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Remedying Western Alienation

by David Kilgour

The subordination of the West over a century is shown by a multitude of disputes with governments in Ottawa:  struggles over the effects of high tariffs from 1878 to recent days; over discriminatory freight rates that encouraged manufacturing in Central Canada and commodity extraction in the West; over the treatment by Ottawa of provincial natural resources and Crown land in the three Prairie provinces from pioneer days until 1930 and beyond.  These are only three of the grievances that have become part of the Western political culture.

Regional alienation is not waning;  an Environics poll done at the end of 1988 indicated that fully 85 per cent of Western Canadians agreed with the statement "the west usually gets ignored in national politics because political parties depend on Québec and Ontario for most of their votes".

Many Westerners are convinced that through the decades federal policies and practices have transferred opportunities, jobs and people from their natural location in our region to Central Canada.  A consensus continues that the decision-making system, whichever political party is in power, consistently discriminates in visible and invisible ways against our region.

Consider the following:

• The National Energy Program obliged Westerners to sell oil at about half the world price in the interests of Central Canada's manufacturing industry.  Forgone revenues from Alberta alone totalled an estimated $60-billion.  

• The various federal departments spent $8.1-billion during fiscal 1986-87 on goods and services.  The four Western provinces with about 30 per cent of the national population received only 11.5 per cent of these procurements by total dollar amount.  Ontario and Québec received fully 76 per cent by the same measure and Atlantic Canada 7 per cent.  

• Regional development, federal procurement, and other programs have failed to spread the present economic boom into Western Canada.  Westerners, however, must pay the price in high interest because the Bank of Canada's interest policies are widely seen to be determined solely by what John Crowe thinks is needed within viewing distance of Toronto's CN Tower.

• The notorious CF-18 maintenance contract was awarded to Canadair of Montreal in 1986 despite a better and lower bid by Bristol Aerospace of Winnipeg.

• Only 5 out of 40 of Canada's biggest or best-known Crown corporations have their head offices in the West.  The rest are located in either Ottawa or Montreal.

• Only ten per cent of some 220 senior executives in 28 federal departments surveyed were born and educated in the West,  while those born and educated in either Ontario or Québec hold 70 per cent of the highest ranks of the civil service.

The list of inequities in short is long.

Things have been better since September, 1984.  The NEP and the Petroleum Gas Revenue Act were terminated. FIRA was defanged.  The plight of Western farmers was recognized by both Prime Minister Mulroney and his government's spending priorities; direct support of agriculture has increased by about 400 per cent since 1984.  The Western Diversification Program, though inadequate in its funding, was a small step in the right direction.  But much more is needed.

There are no one-shot remedies for the ongoing economic and other grievances of Western Canada but the status quo is clearly no longer acceptable.  For too long, the benefits of the "national policy" flowed to Central Canada, and the costs in substantive measure to Western Canadians.

For sustainable, long-term economic growth, our region needs more people to settle, start businesses and generally create new demands for services and products of all kinds.  Many who came west with our energy boom in the 1970s vanished during the 1987 recession when there were few other opportunities.  A coherent regional economic strategy is needed to ensure that when the next resource boom emerges, the young, vigorous and mobile attracted by opportunities will stay in the West and generate growth from within through increased regional manufacturing and other value-adding products and services.

The Western Diversification Program must become a much more effective link than now between our resource industries and a host of new technologies.  For example, Western Canada is well placed to play a major role in the development of neat hydrogen because of our abundance of natural gas.  A small Vancouver company, Ballard Technology, has developed a combustion-free energy cell which might well allow us to phase out some of the planet's present 500 or so million internal combustion engines which are literally killing our planet.  The fuel for the cell is also natural gas;  the waste product is water.

Fresh measures are also needed to offset the serious harm done to traditional family farms over a decade by drought and trade wars and now being worsened by the Bank of Canada's interest-rate policy.  New export markets will have to be found and old ones be penetrated more effectively.  Non-traditional crops and products will have to be encouraged throughout Western Canada.  Prairie water and soil management require fresh attention.  Above all, Ottawa will have to work more effectively with Westerners to provide a more enabling environment for producers who want to diversify into adding value to virtually any farm product.

Most Western Canadians live in big cities.  If the Progressive Conservative party wishes to regain seats lost in 1988 in Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Winnipeg, it must become the choice of Westerners of every cultural and occupational background.  Increased immigration, better economic opportunities, equal opportunity for Westerners in federal departments and Crown Corporations for once, more accessible education all would win the support of the more than one in two Westerners whose land of origin is neither Britain nor France.

Seven million westerners and northerners demand major changes in both institutions and attitudes in our nation's capital.  Yet the more we call for regional fairness for all, the more elusive this ideal seems to become.  Economic and political equality with Ontario and Québec still eludes the West even as the 20th century is rapidly disappearing.

Western issues rarely get to the top of the national agenda or become the centre of national debates.  For example, the Alberta senatorial campaign evoked mostly yawns in Central Canada.  Canada's first elected senator is still to be taken seriously;  indeed the whole issue of Senate reform must be recognized as a national issue of importance not only to Westerners but to all Canadian democrats.  The West initiated the momentum towards an elected Senate because we believe a reformed upper chamber would enhance the political/economic equlaity of all Canadians outside the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal triangle.

The Mulroney government must put its expressed good intentions fully into practice in all corners of the federal government and its agencies.  Some institutions (the CBC is a glaring example) will simply have to be forced to represent all of Canada's regions more fairly.  Any national government that really wants  more national unity in the 1990s must undertake this task, and undertake it quickly.  We need to change a multitude of discriminatory practices inherent in our "executive democracy".  To take a single example, we need to change the present party discipline that forces MPs of all parties to vote in blocks on virtually every matter that comes before the House of Commons.  This practice, now largely abandoned in Britain and other Commonwealth nations, has discriminated against the West and Atlantic Canada for decades.

What Canada as a whole really needs is the bold vision of a New National Policy.  Central to all must be the principle of fairness and equality of opportunity for the eight outer provinces generally which have worked so hard to strengthen the two inner ones often at the expense of their own unrealized potential.

Canada needs a more compassionate vision that will provide a sense of common purpose for Canadians in every part of the country in order to re‑energize a sense of unity that appears to be weakening.  Greater unity is essential for us to survive as one country and one nation.  Only a government with genuine respect for the outer regions of the country can inspire Canadians everywhere and make them feel fully equal partners in Confederation.

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