Daniel Fritter is the publisher of Calibre magazine, Canada's largest firearms publication, and a commentator on provincial and federal matters impacting Western Canadians.Prime Minister Mark Carney's newly announced Advisory Committee on Canada-US Economic Relations arrives at a pivotal moment. With the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) up for joint review this summer and American tariffs continuing to hammer Canadian manufacturing and resource sectors, the 24-member panel is meant to give Ottawa its best thinking on how to navigate the most consequential trade relationship in Canadian history. And broadly speaking, it is a serious committee, populated by serious people, tackling a serious issue. But stare at the membership list long enough and a familiar Canadian tension comes into focus: the West is, once again, underrepresented at the table where it matters most.Of the 24 members, a generous count finds perhaps four with primary roots in Western Canada. Jonathan Price of Teck Resources and Susan Yurkovich of Canfor are both headquartered in Vancouver, giving British Columbia a credible voice in the resource and forestry sectors. Ken Seitz of Nutrien, the Saskatoon-based fertilizer giant, represents Saskatchewan's agricultural heartland. But there is a glaring absence: Alberta, home to the energy sector that drives the single largest category of Canadian exports to the United States (US), has no representation on the panel at all. In fact, the Prairie provinces, which collectively account for the bulk of Canada's oil, gas, grain, and potash exports, are represented by a single CEO.Compare that to Quebec's footprint. Jean Simard speaks for Canada’s primarily Quebec-based aluminum industry, François Poirier leads TC Energy (though the company is Calgary-based, Poirier himself is Quebec-connected), Émile Cordeau heads Agropur, Luc Thériault represents Domtar's Canadian forestry interests from Montreal, Magali Picard leads the FTQ labour federation, Valérie Beaudoin contributes academic expertise on US relations from Laval University, and Jean Charest was the Premier of Quebec from 2003 to 2012. Combined, these Quebec-based individuals represent nearly a third of the committee. .Ontario adds another cluster: the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, BMO, the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters association, Unifor, the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, TIFF, and two former Conservative politicians, all of whom are based east of the Manitoba border.None of this is an accident, and none of it is entirely wrong. Quebec's aluminum industry is genuinely under threat from US tariffs. Ontario's auto sector sits at the epicentre of CUSMA anxieties. Central Canada's manufacturing base is deeply integrated with American supply chains, and those industries deserve strong representation. The problem is not that central Canada is at the table, but rather that Western representation has been squeezed to the margins despite contributing a disproportionate share of what is actually at stake.Consider the numbers. Energy products, overwhelmingly from Alberta and Saskatchewan, account for roughly 30% of Canada's total merchandise exports to the US. Add in potash, wheat, canola, lumber, and base metals from the Western provinces and territories, and the share climbs higher still. British Columbia's softwood lumber dispute with Washington has been a defining irritant in the bilateral relationship for decades. Saskatchewan and Alberta produce the fertilizer and food commodities that American agriculture depends on. Yet when Ottawa convenes the room where CUSMA strategy gets shaped, these provinces collectively have fewer seats than the province of Quebec alone..There is a political dimension here that deserves to be stated plainly: Alberta's energy industry has spent years feeling dismissed by a federal government it views as more sympathetic to central Canadian and environmental interests than to the economic realities of the Prairies, which has hugely contributed to the sense of alienation driving Alberta’s independence movement. The absence of a single prominent Albertan voice on this committee — no energy CEO, no representative of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, no former Western premier — will land in Calgary and Edmonton as confirmation of a suspicion that runs deep: that Ottawa negotiates with Washington with one eye on Quebec ridings and the other on Ontario factory floors, and its back to the West.That perception, warranted or not, carries real strategic costs. Effective trade advocacy requires domestic buy-in. If Western premiers and industry leaders conclude that Carney's advisory process does not genuinely reflect their stakes, the political unity Ottawa needs to project toward Washington becomes harder to sustain.The West built much of what America buys from Canada. It deserves to be more than a footnote in the room where Canada's trade future gets decided.Daniel Fritter is the publisher of Calibre magazine, Canada's largest firearms publication, and a commentator on provincial and federal matters impacting Western Canadians.
