First Nations in Alberta, Saskatchewan vow to oppose any efforts to separate Alberta from Canada [Video]

A growing number of First Nations leaders are voicing their concerns over calls for Alberta to separate from Canada — calls that have grown louder following the recent federal election.

On Friday, following on the heels of several other First Nations who have expressed opposition to the idea, the Chiefs of four Calgary-area First Nations also issued a statement saying that “any efforts to separate will be met with our full opposition.”

While the Chiefs express some sympathy with the “deep frustration echoing across Alberta and much of the Prairies,” saying as leaders “we too often feel unheard,” they also insist that “First Nations will not separate.”

The Chiefs said that large swaths of Alberta are governed by “sacred treaties” between First Nations and the “Imperial Crown,” including treaties 6, 7 and 8, and those areas “are held in trust by the Crown for the benefit of the Treaty First …