Part II: the Separatist Campaign has begun

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Yes, this picture is cut from the world rat map. Alberta is a place where we constantly strive for success, not throw our hands up in defeat. This is just one visual of how our commitment to finding real solutions has paid off.

This is the second part of what I’m optimistically hoping will be a three-part series on one event with some “expert” separatist speakers (Part I). Originally, my goal was just to listen to broaden my own understanding. I soon realized that much of these claims are not new, and anyone seeking to create an anti-separatist campaign would benefit from knowing what the other side is saying.

Much of these “arguments” are half-truths, or wildly exaggerated, but foundational to Alberta’s anti-Ottawa position. The grudge we hold is based on views of the east and west of Canada going back as far as John A. MacDonald, though most of it centres around Pierre Trudeau.

In a random sample of one, I asked my mother if she recalled the phrase “screw the west, we’ll take the rest”. She did, and she attributed it to Pierre Trudeau. It wasn’t, and she was surprised to hear where it came from. I don’t expect to change my province, but understanding where a lot of the myths come from helps me understand how we got here.

Dr. Michael Wagner, Western Standard columnist

Dr. Wagner’s contribution was also heavily reliant upon the historical grievances against Pierre Trudeau, but began instead with “shoving French down our throats”. He mentioned the export tax on oil to the U.S., claiming that tax should have benefited Albertans only — not that our provincial governments would ever do it; see: Danielle Smith. He also mentions that the Prime Minister artificially depressed prices within Canada, further eroding Alberta’s income potential.

It’s not without irony that Peter Lougheed refused to consider selling oil at a discount to the rest of the country but happily signed off on doing so to benefit a foreign nation.

He refers to the language in the U.S. Declaration of Independence where it states that the colonies wanted to be independent from Britain due to “a long train of abuses.” The same exists, he says, for Alberta, by the Canadian government. Dr. Wagner says that the sale of Rupert’s Land by the Hudson’s Bay Company to the British Crown, which gave it to Canada should have happened under consultation with the people who were here already. He’s certainly not the, ahem, First Person to say so.

Going through the political history of the province, Dr. Wagner says Alberta often sought new political parties, such as United Farmers of Alberta, which began as a lobby group for farmers and hesitated to give up their non-partisan status. They were also a very progressive group which supported women’s suffrage, and gave their membership voting rights before provincial and federal governments. Obviously, he didn’t spend much time on that one, shifting quickly to the electoral success of Social Credit.

“While other provinces whined about the depression, Alberta acted. We would not acquiesce in the misery we felt and saw around us. We would fight, we would rebel, if anything is characteristic of this province, it’s that spirit of defiance. Push us far enough and we will strike back. That is our record and that is our reputation,” Dr. Wagner said, quoting Alberta Report founder Ted Byfield on Social Credit’s election.

Perhaps what Social Credit is best known for was, as the separatists today, just making shit up. Specifically, “free money” in an attempt to pretend there wasn’t a depression outside of its borders. The problem was that the province didn’t have any money to give people in 1935, so they introduced pretend money called “Prosperity Certificates” that lost value if not “spent”. One of their made up ideas did work: the Crown Corporation known as Alberta Treasury Branch (they did have to use real money, however).

Dr. Wagner employs similar tactics as the previous speakers, which relies on “knowing” things would have gone better for Alberta if the past was different.

“In 1979 when Joe Clark was elected with a minority government, it was expected that he would do better for Alberta than Trudeau, and he would have but his government fell after just a few short months,” he fantasized.

“The election in 1980 was very significant because during this campaign, the Trudeau Liberals made it clear that they would favour the eastern provinces over the western provinces on energy issues in particular. Keith Davey, a liberal activist made the famous statement describing this election, ‘screw the west, we’ll take the rest.’”

Now, Mr. Davey, at the time, was a senator, and an organizer in his home riding. Mr. Davey held the position of “campaign organizer” within the Liberal party during the 60’s. It would be like grabbing something NDP organizer Scott said during the 2015 election, or PC organizer Denise said in 2008, and attributing their comments to their respective governments. Who? You might ask. Yes. While Mr. Davey was an influential organizer for the Liberal party in the 60’s, he was not an official advisor to government, nor did he represent the government. But it pissed off Albertans, and conservatives who love to get a rise out of us, so it is still used to provoke today.

