Addendum to: Western Alienation 101

Our friend Candice over at waking up on planet X has created a stir with her multi-media trilogy of western alienation. An admirable attempt at enumerating the milestones in Ottawa's record of alienating the west which will ultimately result in the dissolution of confederation.

There was, however, one milestone...a pinnacle moment where the west confronted Ottawa with demands for an end to their historic second class confederal status. It was a moment which defined the direction of modern Western ideals and politics...and was symbolic of the arrogance and monolithic obtusiveness of the Federal Liberal illuminati.

The event I refer to was the 1973 Western Economic Opportunities Conference

One of the most important "clips" Candice could have shown to flesh out the trilogy of federal belligerence and the expansion of western alienation would have been a recording of the meeting of the western Premiers and PET at the monumental Federal-provincial failure of the WEOC held in Calgary in 1973.

Dubbed the “Western Economic Opportunities Conference” (WEOC) meetings. It was a milestone in the degenerative evolution of western Canada’s relationship with the federal government…...but you won't find clips readily available (if any), even though it was televised, it was an obvious federal bribe of the western premiers which failed...good Liberal historical revisionists have probably hidden these tapes deep in the vaults and hope they never see light again...for good reason…no Fed-Lib flunky wants to remember the day PET and Liberal welfare state nepotism were sent packing by a united western leadership.

Pierre Trudeau came west in 1973 fresh from a massive electoral loss in the west and now planning to showcase the federal government’s “assistance to the West” but was met by solidarity among western premiers determined to address longstanding confederal/constitutional grievances and force the federal government to dramatically change its policies toward the region. The Western “opportunities?” meeting was a crass political "deal" which PET and Ottawa hammered together to approximate the Atlantic Opportunities pact....we all know what that was......regional Fed payola trough in exchange for expanding Fed powers/taxation in the region...essentially the pact made Atlantic Canada a perennial economic basket case and reliant federal welfare client. The western primers unanimously declined this Liberal “olive branch” offer of welfare state second-class serfdom.

Dave Barrett of BC, Peter Lougheed from Alberta, Allan Blakeney of Saskatchewan, and Edward Schreyer from Manitoba were wary of Pet’s bribe...they all had developing resource industries with massive revenue potential and they had to decide if taking some short term revenues from the Feds in exchange for allowing the feds into control and tax in their jurisdictions would deplete the provinces of full resource-based prosperity down the road.... much like the feds destroyed the Atlantic economy with their resource grab/mismanagement. They decided against the cheap bribe and focused of trying to resolve regional economic irritations like the Crow rate and federal wheat marketing monopoly.

By the end of the conference, a frustrated Pierre Trudeau banged the gavel and announced the end to the “one and only” Western Economic Opportunities Conference. With this symbolic gesture, Trudeau concluded a conference that failed to meet the federal government’s goal of spreading its welfare statist message and buying western voters. The western leadership snubbing Trudeau’s dirty little deal put his nose out of joint and his pettiness and ego planned revenge against these western upstarts who has the insubordinate insolence to think they were equals to the eastern illuminati.

From the West’s perspective, this signaled a 32 year ideological vendetta the Fed-Libs ran against the west….this has actually escalated to economic malice with the National wheat board, NEP, Kyoto, nepotistic revenue transfer formulas etc.

However, more importantly to the modern west’s evolution, this conference signaled several things that remain at the core of politics in today’s west:

1) The failure of PET to address western concerns in the WEOC precipitated the first meeting of the now annual western premier’s conference. The west now had the prototype of a regional political block.

2) It enunciated a profound western hunger for change to Status quo Federalism as practiced by Ottawa.

3) It was another monumental snub by the arrogant PET and Fed-Libs towards the west which spawned an atmosphere of self reliance in isolation within the western region. Our isolation has made us stringer and more independent.

4) The WEOC failure represents a dire need for politicians and citizens alike to endeavor to break the pattern of dysfunctional, often hostile, federal-provincial relations that has burdened the less populous regions of the country for the last 32 years.

At the conference, these prototype western leaders enunciated for the first time the representational void within the federal system which sits at the core of today’s so-called “western alienation” …these were; ineffectual regionally disproportionate senate, obtuse party discipline, undemocratic appointment powers and non-linear application of constitutional jurisdiction. These were the core issues of Reform, CA and now CPC…these are the key complaints of the Alberta separation movement….we need not spend $millions$ to have Patronage minister Stronach investigate “western alienation”…the key contentions were amply expressed in Trudeau’s 1973 western conference and these issues remain unchanged, unresolved irritants of the west to this day.

The solution to the problem had always been so easy to see and cure......you can't bribe the west and you can't threaten them...it will take democratic confederal renewal to cure this issue....and Liberals simply won't do this beacuse their brand of federalism revolves around bribes, dependency and coercion.