November 13, 2024
Alberta needs a new deal, fast, or separation is inevitable
Alberta is Canada’s breadwinner, but is treated like a stepchild.
Alberta is Canada’s breadwinner, but is treated like a stepchild.

Alberta must adopt Quebec’s playbook and become a “nation” within a nation or threaten to leave. The ballot box does not work and Alberta is Canada’s breadwinner, but is treated like a stepchild.

Step one is for Alberta to demand the immediate construction of the TMX pipeline and the scrapping of Bills C-48 and C-69. No delays.

Then Alberta should stage a referendum before Christmas 2019 on opting out of, or revamping, Canada’s unjust equalization system. (Since 2010, Ottawa has taken an average of over $20 billion a year out of Alberta; Quebec receives $13 billion, or two-thirds of every dollar in the federal equalization program.) It’s a bribe to Quebec with Alberta money which is why Justin Trudeau recently extended the system to 2024 — an extension which should be nullified.

Some say such a referendum won’t force renegotiation, but it cannot be ignored either. Referenda have provided Quebec with leverage.

Then Alberta must take steps toward autonomy: Withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan, subsidized heavily by the province due to its high incomes and youthful demographics. Quebec did this in 1966. If Alberta withdrew, its workers and employers would pay half the CPP premiums they now pay and the rest of Canada would have to pay at least 10 per cent more. Alberta would then get tens of billions from its share of the $440-billion CPP fund to invest in new projects.

Alberta should, as Quebec did, take control from the federal government of all tax collection, border control, policing and immigration in return for lower taxes. It should serve notice to Ottawa that it is opting out of any new health and social programs, thus keeping the money in Alberta. (In 2015, the NDP proposed to let Quebec alone do this).

Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba should warn the Trudeau government that punitive carbon taxes on provinces unwilling to go along with their draconian climate change policy, won’t be obeyed. This is in their “national interest” and could cost as much as $35 billion a year, bankrupting many of western Canada’s industries and farms. Ontario’s too.

[Read It All]

See Also:

(1) Wexit group applies to become federal political party

(2) Killing pipelines will kill equalization. The left knows that, right?

(3) Saskatchewan granted intervener status in First Nations TMX project appeal

(4) New Senate bloc looking to protect ‘regional interests’ could hamper Trudeau’s efforts to pass legislation

(5) Few Western voices willing to help Trudeau in battle with Kenney

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