RUBENSTEIN: Western independence? Alberta, kwitcherbitchin'

Point and counterpointIn this piece, retired Manitoba professor Hymie Rubenstein presents his case against Western independence. For the other side of the argument as seen from Manitoba, the reader is directed to retired Manitoba judge Brian Giesbrecht. Both articles were published at 14:30MT on Tuesday 6th May.GIESBRECHT: Western independence... a few rubes wearing cowboy hats?.According to the impassioned piece by the Editorial Board of the Western Standard, just one short day after the April 28 federal election returned another minority Liberal Party government, “The time has come for the West — led by Alberta and Saskatchewan — to declare its independence and choose a new path.”In particular, the board opined that,“The East has decided that it will continue down the path of destruction that Canada is currently on [by electing a fourth in a row Liberal Party government.] It is a path that will lead to the ruin of that once great and proud country. It is a path that has been consistently rejected by Westerners, and one that we can no longer stay on with them.”Despite few signs that a win by the Liberal-lite Conservative Party would have fully retreated from this “ruinous” path, there exist at least three impenetrable roadblocks to secession.1) A longstanding rejection of separation from Canada anywhere in the country2) Low current support for the secession movement3) No convincing justification that breaking up Canada would immensely benefit the pro-independence entities — or that remaining in Canada would irreparably harm them..1) A longstanding rejection of secessionThe “path that has been consistently rejected” is not the alleged “path of destruction that Canada is currently on,” but rather the path of independence from the rest of Canada that the secessionists are hell-bent on achieving.Secession movements in Canada have a long history, particularly in Quebec and Western Canada, with the Quebec sovereignty movement being the better known.The first significant secessionist movement emerged in Nova Scotia shortly after confederation, driven by economic grievances and the emergence of anti-confederation parties. Still, the Quebec movement has been the most persistent and influential. It stems from linguistic and cultural tensions and a desire for greater economic and other autonomy.The Quebec sovereignty movement gained traction in the 1960s during the Quiet Revolution, fuelled by growing Québécois nationalism and a desire for greater self-determination. This mobilization led to the creation of the Parti Québécois and two referendums on sovereignty-association in 1980 and 1995. The movement continues to be a significant, though diminished, political force in Quebec. Western Canada has also experienced secessionist sentiments, particularly in Alberta and Saskatchewan, often stemming from grievances related to the distribution of resource wealth and federal policies. There have been other minor movements, such as Doug Christie's Western Canada Concept, which advocated an independent Western nation. The federal government has taken steps to address the secession question, including the Clarity Act passed in 2000, which outlines conditions for a referendum on secession. (Two years before, the Supreme Court of Canada had issued a ruling regarding the legality of a unilateral declaration of independence by a province, concluding that there is no right to secession under the Constitution.)Still, none of these movements resulted in successful independence from the rest of Canada, even though they significantly shaped Canadian politics and constitutional debates.Moreover on the night of April 28, The Bloc Québécois, the Liberals’ main rival in Quebec, saw its riding count drop from 33 to 23. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives continued to tread water in the province with wins in 11 ridings. They had started the campaign with nine. The Liberals saw the election of 43 members to the House of Commons, eight more than in 2021, their best showing in decades.These results hardly suggest a widespread desire for Quebec independence..There is low current support for secessionPreston Manning, former leader of the Reform Party of Canada, is arguably Canada’s best-known proponent of Western separation. In an April 2 opinion piece in the Globe and Mail, he boldly wrote that if the country were to return the Liberals to power under Mark Carney, it would lead directly to the secession of Western Canada.“A vote for the Carney Liberals,” he warned, “is a vote for Western secession — a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it.”He even called for the convening of a “Canada West Constitutional Conference” immediately after the election, even if the Conservatives won the election, to consider how “to redress the damage done to Western Canada by a decade of Liberal neglect and misrule.” And if the Liberals won, to “consider ways and means of peacefully seceding.”Translation: If we don’t like the democratic results of the next election, we will break up the country.Such rhetoric coming from Manning, who claimed, “The support for Western secession is therefore growing, unabated and even fuelled by Liberal promises to reverse many of their previous positions” — implies substantial support for secession.Nothing could be further from the truth.Regular surveys by the Pollara organization routinely show that only “about 20 percent of both Alberta and Saskatchewan residents would like to see their province separate from Canada and form its own country.”Moreover, a recent Angus Reid poll found 25 percent of Albertans and 20 percent of Saskatchewanians claiming they would be willing to vote to secede; the numbers rose only to 30 and 33 percent, respectively, in the event the Liberals were to form the next federal government.In short, Western secession is a movement with relatively few supporters. The numbers of supposed militant separatists in B.C. and Manitoba are even lower: nine percent and eight percent, respectively, 17 percent and 12 percent if the Liberals are elected — about the same as in Ontario (13 percent.)When asked whether he agreed with Manning’s position and what his message would be to Canadians who do, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, undoubtedly aware of these low numbers, rejected the idea of secession.