Canada's separatist referendums, China's neurotech push, and Britain's bug highways

On the same day that voters in Alberta head to the polls for a non-binding referendum on whether to remain part of Canada, the country's prime minister Mark Carney is trying to hold together a federation under unprecedented strain. The Alberta vote comes alongside a resurgent separatist movement in Quebec, where the Parti Québécois won the regional government earlier this month and its leader Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon raised the prospect of a referendum there too. All of this unfolds against a blistering trade war with the United States, which has hobbled Canadian industry from automotive to steel to aluminum.

The two separatist movements

The grievances driving Alberta and Quebec are fundamentally different. In Alberta, the resentment is economic. As Rob Russo, The Economist's Canada correspondent, explains, the province sits on more oil than anywhere else in North America, yet "for the last decade or so, the Liberal government under Justin Trudeau has been hostile to the development of those resources." Albertans feel like "the rich and unwanted stepchild of the Canadian Federation" — contributing heavily to a central government 3,000 kilometers away that they believe doesn't understand their frontier capitalist ethos.