Continued expressions of dissatisfaction in Western Canada with the organization and performance of Canadian Confederation—including calls for secession from a minority of citizens—have led to numerous news pieces and commentaries on the subject by central Canadian media and political commentators. But most of these suffer from four main flaws which call for pushback.
First, pushback is required against repeated reports that Western unrest is just an “Alberta thing.” The truth—and central Canadians deserve to know it—is that the current dissatisfaction with Confederation in Western Canada is widespread. It is a Canada West dissatisfaction, shared not only by many in Alberta, but also by many in Saskatchewan, rural Manitoba, and much of British Columbia, in particular the eastern, central, and northern parts of that province. This is likely to be confirmed by post-election polling, the results of which should be available by the end of May.
Secondly, pushback is required against misleading reports by central Canadian commentators implying that the only proposal on the table for addressing Western dissatisfaction is “secession.” Again, this is simply not the truth—certainly not “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” The truth is that secession is only one of several current options for responding to Western dissatisfaction. And secession is not the most popular one, since a majority of westerners still hope that their current concerns and aspiration can be met within—not separated from—Confederation.
Thirdly, pushback is required against the frequent and malicious misrepresentations of Premier Smith’s willingness to allow Albertans to answer a clear question on secession via a province-wide referendum—giving the false impression that, by doing so, she supports the secessionist option when she has repeatedly said she does not.
Premier Smith, whom I have known for a long time, is a libertarian, a conservative, a federalist, and she is also a democrat, as all of us who seek or hold public office in this country should be regardless of party. And the democratic way to handle an issue like the minority demand for secession is not to suppress it by censuring and cancelling those who advocate it but to get it out into the open, to subject it to broader cross examination and debate, to compare and contrast it with other alternatives, and to ultimately facilitate a vote on whether this option should be further pursued or not. This is precisely what Premier Smith is doing, and her employment of the democratic referendum process to deal with pro-secession sentiment should be applauded, not misrepresented.
Finally, pushback is most certainly required against the fallacious charge that those who are identifying the features of Canadian federalism that are alienating a substantial portion of the population, and who seek to remedy those flaws, are out to “divide the country” at a time when we should all be pulling together.
No one, least of all westerners, disagrees that Canada needs to be more united than ever before—united to improve our domestic well-being and more united to better represent ourselves internationally, particularly in future trade negotiations with the United States. But to be so united we need to deal first and foremost with the internal divisions that weaken us, many of which are the products of nine years of misrule by the Liberal government.
For example, major intrusions by the federal government into areas of provincial jurisdiction—health, municipal governance, civil rights, and particularly natural resources development—have strained federal provincial relations to the point where, on such fronts as developing the export potential of our resource sectors, Canada is presently not capable of “speaking with one voice.”
Canada has also been seriously divided by the fixation of the federal government and globalists on climate change, when the priorities of rank and file Canadians are making the necessities of life, including owning a home, more affordable. Likewise, the federal government’s arbitrary and misguided pursuit of diversity-equity-inclusion initiatives has tended not to unite, but to divide Canadians on the basis of race, gender, and sexual preferences.
For Canada to be united, these sources of division—federal violations of the constitutional division of powers, the substitution of elitist priorities for public priorities, and the pursuit of identity politics—need to be recognized and eliminated. And nowhere in the country is that recognition and demand for unifying remedial measures stronger than in Western Canada.
And so, time for pushback. Pushback against misguided reports that “Western alienation” is confined to Alberta, pushback against suggestions that secession is the only option under consideration for dealing with western discontents, pushback against the charge that allowing the secessionist issue to be dealt with by a democratic referendum is synonymous with supporting secession, and pushback against the canard that Western Canadians working to eliminate major barriers dividing the country are unpatriotic and oblivious to the need for Canadians to pull together like never before.
Push back, with truth and vigour!
