Canada has developed into a deeply unserious nation that doesn't take its sovereignty seriously.
Instead of making an equitable deal with the native tribes here, instead they formed the Indian Act (name didn't age well), which basically gave them their own sovereignty on native land and led to years of money funnels into native land. Not only did this deal not do us any favours, but natives in Canada now experience extreme levels of crime, poverty and unemployment. They don't need to work, after all, treaty natives get tax exemption and free money from the government ad infinitum. Normally, when you deal with someone, each side of the table offers something. Not with the Indian Act! There are no obligations placed on them at all, instead culminating years of collective white guilt into bags of ever depreciating Canadian Dollars dumped on their property. In some provinces (MN), we even air-lift in medical professionals just so they can have access to health care! Aren't we caring?
Forming a nation of French and English settlers, we once again set the standard that we, as a nation, will be tread upon until our oppressors get what they want. A culmination of the events of the Seven-years-war made Quebec's citizens sour with France, who ceded them to Britain in lieu of their plantations in the Caribbean. Finding themselves unwilling British citizens, the Quebec colonists got themselves provincehood during confederation. What did they do after this? Nothing but rock the boat for 150 years. They demanded special status from any government program (All of Canada, Except Quebec became important rhetoric), and it was granted each and every time. Exception from the Canadian Pension Plan? Granted. Special access to transfer funds from rich provinces? Granted. Canada even sat back and watched them vote to separate. Like... bitch, you do not get the leisure to sit back and "vote" on whether or not you're part of the province. But it didn't matter, we let them vote and fail twice anyways.
And good old America. Once the shackles of WWII were off, and we didn't have to focus on military as much, we experienced a great boom like the US did. After all, we were a western nation who didn't get bombed and won WWII without any economic sanctions. Instead of doing what the US did with its new advantage, who used that capital to proceed to financially dominate the rest of the world now that Britain was selling off all its foreign assets to pay for its war, Canada instead decided that it was time to tax the living shit out of its own people. Income Taxes, provincial income taxes, fuel taxes, road taxes, hidden taxes, luxury taxes, and eventually Federal sales taxes and Provincial sales taxes! Napkin math says that out of every dollar a Canadian earns, 60c goes right to the government in one form or another. Needless to say, businesses in Canada came to the realization that they'd make a lot more money simply trading with the US than with Canadians. So that's what they did. As we sold and sold to the (albeit willing) American markets, our dependence on them being willing to do so increased.
We taxed things so hard that any time a project landed on the desk of a legislator that allowed us to trade with other Canadians more easily (typically by developing the Canadian Shield with better logistics routes, such as pipelines, ice routes, highways, railways and the like), they were shot down each and every time. Why bother? It's easier to just sell to the US. Now thanks to how hard Canadians are fucked by the Canadian Government, it's cheaper to own a cell phone plan roaming on an American plan than it is to buy one from a Canadian Carrier. It's cheaper to fly overseas through customs twice to another Canadian city from west to east cost or visa versa than it is to simply take a direct flight because US flights are half the cost!
Canada spends too much time shitting on other provinces than it does acting like a unified country. It's like the more advanced version of a collection of Congolese tribes too busy fighting among one another to realize what teaming up even looks like.
Getting an energy pipeline across the question shouldn't be "but what if Quebec objects?" (hint: it did) - instead, the question should be how quickly Quebec can come up with a project tender and how much they stand to make from it.
As it stands right now, the country will buckle under an even tiny amount of stress. It doesn't take its own sovereignty seriously.
