Westerners want change and we want it now
Allan M.R. MacRae, Calgary Herald

Thu 24 Apr 2003

The big news in the East last week was the landslide defeat of the Parti Quebecois. In the West, we all know nothing will change except the name of the Quebec premier who demands more than his fair share from the rest of Canada.

Outrageous, you say? Consider this: Since 1961, the federal government has confiscated more than $250,000 in transfer payments from every Alberta family and used it to buy votes in the rest of Canada. The vast majority of this money went to prop up Liberal support in Quebec, which received more than $200 billion. Quebec used this money to support its economy while it flirted with separation, made ever more unreasonable demands on the rest of Canada, and complained that it was badly treated and misunderstood.

The big news in the West, meanwhile, is that long-suffering Albertans are fed up with this one-sided Canadian "con"-federation. A poll commissioned by the Canada West Foundation, released Wednesday, shows 71 per cent of westerners believe their interests are represented poorly at the national level, and six of 10 westerners feel they get no respect from the rest of Canada. As well, a recent poll by Alberta's JMCK Communications for the Alberta Residents League found that 16 per cent of Albertans want to separate from Canada and a further 44 per cent want to see Alberta take back its constitutional powers. Fully 60 per cent of Albertans want stronger powers for our province.

The Alberta Residents League was established by chairman Pat Beauchamp as an advocacy group to pressure Alberta politicians to make the following changes, while keeping Alberta within Canada:
1. Withdraw from the bankrupt Canada Pension Plan and establish an Alberta pension plan. Quebec already has its own pension plan that is fully funded, unlike the federal plan.
2. Collect our own personal income taxes, as Quebec does now.
3. Create our own provincial police force, as Quebec and Ontario have.
4. Resume provincial authority for health care -- the feds only fund about 15 per cent of our health costs, but insist on making all the rules, stifling innovation and driving up costs.

These are changes that Alberta could initiate immediately, since they are within our existing powers. The ARL's further objectives include using the West's economic strength to push for Senate reform, and a reduction in punitive transfer payments that have cost each Alberta family more than a quarter of a million dollars over the past 42 years.

Such equalization payments have been portrayed as providing help to the less fortunate parts of Canada -- to provide a hand up to those in need. Instead, our generosity has been used as a hand-out to buy Liberal votes in poorer regions, to pay for welfare programs that keep people dependent, and to bail out a Quebec economy that has been damaged by threats of separation.

Albertans have been the unwilling enablers of dysfunctional, welfare-dependent eastern economies and Quebec separatism. We have also been portrayed as ignorant rednecks by eastern opinion-spinners -- it's more politically correct to steal from us if they first marginalize us as racists and bigots.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I want my share of this money back right now, with interest. I also want to renounce my share of the national debt, since as an Albertan I did not contribute to it. No chance -- the money's gone.

Those of us who want to keep Canada together are still the majority in Alberta, but there is a growing and increasingly powerful group opting for outright separation. You can hardly blame them, given the outrageous, dictatorial behaviour of our prime minister and his cabal of Liberal cronies.

Successive Alberta governments have been asleep at the controls, and have allowed Alberta to be pillaged by the federal government. However, there is now a powerful groundswell of groups who are demanding major changes in the rules of the Canadian game. Ralph Klein and his Alberta PCs had better wake up and initiate these much-needed changes. If not, they will be yesterday's news -- Albertans have had enough, and we are not going to take it anymore.

Allan M. R. MacRae is a professional engineer and investment banker. Born and raised in Quebec, he has lived in Alberta since 1977.