The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that abandoning Confederation and setting up a sovereign country would cost Alberta up to $170-billion over the first five years of independence and would devastate the economy of a shrunken Canada. The Globe's Matthew Scace writes that a report commissioned by the provincial government estimates that even in the best-case scenario, secession would provide only minimal economic gains for Alberta. In a more painful separation, wages would plummet, economic output would decline sharply and government debt would balloon. The province on Wednesday published the report, which was produced by a panel of experts at University of Calgary's School of Public Policy. The report provides a wide range of estimated costs to separation, painting one relatively rosy scenario, and another in which Alberta and Canada enter hostile, prolonged talks. Prolonged negotiations would weigh on investment, interest rates and the exchange rate because investors would be hesitant to put money into Alberta and Canada until they had a clear picture of the future, the report says. Voters in the province are preparing to decide on Oct. 19 whether to lay the legal groundwork for a binding referendum.