The Charge of the Backward Brigade
Jeff Rath raised his banner high,
Convinced Alberta soon would fly
And swore Alberta’s day was nigh.
He donned his hat, proclaimed the hour,
And promised maps and sovereign power.
Eva Chipiuk joined the ride,
“Disconnect Canada!” was her cry.
Promising freedom without flaws,
“Participation!” was her cause.
Now she faces to the rear,
“Dumbocracy” her greatest fear.
Keith Wilson sketched transition plans,
New borders, treaties, flags and bands.
Committees met and papers flew,
While prairie winds their speeches blew.
But, now, in spite of all the schemes,
The Prairie wind has dashed his dreams.
As friends appeared from far and near,
To cheer each bold secessioneer.
They dreamed of glory, votes and fame,
And every headline knew their name.
They charged ahead with mighty force,
Each mounted on a faithful horse…
Well, not a horse, if truth be known.
A donkey served for every throne.
Then came the vote.
The people spoke.
The grand crusade went up in smoke.
Their banners shredded in the squall,
The mighty movement hit the wall.
Three donkeys, racing to the forty-ninth,
Collided rump to rump and missed the line.
They tried to sell the country out
To Yankee bums, Republican louts.
The price of Canada to line their tills
Was water, gas, and oil and mills,
All squandered for a phantom gain.
So there sat Rath, his hat askew,
Learning hard that plans fall through.
And there sat Eva, cap aside,
Wondering how the steamroll died.
And there sat Wilson, looking grim,
“Transition” buckling under him.
The future he’d been sketching fast
Had somehow crumbled to the past.
And off beside the tangled trio,
A Roman Trump surveyed the scene.
He held a pipeline, dry and bare,
With only drops remaining there.
“Alas!” he cried. “How cruel a fate!
No kingdom of oil, no 51st state!”
Two lonely drops fell to the ground,
The only fuel that could be found.
So ends the tale of that campaign,
Of flags, and dreams, and prairie shame,
Of backward riders, loud and brave,
Who watched their grand ambitions fade.
One more political story told.
But not Canada’s end as some foretold.