Bruce Anderson

And they especially want to know what Stephen Harper thinks about this idea.

So all of those voices being Alberta voices should be more active in this conversation and should be heard from more.

The last couple of things for me.

You know, Alberta is typically the part of the country where we hear the most from knowledgeable people, especially in the business community who say investment is fragile.

Investment depends on political stability.

It depends on a line of sight to regulation and government and its role in the economy.

And we shouldn't mess that up.

And typically that's voiced as an expectation or a demand aimed at the federal government.

Federal government is making it too complicated, too difficult, too uncertain about how to in terms of how to attract investment.

But this is a giant question mark that is starting to become more noticeable to the investment community at a time when most of the business community seems to be saying, well, we want to draw more investment into Canada.

We want to increase our relationships with other jurisdictions.

We've got this investor summit coming up in September where investor pools from around the world are coming and taking a look at what they can invest in in Canada and

It's a moment where businesses in Alberta really should be out there front and center, not waiting on a federal prime minister to explain the complexity of it.

I'm glad that he did that.

But they should make an economic argument to Albertans about what's really at stake by letting this conversation develop as though there's no complexity to it, as though it could happen on the basis of

a 50% plus one number, that it's almost as simple as, and it wasn't simple, as Brexit.

I mean, Brexit was a country deciding no longer to be involved with other countries.

For Alberta to separate, I think Andrew Coyne kind of made the point pretty well, which is that anybody can decide to leave.

You just can't decide to take it with you.

This is very, very different, very complicated, and it needs to be discussed that way.