Alberta has been disrespected for too long and needs a fair deal now - Financial Post

"Most Easterners do not appreciate how profoundly frustrated Albertans are about their poor treatment — so frustrated that deeply patriotic citizens are contemplating what should be unthinkable: separation from Canada.

The Laurentian elite downplays the risk and the severe, potentially existential damage Wexit would inflict on the country. For too long, Alberta has been treated as a cash cow, its enormous contribution to Confederation under-appreciated by a federal government hostile to its principal industry.

Albertans themselves have been disrespected by condescending Ontario and Quebec progressives who disdain their freedom-loving individualism and regard their occasional political influence as a regrettable aberration. ...

While the West has the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves and its fourth-largest production of natural gas, its energy industry is hurting badly, largely due to government policy. This is especially unjustifiable since Alberta is a world leader in ethically and environmentally responsible resource development. In the past 20 years, the oilsands has reduced its emissions per barrel by a third.

Unfortunately, unfairness is not confined to the feds. From 1961 to 2018, Quebec received 78 per cent of net federal fiscal transfers. Yet Quebec just posted a $4-billion surplus, while receiving $13 billion in equalization payments disproportionately generated by Alberta taxpayers, whose province is running a $6.7-billion deficit. Unsurprisingly, an Angus Reid poll found that Albertans are the most unhappy Canadians, with 71 per cent not approving of where the country is headed. Quebecers are the happiest, with 76 approving its direction.

Without evident embarrassment, Premier François Legault self-righteously blocked the Energy East pipeline because it would transport “dirty energy” across Quebec. But Western Canada supplied 44 per cent of his province’s oil in 2017, while Quebec purchases foreign crude shipped up the St. Lawrence River.

Then there is the B.C. government, which opposes Trans Mountain but whose largest export commodity is coal. Since coal usage emissions don’t count against Canada’s carbon bill, Justin Trudeau is silent about the hypocrisy."

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