Observe, if you have the stomach for it, the latest performance in the theater of the absurd currently playing out in the frozen wasteland we politely call Canada. In a display of masochism that would make a medieval flagellant blush, hundreds of Albertans are currently standing in sub-zero temperatures, forming long, shivering queues to sign a petition. Their goal? To trigger a referendum for independence. They aren’t queuing for bread, or even for the latest gadget designed to distract them from their own mortality; they are queuing for the privilege of jumping off a geopolitical cliff. It is a testament to the human spirit—specifically, its capacity to believe that changing the name on your tax forms will somehow fill the yawning void of your existence.

The math of this minor revolution is as uninspiring as the scenery. They need 177,732 signatures—ten percent of the last provincial turnout—to legally demand a vote on statehood. It is a remarkably low bar for a divorce, yet in the minds of these petro-fueled rebels, it represents a grand liberation from the ‘tyranny’ of Ottawa. Let’s talk about that tyranny, shall we? On one side, you have the federal government, a performative circus led by Justin Trudeau, a man who has managed to turn the entire concept of national leadership into a series of increasingly frantic apologies and fancy socks. The Liberal strategy for keeping the country together seems to consist mostly of wishing really hard that everyone would just be ‘nicer’ while the economy settles into a permanent vegetative state. It is a government of HR managers, obsessing over the optics of their own decline while the house literally freezes around them.

On the other side, we have the Albertan separatists, who seem to believe that if they simply cut the cord, they will magically transform into a northern version of Texas, minus the habitable climate. They are spurred on by the orange shadow of Donald Trump, a man who views Canada not as an ally, but as a giant, untapped warehouse he occasionally has to acknowledge. The delusion here is truly breathtaking. These ‘freedom fighters’ imagine that by breaking away from the ‘woke’ center, they will be welcomed into the arms of a Trumpian America with open borders and zero tariffs. They are apparently unaware that Trump’s singular policy platform is ‘America First,’ a philosophy that doesn’t usually involve making life easier for landlocked foreign oil provinces, regardless of how many red hats they wear in the snow.

Consider the logistics, if you can stop laughing for a moment. Alberta is landlocked. To get their precious oil to the sea, they currently rely on federal pipelines and the grudging cooperation of British Columbia—a province that views Alberta with the same suspicion a vegan views a slaughterhouse. Should Alberta achieve its dream of ‘independence,’ they would find themselves a tiny, freezing island of resentment, surrounded on all sides by a country they just insulted and a southern neighbor that would swallow their resources and spit out the bones. It is the political equivalent of a teenager threatening to run away from home by moving into the backyard shed and then realizing they don’t have a key to the kitchen.

But logic has no place in the modern zeitgeist. We live in an era where tribalism is the only remaining currency. The Albertans aren't signing a petition for economic stability; they are signing a manifesto of spite. They are tired of the performative sanctimony of the East, and in their haste to escape it, they are willing to embrace a chaotic uncertainty that will likely bankrupt them. Meanwhile, the rest of the world watches with a mixture of boredom and mild pity. Canada, a nation whose entire identity is built on being 'not American' and 'unusually polite,' is finally succumbing to the same idiocy that has rotted the rest of the West. It turns out that when you build a national identity on a foundation of maple syrup and moral superiority, it doesn't take much for the whole structure to crack under the weight of a few disgruntled guys in parkas.

If the referendum happens in the autumn, as the legal framework suggests, it will be a spectacular exercise in futility. Even if they ‘win,’ they lose. They will have traded a mediocre membership in a middle-power federation for a precarious existence as a geopolitical footnote. But hey, at least they’ll have the satisfaction of knowing they stood in the cold for it. In the end, that is the most Canadian thing of all: suffering pointlessly while insisting that you’re doing it for the right reasons. Trump doesn’t need to break Canada; the Canadians are perfectly capable of doing it themselves, provided they can find enough pens that haven’t frozen solid.