On Nov. 20, 1946, Vern “Dry Hole” Hunter spudded in Imperial Oil’s Wilson No. 2 rig on Mike Turta’s farm, southwest of Edmonton. On February 13, Leduc Number One came in and so began a new chapter in the history of Alberta..There was, however, an overhang from the actions of Premier Aberhart’s Social Credit government a decade earlier. The big Laurentian banks had not forgotten the challenge Aberhart had made and proved reluctant to extend credit for smaller exploration companies to drill in the Western Sedimentary Basin..One of the responses of Aberhart’s successor, Ernest Manning, was to look south to Oklahoma and Texas. The American oilmen saw the opportunities available in postwar Alberta. In turn, the Laurentians responded with the kind of latent, but never dormant anti-Americanism that had been part of the political mythology of Upper Canada ever since the Loyalist refugees settled there after losing the Revolution. This was not an auspicious re-start to Alberta-Canada relations..Moreover, much of the Dominion government’s postwar economic policy was motivated by a fear that the bad times of the 1930s would return. Under the War Measures Act, Canada was governed as a unitary state. The Ottawa Mandarins, as the bureaucrats were increasingly called, sought to prolong into peacetime the unity that enabled the successful prosecution of the war. Apart from personal ambition, these men — and they were nearly all male — had a new doctrine, Keynesianism, to justify their continued management of the economy and the country..The old economy was beautifully illustrated by Aesop’s fable of the ant and the grasshopper..The industrious ant made prudent plans for the coming winter and accumulated enough to see him through while the grasshopper spent the summer singing and dancing. When winter came, he begged the ant for food and was refused. The Keynesians replaced this old story with faith that dearth could be indefinitely postponed by the wise management of aggregate demand..They called it tending the business cycle. And who but the ant-like Mandarins could better tend, intervene, and manage the business cycle?.Governing as if the War Measures Act was still in place resulted in an increase in the size of the Ottawa bureaucracy and a growth in social welfare programs for them to manage. It led as well to a change from consultation and negotiation over areas of joint jurisdiction to the unilateral exercise by Ottawa of a newly invented “spending power” that is nowhere found in the constitution. All this innovation was analyzed, chronicled, and justified in a series of reports commissioned by Ottawa..The “fiscal federalism” of the 1950s began with the efforts of the Liberal government to manage the economy. They were extended and intensified with efforts to “equalize” government services in all provinces, rich or poor, productive or unproductive. No thought was given to the notion “helping” the poor provinces or creating the badly misnamed unemployment insurance also created disincentives to work or to relocate to places where opportunities for work were found..By the end of the prime ministership of John Diefenbaker, a new political issue appeared that has remained with us..Dief was criticized for not “understanding” the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, a charge that his successor, Lester Pearson, was determined to avoid. In July 1963 Pearson launched the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, known widely as the Bi-Bi Commission — and among some as the bye-bye commission, as if Quebec were saying bye-bye to Canada..Among its recommendations, official bilingualism was the answer to a question no one asked. The Quebec government was indifferent to the fate of French-speaking communities outside the province. Not that they wouldn’t make tactical political gestures towards them, but in fact Quebec politicians wanted more power for themselves, nothing else..For once political reality and Quebec parochialism aligned. There is in reality no need for English-speakers outside Quebec to learn French. Those who did, for professional or business reasons, might as easily have learned German or Mandarin..Canada, to be blunt, is not a bilingual country. As in the States, parts of the country are bilingual; in Canada, those parts are chiefly in Laurentian Canada..Once official bilingualism became the policy of the Canadian government, one of the consequences, which has seldom been noted, was Westerners did not find a professional career in Ottawa attractive. The reason was simple: they did not grow up bilingual. And yet, this bizarre view of Canada as bilingual was precisely what was celebrated on the centenary of Confederation, Expo 67, held (where else?) in Montreal..Pearson’s successor, Pierre Trudeau, ensured the Quebec question retained pride of place on the 'national' agenda. Albertans continued to be excluded from the centres of power of course, but Trudeau’s major policy initiative, the National Energy Program, provided them with the unmistakable sense their proper place, once again, was to be a “Roman province,” compelled to send tribute to Canada..In his book, Federalism and the French Canadians (1968), Trudeau said he would “make Canada a truly pluralistic and polyethnic society.” Anyone announcing a program to make a society truly something or other was in fact proposing havoc. Specifically, Trudeau would make Canada a place where Quebecers would feel at home anywhere; he would then make Canada, now including well-adjusted Quebecers, a “just society.”