Alberta: Alternatives To Separation - Poletical

Published on Poletical.com by JB

Alberta: Alternatives To Separation

1. We need a federal Alberta Party

All this focus and false-hope pinned on a provincial government lead by a status-quo politician like Jason Kenney is futile. Alberta doesn’t need a Parti Québécois, what we need is a Bloc Québécois.

For those young ones out there, the Bloc was formed in the early 90’s when Quebec became fully disillusioned with Canada after the failure of the Meech Lake Accords. For more info check this link for the history. They put together a Quebec-based party to represent Quebec interests in the House of Commons. In their first contested election in 1993, they won 54 seats…and became official opposition!

The Bloc has been reviled throughout Canada, but Albertans need to really look at the success of having a self-interested party like the Bloc representing our interests in Ottawa.

Alberta almost uniformly votes Conservative in federal elections. This has allowed Alberta to be taken for granted by the Conservative party. When the Conservatives are out of power, they court Alberta for donations and with a message of “Get Rid of Those Pesky Liberals!” and when they’re in power they ignore Alberta and claim they are trying to create a more national base by pandering to Ontario and Quebec. Meanwhile, Alberta gets nothing.

Imagine if, instead, we had 34 seats with elected officials representing a federal Alberta Party. With 34 seats we could potentially hold the balance of power in minority situations. This would allow us to work more fully with either the Conservatives or the Liberals in promoting Alberta interests. It would also give Alberta a stronger voice and better focus in terms of self-interested policy making and getting more stuff from the federal government.

As it stands, Liberals hate Alberta precisely because the entire province is so devoted to the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party takes Alberta for granted precisely due to the devotion. Alberta is left rudderless and voiceless.

Let’s build a Bloc for Alberta.

2. Implement the Firewall Letter

In 2001 a bunch of prominent conservatives including Ted Morton and Stephen Harper published the infamous “Firewall Letter” in the National Post. It advocated stepping stones for Alberta autonomy. These include cutting the CRA out of tax collection, replacing the RCMP with a provincial police force, opting out of the Canada Pension Plan and starting a made-in-Alberta pension plan, more autonomy on healthcare and, of course, that old wankfest known as “Senate reform”.

Other than Senate reform, Albertans should be advocating all these policies. Jason Kenny should leverage the Firewall letter as much as he can. This would set the stage for a stronger case for Alberta independence.

read full article here.