“I was dismayed to learn how bitterly anti-British LaForest was and how clearly he stated his position that he would do everything possible to advance the position of French-speaking Canadians over English-speaking Canadians.”
~Robert S. Matheson, Q.C.
[Gerard LaForest was Dean of Law at the UofA, and later Justice on the SCC]
Danielle Smith as a candidate for the leadership of the United Conservative Party proposed an Alberta Sovereignty Act as her first bill when she's elected premier. In that light, it's worthwhile to review the history of Alberta and Western Canada that's led to this moment in our political history.
Back in 1988 I was all for the West Wants In as a candidate for the Reform Party of Canada, but now, some 33 years later I’m struggling with the future of Western Canada within the Canadian federation.
Ever since confederation, the West has been nothing but a cash cow for the Eastern establishment.
Rupert’s Land was purchased from the Hudson’s Bay Company for a pittance and the federal government moved in on the Métis settlers even before the ink was dry. The intrusion on Métis lands caused Louis Riel to step on the surveyor’s chain stopping further subdivision of the West. Initially the feds planned to create 800-acre sections of land, but in returning to Ottawa it was decided more settlers and eventually more revenue would come to the federal coffers if they reduced the size to 640 acres or one square-mile. That revenue went into federal coffers. but little was used to benefit the new settlers.
As the West was settled and Frederick Haultain became the leader of the provisional government for the Northwest Territories, he fought tooth and nail to get sufficient funds from Ottawa to maintain basic government services and finally provincial status for Saskatchewan and Alberta. Ottawa ignored his recommendations and the Liberal government at the time even denied Haultain, a staunch Liberal, an interim premiership.
We were robbed of the right of ownership of our natural resources since Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces. Finally, after a 25-year struggle, ownership of our natural resources became a reality in 1930.
Ownership of those resources was a godsend in 1947 when Leduc No.1 blew in and enhanced the provincial treasuries, making the west the envy of Ottawa and Central Canada. But despite the fact Alberta was generous in loaning money to eastern provinces and generously sharing our wealth, along comes Pierre Trudeau with the National Energy Policy denying us world prices for our oil.
But worse still, Trudeau had a hidden agenda to slowly but surely convert our once capitalist society into a socialist state and handing over the balance of power to French speaking bureaucrats.
Western Canada was asleep at the switch when he brought in bilingualism. “Official bilingualism is not about language” as Peter Brimelow stresses in The Patriot Game, “official bilingualism is about political power.” And political power has transformed Canada into a French state run by a French bureaucratic regime.
By repatriating the Constitution from Britain and passing the 1982 Constitution Act, and the Charter of Rights, Pierre Trudeau, with Gerard LaForest as the principal draftsman of the Liberal proposals for constitutional change, transformed forever our system of government, weakening parliamentary democracy by passing the legislative torch to the judiciary.
As Secretary of State Serge Joyal said, “Everything we undertake and everything we are doing to make Canada a French state is part of a venture I have shared for many years with a number of people . . . The idea, the challenge, of making Canada a French country both inside and outside Québec . . . is something a little beyond the ordinary imagination.”
Beyond the ordinary imagination is right, and beyond the realization of English Canada. William Gairdner sums it up nicely in The Trouble With Canada . . . Still when he says: He [Trudeau] wanted to convert our bottom-up, common law-based, piecemeal — and yes, intentionally checkerboard Confederation — into as unitary a State as possible in the monistic French style. And further “the Charter has subjugated the provinces and made them internal colonies of Ottawa.”
As former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney once said: “It is the French dimension of our national personality that constitutes the soul of Canada.”
The West has less than a third of the seats in the House of Commons, less than a quarter of the seats in the Senate and Québec has a guarantee of a third of the seats on the Supreme Court of Canada. Federal elections are decided before Western Canadians have a chance to count the votes. Ottawa continues to treat the Western Provinces as colonies of the Eastern Establishment.
The French may have lost the battle on the Plains of Abraham but they have won the battle for the francization of Canada.
And now with Trudeau Jr. denying access to shipping bitumen from the West coast and supporting Québec in denying pipelines to the east coast the West is toast!
Over the last seven years of the Trudeau regime, with the federal government continually usurping powers granted to Alberta under section 92 of the Constitution Act, we have been denied any sovereignty we're legally entitled to. Danielle Smith is the only candidate who has come out forcefully to stand up for those rights that have been taken away from Albertans.
Failing the restoration of those sovereign powers, I would advocate for The WEST wants OUT!
Ken Allred is a former St. Albert alderman and MLA, charter member of the Reform Party and inaugural candidate in 1988
(11) comments
Central Canada has a long and storied history of colonization in Canada, right from Confederation and up to today. The Laurentians will fight tooth and nail to keep the colonies in their place, so any thoughts of being treated fairly or equally are little more than a fool's errand. The time for WEXIT is now.
It has always been time but never more so than now. Which is why Federalists destroyed the WEIXT parties.
Those supporting Canada are anti-democratic. They do not want us to have a say in the laws and taxes we have to live with.
Many wanting us to remain in Canada claim to be pro-democracy but the fact is Canada will not allow ballot options they do not approve of. That alone isn't democratic not to mention by design Eastern Canadians rule over Western Canadians.
The sovereign act is a start. At least Smith is prepared to make a start. She has many good ideas for the province. We will see where it goes from here. But, first she has to get elected.