.His tool for all this fabrication would be the Canadian state. Its first efforts would be directed towards “national unity,” which never meant anything more than the original Laurentian Confederation bargain, now reinforced by the mendacity of the Bi-Bi Commission..Six months before the first victory of the Parti Québécois, in November 1976, Trudeau assured the country separatism was dead. René Lévesque did not disagree: now the PQ sought “sovereignty-association,” a meaningless term that confirmed what had long been suspected: Quebec independence was just a threat to get more stuff, never a serious goal..“Welcome to the eighties,” Trudeau proclaimed on February 18, at a Liberal Party celebration of his recent victory over Joe Clark. Trudeau then announced he would govern “as though it was going to be my last term,” particularly on economic matters. In the early 1980s, viewed from Ottawa, all Canada’s economic problems were associated with the mislocation of Canadian hydrocarbon energy resources in Alberta and Saskatchewan. If hydrocarbon revenues could only be “redirected” to Quebec, the “profitable federalism” long espoused by Liberal premier Robert Bourassa would prove effective..Otherwise, we might “lose” the country to the PQ. That is, the notional supporters of Quebec independence might become serious. Unfortunately, they never did..In October 1980, the Trudeau government introduced the National Energy Program promising thereby to:.(1) lower petroleum prices;.(2) “Canadianize” the oil industry; and.(3) ensure energy security for (Laurentian) Canada by supporting energy self-sufficiency..By near consensus what the NEP achieved was:.(1) the highest price increases for oil in Canadian history;.(2) a drastic reduction of the importance of the Canadian sector of the oil industry; and.(3) massive increases in supply uncertainty owing to large disincentives for conventional exploration..For a generation of Albertans, the NEP served the same purpose as the disallowance of Alberta legislation 50 years earlier. For historians, and even for Alberta politicians, it simply confirmed a pattern..As the implications of the growth of the now bilingual Ottawa bureaucracy worked themselves out in public policy over the next 30 years, the pattern was continued..Third in a series of four. Dr. Cooper teaches political science at the University of Calgary.
On Nov. 20, 1946, Vern “Dry Hole” Hunter spudded in Imperial Oil’s Wilson No. 2 rig on Mike Turta’s farm, southwest of Edmonton. On February 13, Leduc Number One came in and so began a new chapter in the history of Alberta..There was, however, an overhang from the actions of Premier Aberhart’s Social Credit government a decade earlier. The big Laurentian banks had not forgotten the challenge Aberhart had made and proved reluctant to extend credit for smaller exploration companies to drill in the Western Sedimentary Basin..One of the responses of Aberhart’s successor, Ernest Manning, was to look south to Oklahoma and Texas. The American oilmen saw the opportunities available in postwar Alberta. In turn, the Laurentians responded with the kind of latent, but never dormant anti-Americanism that had been part of the political mythology of Upper Canada ever since the Loyalist refugees settled there after losing the Revolution. This was not an auspicious re-start to Alberta-Canada relations..Moreover, much of the Dominion government’s postwar economic policy was motivated by a fear that the bad times of the 1930s would return. Under the War Measures Act, Canada was governed as a unitary state. The Ottawa Mandarins, as the bureaucrats were increasingly called, sought to prolong into peacetime the unity that enabled the successful prosecution of the war. Apart from personal ambition, these men — and they were nearly all male — had a new doctrine, Keynesianism, to justify their continued management of the economy and the country..The old economy was beautifully illustrated by Aesop’s fable of the ant and the grasshopper..The industrious ant made prudent plans for the coming winter and accumulated enough to see him through while the grasshopper spent the summer singing and dancing. When winter came, he begged the ant for food and was refused. The Keynesians replaced this old story with faith that dearth could be indefinitely postponed by the wise management of aggregate demand..They called it tending the business cycle. And who but the ant-like Mandarins could better tend, intervene, and manage the business cycle?.Governing as if the War Measures Act was still in place resulted in an increase in the size of the Ottawa bureaucracy and a growth in social welfare programs for them to manage. It led as well to a change from consultation and negotiation over areas of joint jurisdiction to the unilateral exercise by Ottawa of a newly invented “spending power” that is nowhere found in the constitution. All this innovation was analyzed, chronicled, and justified in a series of reports commissioned by Ottawa..The “fiscal