The woe of Alberta conservatives

My eyes; how they roll.

338Canada.com

As Liberal fortunes rise, the long-faded promise of Preston Manning has entered the chat.

I’m sure I voted for a Reform candidate once. After learning about them in grade eight social studies, I was completely in agreement with the party’s leader who was going to take all of our frustration to Ottawa and get us the representation we deserved.

By the time I was old enough to vote, in the 1997 election, Reform had taken hold of the west.

I went with my Na to vote that year and I remember asking her who she was voting for. She told me to mind my own business. With that most helpful advice, I’m pretty sure I voted Reform because it was the only party I had ever been excited about — even if I hadn’t thought about them since.

With Alberta Premier Danielle Smith threatening national unity if Canadians don’t elect a guy whose resume is shorter than my 18-year old’s, and the conservative columnists warn that doing something different would be far worse than repeating the same old thing that has kept a generation or two of Albertans pissing and moaning, why wouldn’t we also resurrect the memory of that failed experiment that was “Reform”?

No blessings to be found

To hear conservative thought-havers say it, one would almost think Alberta hadn’t sent a representative to Ottawa since. They’d certainly never guess there was a conservative government in power for almost ten years who refused to spend an ounce of political capital in return for that dogged allegiance.

As many have said, conservatives don’t have to pander to Alberta because we won’t vote for anyone else, and no one else will waste time trying to win votes in Alberta for the same reason. We’re still pouting over that time Pierre Trudeau wanted us to sell oil to the rest of Canada for less than market rates.

We got back at him and the rest of the country by selling our oil to the U.S. for less than market rates. Yes, we did.

Mr. Manning’s assertion that western alienation is on the rise is supported by polling that bears proof of decades of demoralizing conservative leadership, but it made me wonder; would we have been better off with that Western Bloc?

I’ll admit that I think Yves Francois Blanchet is an amazing politician but maybe he just makes it look easy.

The Bloc Quebecois exists to represent Quebec’s interests and nothing more. They have no interest in branching out beyond their provincial borders and Quebeckers are perfectly fine with that.

Reform grew out of the same opportunity — to represent “the west” in Ottawa but then they got greedy. Representation wasn’t enough; they wanted power.

They politicked, made backroom deals, and then swallowed up the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada that had formed government fewer times than the “natural governing party of Canada” but had, at least, managed to form government.

Parties merge, and re-emerge, and while the Conservative Party of Canada was in government, under the leadership of Stephen Harper, they kept a tight lid on the less-than-stellar views of many of their representatives. They learned from Reform’s inability to appeal to Ontario and Quebec.

The lid came off during the 2015 election, however.

Or maybe it was just that Canadians were again ready for a change.

That time in opposition, however, changed their tactics. Harper became more vocal about party purity, despite the fact that his party had merged with a Progressive Conservative party. In particular, Mr. Harper said those whose ideology lay in the centre, or centre left — a comfortable, and reasonable, fit within a Progressive Conservative party — had no business being part of a “conservative” party.

He said that in 2018 but it made sense. They’re conservative and they want nothing to do with the rest of us — we’re not welcome.

Ideologically, I probably didn’t “fit” with Reform either, but back then it was supposedly inclusive of Albertans, and at least I could see myself as having a place — being welcome — in that.

However, they were also claiming they would be the representatives in Ottawa that “the west” wanted. Those representatives, though? They wanted power.

We keep saying we want privileges like Quebec; but we don’t act like it

The Bloc works because they know their place. They have no designs on governing the entire country because to do so would mean they might have to compromise and that’s not why they were elected.

Opposition is a pretty sweet gig — you can make the best promises, demand the most benefits and the least spending, all while never having to deal with the consequences because you never get to actually get to make a decision. If the governing party takes your suggestion and it is good, you win. If it’s a failure, you can “hold them to account” and, you win.

Quebeckers are also privileged enough to have options. If they want to sit back in opposition, they can vote for the Bloc and they know the Bloc will represent them full-heartedly. If they want to be part of government, they can switch their vote and be part of government.

However, Quebeckers also have power over their leaders rather than their provincial government, newspaper columnists, and conservative gangsters in black cowboy hats holding them captive.

Ralph Klein famously ignored Edmonton after the city didn’t elect a single Progressive Conservative, and Edmontonians, over the next few elections gave in to the pressure.

*looks around sheepishly*

Quebeckers would never — their representatives work for them, not the other way around. If anything, whomever dared ignore a constituency in Quebec would find themselves out of government and probably never get themselves elected again.

Albertans often wonder why Quebec gets treated “better” and the answer is simple — they have no problem punishing a representative who doesn’t do the job they were elected to do. In Alberta, we get no representation because we elect blue signs and they’re about as useful as a sign could be representing us in Ottawa.

Maybe this year we’ll decide to make a change.

Or maybe we’ll decide that the same message we send to Ottawa every election is worth sending again because maybe this time it will be different.

All I can say for sure is that the powers that be in Alberta (not the voters, obviously) have decided they’re going to use us to punish the rest of Canada if their guy doesn’t win the election. They’re going to make it harder on the next Prime Minister if he didn’t get in with a blue sign.

They’re ready to use us as shields while they throw rocks at our country, like they always do when there’s a liberal government.

Quebec sees what’s happening across the country and they’re making sure they have representatives in government.

Alberta will never get the same privileges unless we stop sending people to pout in the corner on our behalf. If we want change from Ottawa, we’re going to have send a representative instead of a message.

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