (12 per cent) and Quebec (11 per cent.) While the numbers coming out of Saskatchewan are “significant,” according to the Angus Reid report on the survey, the “vast majority still say they would vote no (to becoming independent or joining the U.S.) in each province.” The survey also points to a possible underlying reason behind Saskatchewan wanting independence. Only one quarter of its residents said they felt that the province was respected by the rest of Canada. In both prairie provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta, “legislation has been passed in recent years to increase autonomy and reject federal influence,” per Angus Reid. However, the report from Angus Reid explains that “while threatening separatism is evidently seen as a good bargaining chip, few Canadians appear to actually want to leave federation, whether it’s to join the United States or to have their province become its own nation.” The survey was conducted online from March 20 to March 24, using a randomized sample of 2,400 Canadian adults. “The sample was weighted to be representative of adults nationwide according to region, gender, age, household income, and education, based on the Canadian census,” the institute said.

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