The Maverick Party (formerly Wexit Canada) features the following statement on its website: “We love Canada too. But the system is broken.” It may seem strange that a political party ostensibly created to advocate Western Canadian independence openly proclaims its love for the country which it seeks to leave. However, many Westerners who favour independence do so reluctantly, and would rather have Canada fixed than create a new country. This is reflected in the party’s mission statement priorities: “(a) constitutional change, or (b) the creation of an independent nation.” Fixing Canada is the first option, however unlikely. .It is understandable that Westerners would feel an attachment for Canada. After all, it has been one of the freest and most prosperous countries in history. Many millions of people desire to move here from other parts of the world because – let’s face it – Canada is better than the vast majority of other countries. If this wasn’t the case, people would be flooding out of Canada rather than flooding in..However, Canada has been changing in recent decades, and not for the better. Although Westerners’ legitimate grievances against Central Canada go back over a century, they have become much more acute since the 1960s. .There was a time when Canadian patriotism was the sensible position for Westerners. But things have changed. From the time of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau onwards, confederation has increasingly been detrimental – and sometimes outright hostile – toward the West. Although Canada was once great, it has changed so much that the creation of a new country in Western Canada is needed..An excellent source for information about Canada’s decline in the latter part of the twentieth century is the 1994 book, Derailed: The Betrayal of the National Dream by historian David Bercuson and political scientist Barry Cooper, both professors at the University of Calgary. In this book, they explain the original purpose of confederation, and how that purpose became subverted after the Second World War, especially under the administration of Pierre Trudeau..Bercuson and Cooper point out that the original colonies confederated in 1867 primarily for economic reasons. By uniting, they could create a national government with the resources to build a country that would generate greater economic prosperity than each of the smaller units could do on their own. As Bercuson and Cooper explain, “Only when the national government was able to marshal effectively the resources of the nation and to direct westward expansion, settlement, railway construction, and industrial development would the real aim of Confederation be achieved – namely, prosperity as a British Dominion. As long as that happened, the New Nationality would hold together out of self-interest and the mutual support of disparate groups in the common enterprise of what we now call nation building.”.It was not intended that the new country would lead to a common identity that all Canadians could share. What kind of national identity could the English-speaking Protestants of Ontario and the French-speaking Catholics of Quebec have in common? They already had their own cultural identities, so they could only be united in one country on the basis of economic and political interests. As Bercuson and Cooper explain: “There would be no national myths to tie the disparate peoples of Canada together, other than the myths and ties of commerce. The role of the new national state that had been created to foster the new nationality was to promote economic growth and national development. The Fathers of Confederation well knew that the state could never have any other role.”.This was the predominant view of federal leaders until the 1950s, and it did not begin to change until Prime Minister John Diefenbaker came to power. He saw Canada as more than an economic alliance, but was unable to make much of a difference. .After Diefenbaker, however, Prime Minister Lester Pearson began to take the country in a new direction. Pearson’s government wanted to establish what being a Canadian really meant. As Bercuson and Cooper write: “the new Canadian character itself was going to be created in the image of the thinkers and doers that Pearson had collected around him. So, for example, Canada was going to be bilingual and bicultural whether or not it made sense of Canadian reality, whether or not the nation could afford it, whether or not it actually drew Canadians together. They would do so by making bilingualism and biculturalism part of the national creed and, by lifting it above politics, turn it into an expression of our collective public virtue.”.This meant that by 1967 the role of the federal government had changed significantly: “Henceforth that role was not simply to administer, but to create and shape and mould a national character and, above all, to pursue collective public virtue.” Canada would henceforth be on a different path..It was in this environment in which Pierre Trudeau entered politics and became prime minister in 1968. Even more than his predecessor, Trudeau wanted to substantially change the country of which he had become leader. .According to Bercuson and Cooper, there were two major components of Trudeau’s agenda: “First, he would make Canada the kind of place where Quebecers would feel at home anywhere. And second, he would make Canada, including the now comfortable and well-adjusted Quebecers, a just society. His tool would be the state.”