My Letter to Dr. Leon Craig

A letter I sent to the now infamous Dr. Leon Craig:

Dr. Craig: I suspect your e-mail is inundated with hate mail from the usual suspects but I had to attempt to express my delight with your frank statements of fact and willingness to discuss rationally a, now, viable political option for the west to seek the responsible governance it desires. My thanks for saying publicly what many of us have wanted to say for years but have failed to for fear of typical reactionary ostracization from the misplaced loyalties of our fellow citizens. Also, in times past independence minded people were denied access to the main stream media as a legitimate political opinion. That is a personal observation from a person who worked on Gord Kessler's WCC campaign and helped run Alberta independence candidates for the past 20 years in Alberta provincial elections. We were patronized with Socratic irony or satirized as bumpkins by national east-based media. Local media stopped their mocking when we elected candidates and local polls placed soft separation support at highs of 56%. Thank you for starting the ball rolling and ( hopefully) getting the independence option scholastically legitimized and out into the open market of ideas for rational public debate. My fear is that all the rational voices in this matter will be drown out ( as usual) by the shrill din of federal flacks sent to demonize/stigmatize one side of the debate.....as they have done with western politics, politicians and political movements.

There is really no option left to those of us wanting open accessible federalism since the institutions of federal government, news media and the courts have been co-opted by exclusive/privileged partisan patronage realpolitik. The west's political aspirations for a seat at that table has been relegated to improbabiliy by the Ottawa power-brokering cabal on that end and by our own higher western ethics on our end. Essentially the past 3 decades in federal politics has seen the Liberal party become less a party founded on solid ideals, vision and a public-first agenda as it has become a visionless, self-serving brokerage party that retains power to broker political patronag for the personal and organization benefit of the insiders of this political cartel. Confederal health and constitutional soundness of governance, let alone the west's pleas for democracy is not on their agenda.

Having lived in Alberta for the past 25 years then moving back to Ontario, being actively involved in politics in both jurisdictions, I can state unequivocally that there is an entrenched mindset in eastern Canadian culture, politics and business that reflexively marginalizes western politics, ideals and culture and wishes to actively dismiss or dominate over it. Simply, we are viewed as "different" and "not like real Canadians" ( Canadian being defined as Urban eastern secular statist liberal-left) and not to be trusted or allowed to have a hand in controlling the nation's public policy agenda. This attitude is rampant in the east and if not blurted out in political debate, then held to be a sacrosanct unspoken axiom.


The situation, as you have articulated, is in a Mexican stand off at the moment. The Quebec/Ottawa power elite is not budging on western demands for inclusion, an end to corrupt political agendas, renewed confederal equity and full accountable democracy in federal governing institutions. The west is being stone-walled by Ottawa but we still prosper in spite of Ottawa's best efforts to imperil our economy with regulation, taxation and hostile policy and our anger deepens with every passing day the Status Quo inequity exists......something's gotta snap soon! There has to be a flash point where the already smouldering independence fire surges to a full blown prairie fire. Alberta has a long history of deposing the old, and adopting new political parties and ideologies definitively and without much prior notice. My predication is that the spark needed to get the Alberta independence movement rolling is Harper's defeat in the next general election and his subsequent purging from the party by the eastern factions in the CPC. There are only so many times the west can be kicked in the teeth and denied a PM from the west. If we take it again after the next loss at getting the democratic reform agenda on the federal agenda, we MUST act alternatively and locally to cure the confederal injustice and democratic gulf with Ottawa....or else we will be mercilessly ravaged for our inaction.

Many westerners, and particularly Albertans, remember the whitewash of the Spicer commission, and numerous other Ottawa confederal unity info gathering tokenism, that NEVER resulted in the changes clearly delineated by the westerners ( myself included) who were asked. Politically astute Albertans have gone beyond frustration to being permanently cynical and suspect of Ottawa's agenda. Want to bet Minister Stronach will follow the same well established formula of asking Albertans what bothers them, getting the same answers as Spicer did, and doing the same thing as all other token theatrical Ottawa symbolism concerning western alienation: pay lip service to our calls for systemic democratic reform until in a majority then ignore it completely and return to the agenda to openly repress this western agenda.

The polling local media have done in independence-sympathetic markets/demographics within Alberta, reveal a deep seated resentment of Status-Quo Ottawa politics and public policy. A large portion of that loathing comes from the feeling of impotency to effect change democratically because of confederal and constitutional inequities in the electoral system. There is concerted rage over seeing contentious major public policy being made and enacted in a political vacuum in which western voices are ignored. When the independence option was offered as a possible legitimate option in this demographic, 76% on the media phone poll saw it as a viable solution for Alberta.

Dr. Craig, you just enunciate what we all know, deep down, has to happen for a portion of Canada to survive the ravages of corruption, confederal neglect and civilly disasterous ideas eminating from Ottawa. The west and Alberta must cut political ties to Ottawa to resolve the fundamental differences in culture and politics that exists between ourselves and the Ottawa culture which props up a failed Democracy. Western/Alberta independence from this kleptocratic confederacy can't happen soon enough for my liking.

Your's in freedom and independence,
WLM