It’s remarkable how quickly Trudeau has eroded decades of effort to reassure Westerners about their place in Confederation
Despite the pressures of a struggling economy and the best efforts of numerous rivals to get under her skin, Rachel Notley has always managed to maintain the air of a fairly civil disposition as premier of Alberta. It was noteworthy, then, when she let loose Friday on Senators in Ottawa, who had decided to skip Alberta while holding hearings on an oil tanker bill that will have profound implications for the province.
Brian Mulroney ran against the NEP. Preston Manning founded a new party fed by the anger it helped produce. Stephen Harper’s status as a Calgarian — though admittedly a transplanted one — helped assure many that Western concerns would finally get reasonable consideration in the Ottawa bubble. Albertans finally felt mollified enough to elect four Liberals in 2015, the most in two decades. Chances of a repeat have to be considered slim.
Bill C-48, which would ban tankers carrying more than 12,500 tonnes of crude oil or other fuels from ports along B.C.’s north coast, is seen by many as aimed solely at Alberta. Martha Hall Findlay, a former Liberal MP and leadership candidate, noted there is no similar ban along any other stretch of Canadian coast where tankers travel, and suggested it is “in large measure, the work of an anti-oilsands lobby run amok.
Trudeau’s Liberals seem unable to grasp the perception of unfairness such blatantly discriminatory legislation produces.
A recent Environics survey found 57 per cent of residents in Saskatchewan and Alberta agreed that “Western Canada gets so few benefits from being part of Canada that they might as well go it on their own.”
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