Every now and again, history allows for some great ironies. As Canadians, we are living in an example of that right now..The late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was a polarizing figure on the best of days but at least he promoted a consistent set of political principles that really didn’t vary from the day he became prime minister in 1968 until he left power in 1984. The elder Trudeau was a strong federalist who believed in a bilingual and multicultural Canada within a rigidly centralized federal government that ceded little authority or attention to the provinces. His National Energy Program was a prime example of this. He really believed that Alberta should sell its oil to Canada at a subsidized price well below its value on the global market. The provinces were merely there to keep the larger vision of Canada in focus..But that’s why he also battled separatism in Quebec and viewed any movement in that direction from Alberta or Western Canada as a challenge to Canada’s sovereignty and stability..It was a formula that I, growing up in British Columbia, eschewed and rejected. .But Pierre Trudeau’s heir, JustinTrudeau, has allowed that formula to evaporate. .Unwittingly or not — and I suspect that it has been unwitting — Trudeau’s mismanagement of politics and policy has been both incompetent and threatening and that he has energized provincial rights in a way we have perhaps never seen in Canada. The examples of that are the Alberta Sovereignty Act, the open rebellion against Trudeau’s gun gun seizures by four provinces and the decision by Saskatchewan to establish a provincial revenue agency. Trudeau doesn’t even realize that he has dismantled his father’s controversial extreme federalist legacy but it’s best that we don’t draw his attention to that fact too closely because he might just try to interfere in the process..Canada was never designed by its founders to be a state ruled with an iron fist from a distant capital. That’s why the union of Canada was called a confederation. If you recall, when the southern states seceded from the American union in 1860-61 it was called a confederacy because it was based on strong states within a loose federal union. .That’s precisely what the Alberta Sovereignty Act is about. Give the provinces more autonomy to reflect the cultural and economic values of their citizenry, and you make a stronger Canada. .Trudeau, by spending us into oblivion, by focusing on pie-in-the-sky green energy programs, by taking aways our firearms and right to self-defence, by demonstrating his authoritarian bent by invoking the Emergencies [War Measures] Act and by continuing to act like an adult charlatan or frat house buffoon has made it not just easy but natural for the provinces to exert control over their destinies..Pierre Trudeau could be accused of a lot of childish behavior as a radical young man. He was once refused entrance to the United States because of his affiliation with far-left and communist characters. But by the time he became prime minister he had divested himself of most of his immaturity. Justin Trudeau, whether preening for photos in India or getting chewed out by Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, often appears as a classic case of arrested development..It is very true that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is demonstrating a political courage that is unique in Canadian history when she demands more autonomy for her province but she probably wouldn’t be half as successful if there wasn’t a pusillanimous, insouciant and always distracted prime minister trying to run Canada.
