On Wednesday's Buffalo Roundtable live stream, Sheila Gunn Reid and Keith Wilson discussed a new report from the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy on the economic implications of Alberta independence.

The independent report commissioned by the Alberta government estimated the transitional cost of separating from Canada at between $50 billion and $170 billion over the first five years. The government ordered this official study to provide clear numbers after political groups, media outlets, and conflicting government remarks put forward unsubstantiated separation cost estimates that ranged wildly from just a few billion dollars to hundreds of billions.

Wilson, a constitutional lawyer involved in Alberta's independence movement, argued the figures are inflated because the report ignores Alberta's negotiating leverage with the rest of Canada. He noted Ontario and Quebec send 72 per cent of their exports to the United States, a relationship increasingly threatened by American reshoring efforts, leaving Alberta as their next-largest customer.

Wilson also pointed to British Columbia's reliance on Alberta for rail and pipeline access, including the Trans Mountain pipeline supplying the Burnaby refinery, arguing a shutoff would cripple the Lower Mainland within days.

He further criticized the report's assumption that federal workers, such as Canadian Air Transport Security Authority staff, would simply vanish on independence, noting most are locally employed and would likely continue working under a new Alberta authority.

Sheila also slammed the report, noting it wrongly claims that no democratic country has peacefully separated, ignoring examples such as Czechoslovakia's split.

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