[GGG]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

Cries for separation are pathetic given that the Federal government could easily maintain sovereignty over all lands included in Treaty 8.

The treaty itself is very comprehensive and direct in its language with respect to the Canadian government taking possession of the land. Provincial jurisdiction is secondary. For more of its administrative history than not Athabasca ( in the historic meaning of the word) has been the priority of the colonial government much longer than anything south of the north sask.

Secondly, because the settler population in northern Alberta is so sparse and suppression of dissent would be easy. Not to mention there is no standing or modern military with any legitimate source of funding ( though russia/china/ india wouldn't mind financing a war with some caveats for rights to access).

I have a hard time believing that any argument through law or force would work.

Are the treaties with the Crown or with Canada? My understanding is the treaties were with the Queen of Great Britain and her representatives. So could Alberta maintain itself as a commonwealth state and uphold the treaties as the Queens designated government in Alberta. So step one would be to become a commonwealth state.

It wouldn’t work with joining the US but by that point it would be “Alberta” courts interpreting treaties and not Canadian courts

Made and concluded this twenty-second day of September, in the year of Our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven, between Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, by Her Commissioners, the Honorable David Laird, Lieutenant-Governor and Indian Superintendent of the North-West Territories, and James Farquharson MacLeod, C.M.G., Commissioner of the North-West Mounted Police, of the one part, and the Blackfeet, Blood, Piegan, Sarcee, Stony and other Indians, inhabitants of the Territory north of the United States Boundary Line, east of the central range of the Rocky Mountains, and south and west of Treaties numbers six and four, by their Head Chiefs and Minor Chiefs or Councillors, chosen as hereinafter mentioned, of the other part.

…….

And whereas the said Commissioners have proceeded to negotiate a Treaty with the said Indians; and the same has been finally agreed upon and concluded as follows, that is to say : the Blackfeet, Blood, Piegan, Sarcee, Stony and other Indians inhabiting the district hereinafter more fully described and defined, do hereby cede, release, surrender, and yield up to the Government of Canada for Her Majesty the Queen and her successors for ever, all their rights, titles, and privileges whatsoever to the lands included within the following limits, that is to say:

So the Queen owns the land and gets to decide what to do with it. But is Canada the required intermediary? Or since the Queen can do what she likes with the land can she exclude Canada unilaterally? I would argue she can as the treaty gives land to the Queen for the Queen agreeing to provide certain rights.

I also don’t know what I am talking about.