Opinion: The West needs reform from, and in, Ottawa

An electronic billboard ad calls for an independent Alberta in Edmonton. Photo by Ian Kucerak/Postmedia

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This Canada Day, Alberta and Saskatchewan will be celebrating their 120th anniversaries as provinces. But for the many, many westerners who are disappointed with Confederation, the celebrations will be muted. Alberta and Saskatchewan polls show that at least 30 per cent express support or interest in separation. In a provincial byelection in rural Alberta this week, two separatist parties won 19 per cent of the vote. Now, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has announced a panel to examine greater autonomy and possible referendum questions, including separation.

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In Alberta in particular, the depth of anger toward Ottawa is shocking. Most people do not want to separate but a majority share a deep disappointment with Confederation. For many Albertans, the Liberal party rising from the ashes to defeat the Conservatives in this spring’s federal election was the last straw.

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The problem is not just grievance. It’s much deeper than that: powerlessness. These days everyone opposes colonialism, the practice of extending and maintaining one nation’s political and economic control over another people. It’s almost universally condemned for the scars it left on societies around the world. But even as we decry the colonial practices of the 18th and 19th centuries, we are curiously blind to a living, breathing form of colonialism that quietly persists within Canada — one that keeps not just Alberta but all of Western Canada firmly in the grip of Central Canada.

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Unlike Australia and the United States, Canada did not create a bicameral legislature with one body reflecting equal regional representation and the other population size. Instead, a weak unelected Senate appointed by the party in power would draw representatives unequally from the provinces. In the one-person-one-vote House of Commons, Central Canada dominates. In the Senate, long-sought reforms to give the West a fairer voice remain a pipe dream.

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Cabinet appointments provide a form of regional representation but cabinet is much less influential as power has become centralized in the Prime Minister’s Office. As things stand, only the provinces can best represent regional interests, but they have limited constitutional powers. When it comes to federal policies, therefore, the West often feels powerless.

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For a time, there was the possibility that what are now Alberta and Saskatchewan would be just one province, but Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier rejected the idea for fear it would become too powerful. It was not until 1930 that western provinces were given ownership over land and resources with similar rights as the other provinces. Even today, however, ownership and control of natural resources remain in dispute, with federal taxes and environmental policies harming resource development.

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In the early 1980s, the national energy program demonstrated westerners’ inability to stop federal policies designed to transfer immense wealth from their resource-based economies to Central-Canadian energy consumers.