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So here’s a plea to the people trying to launch a Wexit party — do not be like that.

For the good of us all, don’t use genuine feelings of anger and alienation as a tool to amplify hatred and division. Eject racists and extremists from your midst right now if you hope to have any credibility.

Photo by Ed Kaiser/Postmedia

Just as important, try dealing with real issues, such as this:

Does your separatism apply to First Nations in Alberta? What if they don’t want to join the march to somewhere else?

Because if that happens, you are open to the argument Pierre Trudeau once made about Quebec separatism.

He said that once a province decides Canada is divisible, that province becomes divisible too.

The Edmonton urban area would not support separatism. I don’t think Calgary would either. Nor would vast reaches of First Nations territory, with all their flawed but essential relations with Ottawa.

This separated Alberta would thus be a fragment of today’s province — unless, of course, everyone was somehow coerced into separating against their will.

The 1980s separatism movements never dealt with questions like that. The leaders were great at making arcane arguments that Canada didn’t legally exist. They were brilliant at whipping up anger.

But they had no credible economic or political plan. Their best result was just under 12 per cent of the popular vote in the 1982 election. Western Canada Concept won no seats and soon faded away.

It was scary for a while, though. I was at the back of the crowd in November 1980, almost exactly a month after Pierre Trudeau’s Liberals introduced the hated National Energy Program.