The rural west wants out. Urban centers, Edmonton, Calgary, pretty much everything west of Chilliwack are quite happy with the status quo. If we could magically whisk that less then 2% of land mass east of the Manitoba border then we can have independence. I am 100% in support of Alberta and Western Independence but while we have almost 100% of the government and civil service based in the Edmonton to Calgary corridor and Greater Vancouver Area, and Victoria, I don't see a simple path forward. Remember no federal or provincial employee or politician has felt any financial pain pain in the last 28 months. They have all received pay raises, and all have inflation guards in their contracts. What percentage of the cities are tied, directly or indirectly, to the civil service? What percentage benefit directly from government programs, such as new immigrants? The status quo is profitable for 25%, 30%, 40%, 50% or more?
In rural areas you are rewarded for hard work and effort, in the cities the less you accomplish the more you are rewarded, look at the latest article regarding the Bank of Canada and salary increases and bonuses. Just in the AHS we have 3500 managers making $250,000 to $700,000 each year. 1 AHS manager for every 1,400 Alberta citizens. I AHS manager for every 3.55 doctors. Can we honestly say that AHS is a beacon of efficiency? More Albertans have died, are dying, and will die due to management in AHS then ever before in the history of the province. The biggest divide we suffer in the west is more about rural versus urban then provincial versus federal.
If you exclude every community large enough to support a police force, and we had a referendum of the remaining 98% of the provinces from BC to Manitoba we could separate in 2 months. Until all the citizens of the provinces suffer equally we won't see much movement. The time is coming though, once all the people start seeing food shortages everywhere then the urban population will wake up.
Ken, the history lesson is needed by all of us in Alberta and needs to be reviewed regularly. Sometimes you have to review where you’ve been to understand where you need to go. Well done.
Agreed but not with the well done on the history party, that was just OK.
The term Metis is a Canadian slur against residents of Rupert's Land meant to justify oppression. Using that term in that manner is letting Canada set the context.
Metis was/is understood in Canada (Upper/Lower) as being part French and Catholic (not a good thing to those in Upper) and part Indian (not a good thing in Upper or Lower).
In 1870 what is today Manitoba was thriving under British rule, with expanding ocean ports, growing global and continental trade deep inland and to the south with many manufacturing mills including wind, water and Steam (equal to nuclear today). That was a problem for Canada.
Worst yet for Canada all were citizens of the British Empire with rights but it mattered if you were Indian, Mixed Blood, or Metis. In the racist rankings (still promoted by Canada today) Indians had the fewest rights, then Metis and then Mixed Bloods who due to their British ancestors would have the "best" race and religion. It's really hard to understand today but it mattered then and Canada needs it to still matter.
There were far more Mixed Bloods than Metis in Ruperts Land. The Riel family moved here from Eastern Canada.
Canada needs people to think of the Riels as lesser, Indian and Catholic, rather than British Citizens and Millers (a high tech job of the day). Those in Lower Canada were/are very sensitive to being oppressed by the British. If the papers were pointing out that a well off French Canadian Family who owned and operated a successful mill were being violently oppressed by those from Upper Canada the fledgling Confederation would have ended right then and there.
Canadian history is complex and very political. If it was taught in schools there would be next to no support for Canada's confederation outside of the Charter members. Which is why only Canadian propaganda is allowed in schools. Still we do not have to accept that and should be trying to set records straight.
I have always despized the Trudeaus and the Laurentian Keybec Mafia . . . back in the 70s there were several Books on the subject . . . one was "Bilingual Today French Tomorrow" by J V Andrew.
The media today say we have the worse inflation in 40 years . . . but never mention who was PM 40 years ago. The damage done to Canada by Father & Son are magnitude and the country likely never recovers. Sadly 30% of the population refuses to notice.
What was never imagined by Trudope I is the fact that French is pretty much irrelevant in the world today as France is being taken over by middle eastern "Colonists", some say in 30 years it will be over.
I was for Western Separation since the 70s . . . but with current immigration numbers that dream may be fading along with the Country. The question is in 50 years will anyone remember there was a place called Canada?
“Ours may become the first civilization destroyed, not by the power of our enemies, but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children. In an age of artificial intelligence, they are creating artificial stupidity.” – Thomas Sowell
Right on Ken, I said just that, the other day in the comment section. This nation has one more strike in my opinion, Danielle Smith as Premier, Pierre Pollievre as PM, or I’m out. If either of these two fail to deliver, I’m out. We have compromised for far too long, we have negotiated for far too long, and got nothing in return. Reading other comment sections, many people in the east, Ontario, east coast, Quebec, laugh at us, call us whiners, insult us, and literally hate us, simply because we are Albertans, we have given more per capita to confederation than any other Province, we pay more for CPP, EI, income tax per capita than any other province, yet we are dispised, hated, and ridiculed simply for being Albertans, I have had enough, and I’m ready to leave this abusive relationship.
The sovereign act will do nothing if there isn’t a referendum on independence. Why isn’t Smith mentioning a referendum? Because she likes the statue quo, sadly.
At least she is doing SOMETHING, by doing nothing is the status quo. This is a first step. After 50 years of the “status Quo” someone is finally doing something, and you aren’t happy?
No, not happy here, not with Smith or the UCP.
You are young which makes her claims seem appealing but look at our history. Every Albertan politician has turned out to be a federalist. Every one promised change, promised to do something, promised to take on Canada. None have which is how we got here. We would not be dealing with Canada as we are today if any had actually accomplished anything of significance to protect us from Canada's attacks.
Smith is a federalist and like all before her she will keep us in Canada by promising anything and everything. I expect her to put on a good show, maybe the best yet but at the end of the day she is another Manning, another Kenney, another Notley, another Klein, another Lougheed, another Alberta politician that will cash in while keeping us in Confederation and under Canada's rule.
If that is news, you heard it here first, in the comments of an accredited by Canada media outlet, though I expect Bill 11 will fix that.
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