From the producer of "Broken Country"

Mike Werry

I was born in Calgary. I've spent my whole life in Toronto.

Over the past two years, filming the documentary Broken Country, I've spent more time in Alberta than I have since I moved east. And I've come away seeing the separation debate very differently than I did going in. I met a lot of separatists. Almost none of them were who I expected. They weren't angry cranks with a flag. They were farmers, nurses, oil workers, small-business owners, grandparents. And the thing that surprised me most: most of them want nothing more than to remain in Canada. They just can't see another choice. Think about what they've lived through. The National Energy Program. Pipelines approved, then cancelled, then litigated into the ground. A tanker ban on one coast. Hundreds of billions sent east through equalization, returned as lectures about how the industry that pays for Canada's infrastructure and provincial shortfalls is something to be ashamed of. A federal ...