Unique culture and a sense of nationhood are two entirely separate things.

This was a good Globe piece a month ago: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-alberta-has-...

Some choice quotes.

> The Wild Rose province isn’t like Scotland, Quebec, or Catalonia. Everyone can more or less agree these are “stateless nations.” Maybe you think those nations should have their own state, maybe you don’t, but they follow a well-worn political pattern. Albertan separatists, on the other hand, are trying to create a state with no nation. That does not follow a well-worn political pattern. Nobody has ever done this.

> The idea that Quebec is a nation is not divisive in Quebec, not an idea that separatists think is super and federalists think is dumb. It is basically a matter of consensus among political actors there. What they disagree on is whether the Quebec nation is better off inside or outside of the Canadian confederation.

> Who sees that in Alberta? When has any elected deputy of Alberta’s legislature, let alone literally every single one of them, loudly and publicly affirmed that on behalf of their constituents they perceive Alberta as a nation? Are there any historical instances whatsoever of outside observers seeing Albertans as a nation that would compare to such seminal documents as the Durham Report?

> Even separatist leaders use the word “nation” sparingly. The Alberta Prosperity Project’s manifesto, The Value of Freedom: A Draft Fully Costed Fiscal Plan for an Independent Alberta, lives up to its title by speaking in exclusively financial terms; even then it can only refer to Alberta as a nation using somewhat sideways language. When it states that “a sovereign Alberta could become one of the lowest taxed and regulated nations in the world, rivalling jurisdictions similar to Dubai and Monaco,” it could just as easily substitute “state” for “nation.”

> It’s clear that Alberta (the place where I have lived longest in my life) is not like Ontario, any more than the Maritimes are (I also lived eight years in Dartmouth). These places are all homes to distinct cultures. But in none of those three places do we find sustained instances of diverse groups of both insiders and outsiders clearly referring to them as repositories of a national identity other than “Canadian.”