.The bottom line of Trudeau’s major policy initiatives and pursuit of a “just society” all had one thing in common: “increased intervention by the state in the operation of the economy and in the daily lives of ordinary citizens.”.Trudeau came to power facing a major challenge from the growth of Quebec nationalism. Within a few years he was also faced with an energy crisis due to the rapid rise of oil prices resulting from war in the Middle East. After his come-back re-election victory of 1980, he decided to aggressively tackle both issues. .Bercuson and Cooper outline Trudeau’s goals as follows: “The logic was clear but never could be admitted: if Alberta’s energy revenues could be appropriated by Ottawa, and then redirected by it, the economy would hum; if the constitution could be changed, Quebec would be happy to remain in Canada. Even if it proved impossible to change the constitution, the ‘redirection’ of energy revenues as regional equalization payments held the promise of making Bourassa’s profitable federalism attractive.” The idea of “profitable federalism” was that Quebec should remain in Canada (rather than separate) because of the financial rewards it would receive..Trudeau pushed through his constitutional changes but they did not satisfy Quebec. Nevertheless, those changes — and especially the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — fundamentally altered Canada (for the worse, in my view). As federal Justice Minister John Crosbie said to a parliamentary committee in 1985: “The public does not realize that we already have had a revolution in Canadian society. The adoption of a charter was a revolution. It has changed the whole power structure of Canadian society.” This assertion would be confirmed by future judicial decisions..Besides his constitutional initiative, Trudeau unveiled his infamous National Energy Program (NEP). It was predicated on the belief that Alberta was benefiting too much from high oil prices. Why should a pipsqueak province like Alberta profit at the expense of Ontario and Quebec? .As Bercuson and Cooper explain, in the view of Trudeau and the Liberals, “it was not ‘fair’ that Alberta should collect so much revenue. The ultimate cause of this unfairness was the irrationality of nature in putting oil in Alberta in the first place. Surely it was now up to the rationality of EMR [Department of Energy, Mines and Resources] to set things right. More to the point, it was self-evident that Alberta could not be expected to use its new financial power in the interests of Canada. What made it self-evident was the undisputable fact that Albertans had shown their complete irresponsibility, not to say irrationality, by refusing to elect a single Liberal to the House of Commons.”.The NEP severely damaged Alberta’s oil and gas industry. It was later repealed by the government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. However, Mulroney’s government itself favoured Central Canada over the West. Both the federal Liberal and federal Progressive Conservative parties prioritized policies that benefited Central Canada because they needed to win large numbers of seats in Ontario and Quebec to form the government. Therefore, the West required its own party, and Preston Manning’s Reform Party filled that need..Despite the Reform Party’s best efforts, however, the West is still expendable to the Liberal Party and taken for granted by the Conservative Party. Again, a new Western party is needed to represent the West’s interests in the House of Commons. The Maverick Party’s prioritizing of “constitutional change” is understandable but somewhat naïve. A number of Western initiatives have been launched to reform the country over the last 40 years, and all have failed. Not an inch of progress has been made. This means that it’s time for the Maverick Party’s Plan B: “the creation of an independent nation.”.In an ideal world, a truly conservative federal government would be elected, allowing Alberta to develop its energy resources and export them through numerous pipelines and oil tankers along the BC coast. The limitations of so-called “progressive” policies could be overcome, and Canada would emerge as the freest and most prosperous country in the world. But this is just a pipe dream; the only realistic path to this kind of freedom and prosperity is an independent Western Canada, or at least an independent Alberta. .For over a century, Canada was a great and noble country, justly earning a deep patriotic attachment from Westerners. That was the country that so many in the West still remember and love. But alas, those days are over. Since the time of Pierre Trudeau, this has been a different country. Now, a new political path forward is needed. The time has come for an independent Western Canada..Michael Wagner is a columnist for the Western Standard. He has a PhD in political science from the University of Alberta. His books include ‘Alberta: Separatism Then and Now’ and ‘True Right: Genuine Conservative Leaders of Western Canada.’