“No, we need to unite the country,” he told reporters. “We need to bring all Canadians together in a spirit of common ground.”Even the low numbers supporting secession may be on the high side. As the Globe and Mail’s Andrew Coyne has asserted, “Whether the numbers are remotely reflective of how they would actually vote in a referendum may be fairly doubted; whether any such vote would actually result in secession, even more so.”Coyne has also argued that: “… these numbers are substantially lower than they were six years ago. In January 2019, Angus Reid found 60 percent of Albertans were either strongly (31 percent) or moderately (29 percent) in favour of separating. In Saskatchewan, it was 53 percent (26 strongly, 27 moderately.)“As for the hated Liberals under the nation-rending Mr. Carney, just prior to the election, they were polling at levels of support they have not seen in the West in decades: in the low-to-mid 30s, on average, in Alberta; in the 40s in British Columbia; in the mid-to-high 30s across Saskatchewan and Manitoba. These polls were confirmed by the election night results. You would have to go back to 1968, or earlier, to find so many Liberal voters in the West.”.The justification for secession is unconvincingGiven their distinct language, history and culture, not to mention their constitutionally protected special status in Canadian society, there has long been widespread understanding of why many Québécois people wish to form a sovereign nation of their own.This is not so for Western Canada's sovereignty, not least because many of its people are recent immigrants from central or eastern parts of the country, or its second or third-generation inhabitants.The Western Standard ends its editorial with the following generalizations:“The East has voted to continue plundering the prosperity of the West while strangling its ability to generate new wealth. The East has voted to continue uncontrolled mass migration. The East has voted to continue burdening our children and grandchildren with new debt that will never be paid back. The East has voted to continue the ‘woke’ social engineering experiments of the last decade.“The East has voted to continue down the path of destruction and national decline. If we wish to survive as a prosperous, secure and proud people, the West must decouple itself from the drowning man.”These assertions must be challenged because they imply that confederation has rendered the West an economic and social basket case.With its abundant resources and thriving economy, Alberta enjoys significant advantages within Canada, including low taxes and a strong influence on national politics. The province’s prosperity and autonomy within confederation negate the need for secession.In particular, Alberta is the most fortunate, wealthiest, and most privileged in the country, given its abundant resources, booming cities, and a magnificent physical environment..As a recent commentator opined, “Most people that threaten to secede do so because they feel they have been oppressed, excluded, thwarted, fleeced or otherwise kept down.”“Quebec separatists say they need independence to protect the French language and culture. The Scottish National Party wants to free Scotland from the smothering rule of London. Catalan nationalists seek to quit Spain because they feel that, with its distinct history and robust economy, Catalonia deserves to stand on its own.”None of those cultural concerns apply to Alberta or the rest of Western Canada.As for the perennial claim that the West, particularly Alberta, is being robbed of its resources by the rest of the country, the hated National Energy Program ended in 1985. And when Alberta raised concerns about transporting its oil to the West coast for export, Justin Trudeau bought a pipeline to ensure transportation..Any claim that the rest of the nation is keeping Alberta back has no merit because the province is the fastest growing one in Canada with the highest per capita GDP in the country, the highest national average weekly earnings, the lowest per person government debt, and Canada’s lowest business taxes. The province is so rich that it can afford to pay its bills without punishing provincial sales taxes.Aside from the absence of deep-seated cultural differences between East and West, there are few convincing economic reasons for separation, save perhaps for the issue of federal transfer payments provided to provincial and territorial governments to help fund programs and services. These payments aim to address disparities in revenue-generating capacity across provinces and support areas like healthcare, social services, and education.Equalization payments, for example, are distributed to seven so-called have-not provinces (Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador.) Other transfers, like the Canada Health Transfer and the Canada Social Transfer, are also distributed to all provinces. These payments are designed to ensure that all provinces have a reasonable capacity to provide public services, regardless of their financial resources..While it is worth debating about whether equalization payments and other transfers create debilitating economic dependency among the poorer provinces — that they are “the help that hurts,” thereby hampering provincial and individual entrepreneurship and initiative — their presence was readily accepted by the Western provinces in 1982 when they agreed to a repatriated constitution that promised “reasonably comparable public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation” across all provinces.Alberta, among other provinces and organizations, has repeatedly and hypocritically complained about these transfers ever since.In short, economic arguments for an independent Alberta are just as empty as the historical and public opinion ones. Not only does Alberta have all the wealth it needs to prosper without separating from Canada, but the country’s flexible system of federalism gives the province the ability to make its own choices about education, social welfare, health care, gender identification, and many other fields, as the province has repeatedly shown in recent years.Most Albertans know all this, which is why they will never choose to secede from Canada. So does Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. In early April, the Premier said she would not lead a campaign to take Alberta out of Canada, though she noted that there is a process for citizens to initiate a referendum.“I got a mandate to try to make Canada work, and that’s what I’ve been working toward relentlessly over these last 2½ years,” Smith told reporters.This leaderless fringe movement without a cause is going nowhere fast.Hymie Rubenstein, editor of REAL Indigenous Report, is a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

RUBENSTEIN: Western independence? Alberta, kwitcherbitchin'

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