While I cannot find the original statement, since we’re just making things up, I imagine it was in response to a question from a grumbly conservative newspaper columnist, like say, Rick Bell, making a dig about the leader’s unpopularity in the west. I’ve rattled off some zingers in my time in response to people trying to get at me and I can totally see this being the case. Like Dr. Wagner, however, I don’t actually know for sure.

“The idea of running a campaign by attacking one particular region was new and extremely divisive (unlike this drivel, obviously), Canada’s a large country with many competing regions, so, one of the purposes of a national government is to try and accommodate differences and try to create national unity. But here, we had a federal political party, under Pierre Trudeau, deliberately exploiting regional divisions for political benefit.”

“Pierre Trudeau was telling central Canadians that Alberta was the bad guy, and that he would put Alberta in its place.”

Q.E. Squirrel gets from a guy running a local campaign in an Ontario riding to Pierre Trudeau saying “Alberta was the bad guy”. It’s a wild ride, friends.

“A lot of the divisions in Canada trace back to Pierre Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada deliberately, deliberately, deliberately, enhancing regional divisions for political benefit.”

This is what opposition to separation and/or anti-Ottawa/Liberal sentiment has always been up against; logical fallacies, inconsistencies, and outright falsehoods.

“Many people were hurt by the (National Energy Program),” he said. “People will come up to me and say ‘my dad lost his job at that time,’ or ‘my parents lost their houses’… it was deliberate government policy to hurt Alberta.”

Yes, there was a recession, but not because of the NEP (although the myth is impervious to fact fifty years later, I’m not going to stop trying); it was because of a global oil price downturn caused by oversupply (and Saudi Arabia will be adding 400,000 bpd to the market in June, so hold onto your hats, Alberta, prices will be going down for the foreseeable future).

That recession, Dr. Wagner said, is why he calls Pierre Trudeau “the father of Alberta separation.”

I do want to point out that while this is a lot of nutty in one space, this is what many in this province believe. Stephen Harper claimed that he began to engage in politics because Trudeau’s NEP caused the 1980’s recession in Alberta; but it was just the story they used to get him on their team.

If you really want to know what the distinct culture of Alberta is, it’s that kind of garbage. It’s part of our heritage, apparently, to believe in bogeymen — and they’re all Liberals mwahahahaha.

“In 1986, when we bought the F-18s, Brian Mulroney put out a tender for who would maintain them,” he said. “Winnipeg met all the requirements so Mulroney awarded the contract to Montreal.”

Sort of.

The government awarded the $75.9 million contract to a consortium of Canadair Ltd., CAE Electronics Ltd. of Montreal and Northwest Industries of Edmonton, Alberta, even though the bid submitted by Bristol Aerospace (owned by Rolls Royce) of Winnipeg and Litton Systems Canada Ltd. of Toronto (a Crown corporation) was technically superior and cheaper. (Emphasis mine)

Canada passes over foreign bidder, UPI, October 31, 1986

A reminder that this person earned a doctorate and calls himself an “independent researcher” which seems to be code for not knowing jack.

The expectations of those with blue signs and red signs differ greatly. Stephen Harper, shielded by his blue sign, was “trusted to have the interests of the west at heart” because he came from the Reform side of the merged Conservative Party of Canada. Therefore, it doesn’t matter that they refused to use political capital to get pipelines built.

“No particular project is in the national interest,” then Employment Minister Jason Kenney said of the proposed projects building west through British Columbia in 2014. There was, however, much pressure on Justin Trudeau to make them happen, and crickets when the project finally got through the approval hoops with consultation in B.C. communities.

“There is a peaceful, constitutional, and legal pathway for every province in Canada to pursue independence, and this is very different than other countries because most don’t allow that kind of thing to take place,” Dr. Wagner concluded.

Almost like Canada is not really the freedom-crushing dictatorship some would like to make it out to be.

“We must learn from history. If Preston Manning and the Reform Party could not get a Triple-E senate, and otherwise reform Canada’s political system, then it cannot be done.”

