In the Reference re Secession of Quebec case, the Supreme Court did not dismiss the potential separation of a province as treasonous or illegitimate. It treated it as a serious democratic and constitutional question.  The Court stated:  “A functioning democracy requires a continuous process of discussion… No one has a monopoly on truth, and our system is predicated on the faith that in the marketplace of ideas, the best solutions to public problems will rise to the top. Inevitably, there will be dissenting voices. A democratic system of government is committed to considering those dissenting voices.”  The Court explained that our democratic institutions accommodate “a continuous process of discussion and evolution,” including the right of each participant in Confederation to initiate constitutional change.  The Court also explained what would happen if the people of a province clearly expressed a desire to leave Canada stating:  “The continued existence and operation of the Canadian constitutional order could not remain indifferent to a clear expression of a clear majority of Quebecers that they no longer wish to remain in Canada.”  In other words, a referendum does not itself cause separation or change the Constitution. A clear majority voting on a clear question would instead give the democratic legitimacy for constitutional negotiations. It does not guarantee any particular outcome.  Yet many people are making things up about how this process would work. They suggest that merely discussing independence, advocating for it or even voting in a referendum would somehow automatically change Canada’s constitutional order. That is simply not true. It is fearmongering.  If Quebecers were entitled to have that discussion, Albertans are entitled to have it too. The Supreme Court even set out the process a province would have to follow, and Parliament later confirmed that process in the Clarity Act.  One may support independence, oppose it or remain undecided. But calling the discussion extremist is not an argument, calling its supporters traitors is not an answer, and shaming citizens into silence is not democracy.  If the discussion is lawful and the process is clearly set out in Canadian law, why is there so much vitriol toward the citizens who want to have it?  That question reveals what this is really about.  It is not fundamentally about right and left.   The real divide is not between neighbours who vote differently. It is between unaccountable power and a public demanding answers.