The combative address Jason Kenney delivered in Red Deer on Saturday didn’t come out of the blue. This is a storm cloud that’s been hovering around Alberta for a very long time. Eventually it was going to erupt.
There have been plenty of precursors. From Pierre Trudeau’s first lunge at Alberta’s oil wealth almost 40 years ago via the National Energy Program, Albertans have kept a wary eye on Ottawa and its grabby revenue fingers. The distrust was there in Preston Manning’s creation of the Reform Party; again in the 2001 “firewall” letter signed by Stephen Harper and others; in “the West wants in” movement and in Rachel Notley’s discovery that electing a New Democrat premier wasn’t enough to break the fixed views and biases of “progressive” activists outside its borders, or to gain their assistance in achieving pragmatic goals.
Eventually a premier like Kenney was going to say enough is enough, and channel the frustration into a direct challenge to the ambivalence that leaves Albertans so often feeling they’re on their own within the federation.
“We’ve had it with Ottawa’s indifference to this adversity. Albertans have been working for Ottawa for too long, it’s time for Ottawa to start working for us,” Kenney said at the gathering, organized by the Manning Centre. While insisting he has no time for western separatism, he announced a panel tasked with accumulating ideas for “a fair deal for Alberta” to be sought from Ottawa. Their proposals won’t be binding, but you can bet they’ll represent a direct challenge to federal powers and a headache to a Liberal party that thinks it won “a clear mandate” by racking up seats in Ontario and Quebec while failing to win a single seat in Alberta or Saskatchewan.
[…]
See Also:
(1) Preston Manning: “Secession needs to be a part of the strategy, but not the whole strategy.”
(2) Kenney’s firewall measures a good start
(3) Former chair of Alberta ‘firewall’ committee weighs in on UCP-appointed ‘fair deal’ panel
(4) Kenney’s plan to get Alberta out from under Trudeau before he completely destroys it
(5) Alberta conscience-rights bill puts doctor objections to abortion, assisted dying, back in focus