Well, Preston Manning and the Reform Party couldn’t do it, obviously, but I’ve argued before that it’s because they overstepped their own proposition; they failed because their goals (form government) were at odds with their mandate (represent the west).

A western bloc would be just as powerful as Quebec if it realized that its power lie in its willingness to represent the west and not settle in opposition to the government (which would likely never manage to be a conservative one). Instead of being oppositional, they would have to work with government to negotiate agreements, and work cooperatively in order to get their agenda onto that of the government’s. Unfortunately, we tend to send the angriest, obstinate, and power-hungry who put their own ambitions above those who elected them.

Vince Byfield, son of Ted Byfield

Ironically, Mr. Byfield began with a joke about “blame placement”. If the audience was bored stiff by his speech, he said, blame S. Todd Beasley because he organized this event. If the audience got angry and decided that Mr. Byfield “doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground,” blame Todd. If the reverse happened, however, and they love this part, “don’t thank me; definitely don’t thank Todd — thank God.”

If ever there were a more perfect anecdote to encapsulate the basis of Alberta grievance it is that. If you don’t like something I’m doing, blame someone else, and if you do like it, give the credit to someone completely uninvolved. As I said; perfect.

He began with a quote from his father, in response to the Firewall Letter.

“If Mr. Harper thinks that Alberta can merely proceed to excercize the same autonomy that Quebec now does, he is dreaming. Quebec is a special case. It is, we are told ‘distinct’. What makes it special? Its language? Its cultural heritage? Yes, but it has always had those and nobody outside Quebec gave a damn. Such autonomy as Quebec possesses was achieved in just one way; it made convincing threats to leave. The lesson is plain, if you really want change, you must threaten to leave, and mean it. Period. If we fail to understand this, we are not being patriotic, we are being stupid. Crassly, arrogantly, blindly, stupid.”

Mr. Byfield then quoted from the Firewall Letter, written in 2001, noting that the key signatory for it was Stephen Harper. Ralph Klein agreed with some of the recommendations, saying that Alberta was not the obstacle but Ottawa. Stephen Harper, he notes, then went on to become Prime Minister “the most powerful office in the land”. Alberta, of course, continued to be led by conservatives during his tenure.

“Now, here we are, 24 years later, and not one single objective achieved,” Mr. Byfield says.

I’ll interject here because Doug Griffiths, MLA for Battle-River-Wainwright, under the Premier Ralph Klein, formed a task force to investigate implementing the recommendations in the Firewall Letter, namely; a provincial police force, Alberta Pension Plan, and tax collection.

Long story short, each of these things would cost Alberta more money. The government of the day, knowing Albertans to be unwaveringly tax-averse, could not see how these plans could be implemented without raising taxes to duplicate services that our federal tax dollars already pay for. I had a conversation with Mr. Griffiths, Dr. Melanee Thomas, and Dr. Herb Emery in 2020 to talk about Jason Kenney’s Fair Deal Panel, which was, yet again, on the same subject.

Albertans are not just tax-averse at home, however, but especially when it comes to federal tax. As I mentioned in yesterday’s column, we constantly point at Quebec but wouldn’t dream of pointing out how our provincial dollars are spent equalizing public services here; because there would be more fingers pointing back at those who complain the loudest.

Mr. Byfield next quotes the Fraser Institute’s running tabulator of how much federal tax Albertans pay. It’s so rough having so many people making good money in our province. If only we could go back to the good old days when Alberta was a “have-not province”… I digress.

“Earlier in 2019, then-Premier Jason Kenney stated that between 1961 and 2019, Alberta’s net contribution was $622 billion, which worked out to $3,334 annually, per person, in 2019 dollars. For a family of four, that’s $13,000 more given, than received, every single year, for almost 50 years,” Mr. Byfield said.

$13,000 a year more. “Every family”. I mean, in 1980, my mom made $5 an hour as a heavy duty partsman (she was just a woman, after all) and that’s $3,000 more than she made in a year. But sure, let’s pretend this applies equally to all Albertans, and their families, and that somehow the people who had the big tax bills would have been mollified if that money was benefiting my family instead. Please. If it wasn’t for Albertans who make less than the provincial average constantly demanding to pay less tax, the province might have been able to pay for its operational spending without dipping into the Heritage Fund for decades.

