Alberta's problem isn't geography

When it comes to trading in markets beyond its boundaries, Alberta would have better options as an independent state than under the status quo currently blocking some of its resources.

Alberta is landlocked, and landlocked countries depend on their neighbours for access to trading seaports. It is the reason some people quip that an independent Alberta would remain landlocked. But the core problem is uncooperative provincial cousins, not the fact of being landlocked.

Pipelines, highways, air corridors, waterways and canals are among human solutions to landlocked territories. They are created to move people, goods and services. But two uncooperative Canadian provinces are committing constitutional mutiny, Quebec and British Columbia. They are preventing Alberta from further developing solutions to being landlocked. In that sense, it is worth repeating that being landlocked isn’t the problem.

Access, not geography, is the central issue. The access problem is made worse by the ineptitude of …