The intellectual heavy weights that any credible Western independence movement would need in its leadership cadre are still not ready to step up, and possibly with good reason. Meetings keep being held, but the movement can’t seem to get past first base. .This Saturday marked the third and, so far, largest conference discussing Alberta’s uneasy place in confederation since the federal election. The online Alberta Proud activist network packed 700 (mostly conservative) activists and businesspeople into the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary for a “Value of Alberta” all-day chinwag..For all its impressive lineup of speakers, the conference did mostly what the two conferences preceding it did: discuss independence at the margins, without its would-be leaders willing to put their hands up to lead it. .Former Alberta finance minister Ted Morton was one of the original authors of the 2001 ‘Firewall Letter’ and was the last hope of saving the PCs from a progressive takeover by Allison Redford. His speech titled ‘The West Wants In: A Worthwhile Failure or Just a Failure?’ would have been cutting-edge a year or even six months ago. Likewise with University of Calgary’s Jack Mintz and business mogul Brett Wilson. .‘The West has good cause to seek independence and would be better off on its own, but it’s not yet the time,’ more-a-less sums up the speakers from all three conferences since October. .It wouldn’t be a stretch to guess that in their hearts, these men are already supporters of independence, but they couldn’t yet bring themselves to say it out loud. The story is similar for almost all potential intellectual, business and political leaders of the nascent independence movement..Why are the would-be leaders of a movement with a large and growing support not – as yet –willing to step up? Why is no one – as yet – willing to step forward and say, “I will lead”?.For one, many Westerners still hold lingering hopes of reform, or a ‘fair deal.’ Memory of the Reform Party’s crusade for such a deal have largely faded out of memory. Few understand that even under the a Western-led Conservative government that the West was plundered with equal measure, if not equal enthusiasm. .Hope for reform – however unlikely – will continue to string many Western patriots along. .Importantly, most would-be independence leaders are still wed to existing political institutions in the form of the federal and provincial Tories. For many, the Reform-PC division federally, and the Wildrose-PC division in Alberta are too traumatic to repeat in any form. Fear of breaking away from the party motherships holds even greater fear than breaking away from Ottawa. .Independence almost certainly would require an alternative partisan vehicle, and as yet, no viable one exists. In Alberta, Wexit activists are attempting to register a third political party in addition to the Alberta Independence Party and the Freedom Conservative Party. On their own, none of them are likely to achieve a critical mass to breakthrough. Sovereigntists will need to unite themselves before they can have any hope of uniting Albertans. . Trudeau on WE scandal: Case closed .At the federal level, Wexit has obtained the signatures to form a political party, but shows little sign of achieving credibility. It will be formed as a private club without a leadership election, democratic candidate nominations, or a binding constitution. Its underlying mission may be noble, but its rhetoric is more concerned with provoking media outrage than with building a credible case for independence. .The independence movement’s would-be leaders surveying this landscape see an angry people with a just cause. They see a large minority of people ready to move, and a majority of people that could be convinced if getting a ‘fair deal’ fails. But they also see a movement lacking coherence or a willingness to make the tough decisions necessary to progress from angry rabble to organized army. .Polls can continue to show large numbers of Westerns ready to cut the cord, but until something changes, independence will continue to remain a statistic. .Derek Fildebrandt is Publisher of the Western Standard and the President of Wildrose Media Inc.
