Bronwyn Eyre is the former Saskatchewan Minister of Energy and of Justice and Attorney General
Preston Manning’s idea of a “Canada West Constitutional Conference” would begin doing something about the prospect of another four years of Liberal, anti-Western rule.
The opening line of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto (1848) reads: “A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.” Well, these days, a spectre is haunting Western Canada, too, but it sure ain’t communism.
In newspaper columns and op-eds, radio and television programs, letters to the editor, and water-cooler chatter, there’s ever more talk, as the April 28 election approaches, of Western secession, alienation, separation, independence…choose your terminology.
If current polling proves accurate and the Carney Liberals gain power, many in the West will feel enough is enough and will cast about for profound change. You might truly say, after Kamala, that we’ll want to be “unburdened by what has been.”
As one Calgarian recently put it in a letter to the Globe and Mail: “For generations, I feel we’ve been treated more like a resource colony than a partner, the milch cow of Confederation.”
Western Canada at large has felt marginalized and exploited for decades. The sense of estrangement reached its apogee under Pierre Trudeau, whose infamous National Energy Program (1980-1984) led to the very phrase “Western alienation.” In Alberta alone, unemployment quadrupled, bankruptcies rose by 150%, and financial losses climbed to an estimated $100 billion.
Trudeau Jr. perpetuated similar anti-Western policies — notably, his reviled Carbon Tax and resource-thwarting Bill C-69. And after ten years of his profligacy, wokeism and incompetence, many Westerners regard the prospect of another reign of Justin-istic Liberal policies under Mark Carney as intolerable.
As Conrad Black recently put it: “Natural resources constitute the overwhelming majority of our exports to the U.S., which illustrates the absurdity of Carney’s apparent desire to leave them in the ground and strangle the petroleum industry. Carney represents a continuation of the policies of the Trudeau government with which he has been intimately associated for many years.”
Mr. Carney’s Eastern bias is plain to see: Last week, amid rumours that Honda may be moving to the U.S., he said: “To keep auto workers on this side of the border, they’ll get a 100% remission on our counter-tariffs. In other words, our counter-tariffs won’t apply if Honda continues to produce here.”
So federal support for the auto workers is ready. But we hear no similar plan for our beleaguered, $50 billion canola industry.
Similarly, on Carney’s floating the idea of a retaliatory export tax, former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall recently said, “And what’s the only sector Carney has used as an example? Why, it’s energy! It’s oil and gas — and Saskatchewan uranium — not the auto sector, not cheese…heaven forbid Quebec dairy be part of the retaliatory option!”
So Western frustration and anger simmers and smoulders, as one factor after another plays out in favour of Eastern interests.
For example, of the record $26.2 billion earmarked for the so-called equalization payments for 2025-26, Canada’s three westernmost provinces won’t see a cent of it. Once again, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and BC will be relinquishing billions — especially to Quebec, which will rake in $13.6 billion, up a quarter billion from 2024-25.
It’s because of this kind of blatant inequity that Reform Party founder Preston Manning recently opined that a Liberal return to power under Mr. Carney could well lead to the secession of Western Canada and “the breakup of Canada as we know it.”
In response, columnist Andrew Coyne suggested that Manning’s idea — that a “Canada West Constitutional Conference” be convened should Carney win the election–amounts to “a ransom note”! He went on to argue that such a proposal is tantamount to non-acceptance of the election result.
The opposite. Such a conference would absolutely recognize the election result and thereby begin doing something about the prospect of another four years of Liberal, anti-Western rule.
And Manning’s actual words were hardly those of a ransom-ist. If the Conservatives are elected, he said his proposed conference would be to consider how “to redress the damage done to Western Canada by a decade of Liberal neglect and misrule.” If the Liberals win, the conference would consider “ways and means of peacefully seceding.” Ransom notes don’t deal in peaceful negotiation.
So to redress those decades of Liberal neglect and misrule, what might such a conference consider?
Well, one possibility is the concept of home rule — decentralized self-rule for, in this case, Western Canada, within Canada itself.
Think self-governing Greenland, under the Danish Realm. Or the decentralized, individually-sovereign cantons of Switzerland. Or the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the end of WWI. The Home Rule Movement also marked a pivotal chapter in the struggle for India’s independence from British colonial rule.
There’s nothing unpatriotic, undemocratic, or ransom-like about any of those examples, wouldn’t you agree?
Or what about Premier Danielle Smith’s recent letter inviting her Quebec counterpart François Legault to form a common front for greater provincial autonomy within Canada? She calls the idea an ”autonomy alliance.”
Her hope, she said, is to jointly seize an opportunity, as democratically elected leaders, “to chart a path toward a new era in Canadian federalism.”
Her letter — in response to a similar initiative Legault made last November — focused on the need for “a special deliberation mechanism for legislative bills that would include the Notwithstanding Clause, to dissuade court challenges.”
She added that the two provinces have “significant common interests with respect to countering overreach by the federal government into matters of exclusive provincial jurisdiction.”
So we’re talking about 1) historic examples of self-determination for a specific group within a country, and 2) the idea of an “alliance autonomy,” easily establishable within the country, between whichever provinces may want to opt in.
Home rule and alliance autonomy are similar in nature, and — who knows — maybe Westerners will actually, finally, cotton to the idea, especially if Mr. Carney & Co. win on April 28.
Despite the political mistreatment we perennially endure, most Westerners harbour a knee-jerk, last-refuge-like patriotism. Even though we’re basically treated like some kind of fly-over backwater and our natural resources are stifled, we generally buy into the proud-Canuck schtick with alacrity.
But what perpetually ill-treated individual would embrace his tormentor? More and more Westerners feel that we’ve gamely abided ten years of “Lil’ Potato’s” obtuse policies and don’t much fancy another four years of Trudeau-lite. We want change.
In 1980, Trudeau aide Keith Davey declared: “Screw the West. We’ll take the Rest!” That sentiment kind of captures the political reality in this East-West country, n’est-ce pas?
The term self-respect comes to mind.
Bronwyn Eyre is the former Saskatchewan Minister of Energy and of Justice and Attorney General. Bronwyn.eyre@sasktel.net