federalism” of the 1950s began with the efforts of the Liberal government to manage the economy. They were extended and intensified with efforts to “equalize” government services in all provinces, rich or poor, productive or unproductive. No thought was given to the notion “helping” the poor provinces or creating the badly misnamed unemployment insurance also created disincentives to work or to relocate to places where opportunities for work were found..By the end of the prime ministership of John Diefenbaker, a new political issue appeared that has remained with us..Dief was criticized for not “understanding” the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, a charge that his successor, Lester Pearson, was determined to avoid. In July 1963 Pearson launched the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, known widely as the Bi-Bi Commission — and among some as the bye-bye commission, as if Quebec were saying bye-bye to Canada..Among its recommendations, official bilingualism was the answer to a question no one asked. The Quebec government was indifferent to the fate of French-speaking communities outside the province. Not that they wouldn’t make tactical political gestures towards them, but in fact Quebec politicians wanted more power for themselves, nothing else..For once political reality and Quebec parochialism aligned. There is in reality no need for English-speakers outside Quebec to learn French. Those who did, for professional or business reasons, might as easily have learned German or Mandarin..Canada, to be blunt, is not a bilingual country. As in the States, parts of the country are bilingual; in Canada, those parts are chiefly in Laurentian Canada..Once official bilingualism became the policy of the Canadian government, one of the consequences, which has seldom been noted, was Westerners did not find a professional career in Ottawa attractive. The reason was simple: they did not grow up bilingual. And yet, this bizarre view of Canada as bilingual was precisely what was celebrated on the centenary of Confederation, Expo 67, held (where else?) in Montreal..Pearson’s successor, Pierre Trudeau, ensured the Quebec question retained pride of place on the 'national' agenda. Albertans continued to be excluded from the centres of power of course, but Trudeau’s major policy initiative, the National Energy Program, provided them with the unmistakable sense their proper place, once again, was to be a “Roman province,” compelled to send tribute to Canada..In his book, Federalism and the French Canadians (1968), Trudeau said he would “make Canada a truly pluralistic and polyethnic society.” Anyone announcing a program to make a society truly something or other was in fact proposing havoc. Specifically, Trudeau would make Canada a place where Quebecers would feel at home anywhere; he would then make Canada, now including well-adjusted Quebecers, a “just society.”.His tool for all this fabrication would be the Canadian state. Its first efforts would be directed towards “national unity,” which never meant anything more than the original Laurentian Confederation bargain, now reinforced by the mendacity of the Bi-Bi Commission..Six months before the first victory of the Parti Québécois, in November 1976, Trudeau assured the country separatism was dead. René Lévesque did not disagree: now the PQ sought “sovereignty-association,” a meaningless term that confirmed what had long been suspected: Quebec independence was just a threat to get more stuff, never a serious goal..“Welcome to the eighties,” Trudeau proclaimed on February 18, at a Liberal Party celebration of his recent victory over Joe Clark. Trudeau then announced he would govern “as though it was going to be my last term,” particularly on economic matters. In the early 1980s, viewed from Ottawa, all Canada’s economic problems were associated with the mislocation of Canadian hydrocarbon energy resources in Alberta and Saskatchewan. If hydrocarbon revenues could only be “redirected” to Quebec, the “profitable federalism” long espoused by Liberal premier Robert Bourassa would prove effective..Otherwise, we might “lose” the country to the PQ. That is, the notional supporters of Quebec independence might become serious. Unfortunately, they never did..In October 1980, the Trudeau government introduced the National Energy Program promising thereby to:.(1) lower petroleum prices;.(2) “Canadianize” the oil industry; and.(3) ensure energy security for (Laurentian) Canada by supporting energy self-sufficiency..By near consensus what the NEP achieved was:.(1) the highest price increases for oil in Canadian history;.(2) a drastic reduction of the importance of the Canadian sector of the oil industry; and.(3) massive increases in supply uncertainty owing to large disincentives for conventional exploration..For a generation of Albertans, the NEP served the same purpose as the disallowance of Alberta legislation 50 years earlier. For historians, and even for Alberta politicians, it simply confirmed a pattern..As the implications of the growth of the now bilingual Ottawa bureaucracy worked themselves out in public policy over the next 30 years, the pattern was continued..Third in a series of four. Dr. Cooper teaches political science at the University of Calgary.