Instead, they rile up the little guys with their giant numbers — spoiler; the little guys didn’t pay billions more than what they had available. That’s the fix that’s really in.

“To his credit, Jason Kenney initiated a referendum on (equalization). Not surprisingly, a majority of Albertans voted to have this ‘equalization’ program stopped. It’s now four years later. We’re still paying it — even though we voted against it.”

Conflation. How successful does anyone actually think a referendum in Calgary to stop provincial equalization would be? Honestly. They could have one, and even if a majority of Calgarians voted against their property tax dollars being used to subsidize areas that don’t have the capacity to increase tax revenue, it wouldn’t work. It’s not up to them to dictate how another level of government spends their tax dollars. They can certainly go through the motions of pissing and moaning about it, if they so chose, though.

“That, my friends, is called ‘taxation without representation’,” Mr. Byfield asserts. “It’s also called ‘theft’.” Eyeroll.

“A few years before he died, my father said to me ‘what happens if a man comes into our home and steals $10,000? He goes to jail, if he’s caught. Now what happens if the federal government does it, to every home in the province? They get re-elected.’”

Or the municipal government, or the provincial government, taking your property tax, even. That’s like, taking it right from right under your feet.

“In Dad’s response to the Firewall Letter, he described three possible solutions; the first is a ‘fixed Canada’ where every province is truly equal and have complete control over their resources, and every province is as autonomous as possible (like… provincial jurisdiction? For each province? With the ability to regulate and legislate industry in their own provinces? Nah. haha.)”

“The second solution, Dad said, is for Alberta to become an independent nation. This nation would no longer have to fork out tens of thousands to a government that gave very little back. But that nation would be land-locked and would be dependent on its neighbours to get coastal access to get resources to world markets. I will confess to you that Dad never really liked this option. He had lived through WWII and knew people who had died to defend Canada. The thought of Canada falling apart on his watch, I think, depressed him.”

Mr. Byfield then says that in his final years his father began to get “excited” by potentially joining the U.S.. Inexplicably, he suggests that the U.S. political system somehow does better at addressing regional differences than the Westminster Parliamentary system. If you mean that the wealthier areas vote democrat and the poor areas vote republican, I guess? Though I doubt he’s suggesting that Alberta vote democrat.

He also brings up the myth that Alberta is the only engine in the country, which again speaks to how small the view is. We’re far wealthier than Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, sure, but Ontario has always been a powerhouse in its own right and Quebec, after decades of rebuilding investor and business confidence has slowly inched its way back up as well — and they did it with people power, which will outlast a finite global commodity that isn’t exceptional to Alberta, but merely allows us to play in the margins of the global players because we opted for a single market.

In conclusion, he likens Alberta to an abused spouse where “not too many talk about the abuser”. Yes, they do believe this.

“The abuser is themselves suffering. As Christians, we need to consider why. It’s usually because alcohol, or drugs, or another woman. And when the abused tries to fix things, there’s anger. And we see this from Ontario and Quebec. We saw this with President Trump when he was talking to Justin Trudeau. Trudeau said that if Trump took away ‘the subsides’, the nation would fail.”

That didn’t happen because the U.S. buying goods from Canada is not a subsidy, it’s called an exchange of money for goods.

Social Credit and Progressive Conservatives differed because the former never had a deficit; the latter, he says, “played fast and loose with debt.” Or, they used taxes to ensure they could fund budget of the government of the day, while Progressive Conservatives sent us on a spiral of cutting taxes and trying to maintain spending.

He did give Ralph Klein credit for paying down the debt but these guys never remind us how; he rode the highest natural gas royalties in the province’s history while increasing corporate taxes, and added surcharges to every Albertan’s tax bill.

Fun fact: Alberta once had a sales tax, under a Social Credit government (because the province was broke.

Mr. Byfield recommends, in a soft voice, that we just have these conversations with our loved ones. The “freedom” landlocking our province or becoming a second-class citizen — of a foreign nation that believes they are the best in the world — will provide, is, after listening to him, still not well-defined.

There is a concerted effort to get Albertans to give up on Canada, certainly, but for what, they’ve not yet made the argument, in my opinion.

Two speakers remain, join me for Part Three tomorrow.

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