NATHANSON: We’re going to need a bigger Firewall

Following the 2000 election, dismay gave way to real anger across the Prairies. That sentiment was echoed in the now famous ‘Firewall Letter’ authored by a group of prominent Westerners. The letter, published in the National Post, proposed an ‘Alberta Agenda’ for the province to take greater charge of its own future. 

The measures outlined were simple and straightforward: 

• Create an Alberta Pension Plan and withdraw from the CPP. 
• Collect our own revenue from the income tax. 
• Establish an independent Alberta police force.
• Legally challenge Ottawa’s interference in the provincial management of healthcare and social services. 
• Demand Senate reform.

Every single one of these measures either failed, or was never even attempted.

Alberta remains at the beck-and-call of the federal government when it comes to the CPP and tax collection. The provincial PC government signed a two-decade contract with the RCMP. Alberta has done nothing to challenge federal orthodoxy with regard to healthcare. And the courts have permanently ended any meaningful reform of the Red Chamber.

The letter’s signatories – including future Prime Minister Stephen Harper and future Alberta Finance Minister Ted Morton – in the name of political expediency jettisoned many of these measures. While these ideas proved somewhat popular among Albertans, they were roundly ridiculed outside the West. However, the Firewall Letter was successful in another respect – it gave folks what they needed most: a purpose. It was a rallying call, at the right time, to galvanize folks.

Now, in the wake of another dirty, divisive election fought along regional lines, many Albertans are disheartened and don’t know what to do next. 

What’s worse is that our province’s opponents openly brag about killing our industries and blocking our pipelines. Is there a roadmap back from this calamity? 

The old adage is: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. In retrospect, the Firewall’s demise wasn’t because its proponents dreamed too big, but because they dreamed too small.

First of all, Harper’s proposed Firewall never should have been limited to Alberta. It should have been a multi-province effort, more similar in structure to the New West Partnership. As we have seen in the past, going it alone doesn’t guarantee Alberta will be left alone.

Where the Harper Firewall was focused on keeping Ottawa out, to have long-term benefits any new version should instead be first focused on lifting West up. Imagine a common economic zone among western provinces, where people could work and trade without regulatory barriers. Imagine a zone in which no member province would block cross-border projects like pipelines. 

This, coincidentally, was the vision of a united country first conceived by Canada’s founding fathers in the 1860s. It’s the kind of vision we need today, and it is entirely attainable without Ottawa.

In fact, for this to work, Eastern Canada has to be an afterthought. Catering to the folks who vilify the West is what killed Harper’s Firewall. And now here were are, two decades later, out in the cold, and with our economy decimated.

If the West ever wants to rise above de facto colony status, it’s not going to happen with Eastern support. Change is going to take vision. It’s going to take guts. 

We’re going to need a bigger FirewallMost importantly, it’s going to take a better Firewall.