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Introduction
This
book is a call for full
political, economic and
cultural equality for Western
Canadians within Confederation.
It is a product of long
observation. I have had
the good fortune to know
many Westerners and their
communities, from Lake of
the Woods on the Manitoba-Ontario
boundary to Pacific Rim
National Park on the west
coast of Vancouver Island
to Yellowknife, Northwest
Territories. Hunting ducks,
my father and I trudged
through hundreds of marshes
and barley fields, and we
sat in farm kitchens across
Manitoba and Saskatchewan
many fall weekends during
the 1950s.
My
roots in prairie Canada
were later extended by a
period as Crown Attorney
for Dauphin Judicial District
in western Manitoba. In
Alberta during the 1970s,
court work took me from
Fort Chipewyan near the
sixtieth parallel (population
1,000, and essentially what
it had been in 1800 -- the
local Hudson’s Bay Company
store manager still a recruit
from the Scottish Hebrides)
to Pincher Creek in the
most southerly ranching
region. Earlier, in British
Columbia, I was a part-time
residence master at St.
George’s school in Point
Grey, and an assistant Vancouver
City Prosecutor, travelled
by canoe down the gorge
of Vancouver Island’s Nitinat
Lake to the Pacific Ocean,
galloped a horse at low
tide along Spanish Banks
near the University of British
Columbia, and ran for Parliament
in 1968 in the Vancouver
Centre constituency.
At
the University of Toronto
law school in 1962, I discovered
that some Canadians were
more equal than others.
Later, as a University of
Toronto delegate at a student
conference in Quebec City,
I watched with sadness how
other student representatives
and journalists appeared
to defer to our delegation.
What would be the long-term
psychological impact of
such attitudes on "outer
Canadians" everywhere? I
wondered then; I wonder
now. With our self-proclaimed
national media, publishing
houses, theatres and so
on, continuously under-representing
most regions of Canada,
as they do, what happens
to regional pride and self-respect?
Their failure, for instance,
to tell Canadians at large
about Frederick Haultain
of Saskatchewan has caused
this genuine regional giant
to be all but forgotten,
even to prairie Canadians.
This
book is thus also meant
to encourage Westerners
to take greater pride in
our contribution to Canada.
For non- Westerners, it
attempts to present the
modern West free of dead
stereotypes and cliches.
The
book’s title is intended
to communicate the reality
that, while almost all 7.3
million of us who live to
the west and north of Lake
of the Woods (Kenora, the
Yukon, and the western half
of the Northwest Territories
are included here as parts
of the West) love Canada
deeply, many have serious
misgivings about our past
and present role within
Confederation. Uneasy
Patriots is written
from the perspective of
one who believes you can
be both a good "regionalist,"
or "provincial," and a good
Canadian. I make no apology
for being a western nationalist
in this sense; indeed, I
believe it a major weakness
of our current practice
of so-called executive democracy
in Ottawa that until recently
fighting publicly and unapologetically
for constituents’ interests
was the exclusive prerogative
of Central Canadian MPs.
Those who believe the weekly
closed-door caucuses of
any of our three national
political parties adequately
reflect, over the longer
term, the priorities and
legitimate concerns of the
eight outer provinces are
deluding themselves.
There
is a distressing array of
evidence, some of it set
forth in this book, of Western
Canadians not yet enjoying
the same political, economic
and cultural privileges
their fellow Canadians enjoy
who live in or near Ottawa,
Toronto and Montreal. Few
Westerners would feel the
distinction is as great
as between, say, Parisians
and other Frenchmen. But
the differences that do
exist seriously harm national
unity. The chapters on alienation,
old and new, are an attempt
to put this important question
in perspective and to suggest
some remedies. I hope public
and private policy-makers
in the three favoured cities
who read this book will
better appreciate the attitudinal
and institutional nature
of the problem. We Westerners
are patient, but the time
for addressing some basic
issues effectively is long
overdue.
Critics
of my viewpoint will say
that compared with Atlantic
Canadians, non-metropolitan Quebeckers, or northern
Ontarians, Westerners "have
it good." This misses the
point. We Westerners want
nothing for our region that
we don’t seek in equal measure
for every part of Canada.
Nor do we wish to weaken
stable and diverse communities
in Central Canada. We want
prosperity, stability and
opportunity promoted vigorously
everywhere as a matter of
basic national policy. How
can Canadian officials continue
to give speeches abroad
on justice when some of
our best-known national
government agencies blatantly
discriminate against Western
Canada and other regions
of the country?
Native
peoples in both the West
and the North have their
own distinct reasons for
feeling alienated from Confederation,
and I have attempted to
outline these in the chapter
entitled, "Native Peoples:
Civilizations Collide."
"My West" gives profiles
of a number of Westerners
I have come to know personally
over the years. Their individual
stories arc fair microcosms
of Western Canadian life
as a whole. "An International
Community: The Peoples of
the Region" attempts to
reach the roots of our unique
cultural mosaic and to explain
what Westerners are all
about. "Making a Western
Living" deals with a subject
of prime importance to the
region and addresses the
issue of diversification
in an increasingly interdependent
and competitive world economy.
The
intermezzos on western giants
feature five men and women
from different places in
the West who reflect well
the frontier spirit of our
region. Each of this group
helped to create a Western
Canada of which more than
seven million of us today
can be truly proud. All
of them, including Rid,
believed that it is possible
to be loyal to one’s region
and to one’s country. The
West about which they dreamed
often unrealizable dreams
lives on for the better
because of them.
At
a dinner I attended with
my wife at the home of an
ambassador in Ottawa soon
after the Calgary Olympic
Games, two European ambassadors
expressed astonishment at
the nature and extent of
the community spirit each
had witnessed at those historic
Games. One ambassador said
he had been chauffeured
by a volunteer who had devoted
a two-week vacation to help
out. A computer-expert volunteer
said he had donated his
two weeks because "Calgary
has been good to me." Both
diplomats declared no country
in Europe hosting the Games
could muster anything like
the same level of resident
commitment. There was later
a general toast to the Calgary
Games, and the host ambassador
called upon Western Canadians
to relocate to Europe.
Most
Western Canadians are optimistic
about our national future.
Canadians everywhere have
a well-deserved reputation
for compromise and fairness.
Westerners, moreover, are
deeply committed to the
proposition that we live
in the most fortunate country
on earth. This feeling has
been demonstrated on myriad
occasions, including a pre-Canada
Day church service held
in south-east Edmonton earlier
this year. The building
was filled with people of
all ages and cultural backgrounds.
A boy scout carried in the
flag of each province in
the order in which the ten
provinces had entered Confederation.
Patriotic hymns were sung
and messages extolled Canada’s
many virtues. Not a single
word was uttered on any
western grievance. Readers
might keep this snapshot
in mind in reacting to parts
of this book.
David
Kilgour
September, 1988
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