ted morton says YES
U of C professor emeritus and former MLA and cabinet minister
“Screw the West. We’ll take the rest.” That’s how a Pierre Trudeau strategist summed up the Liberals’ plan to win the 1980 federal election. With the promise of cheap oil and gas for central Canada, the Liberals won and enacted the National Energy Policy. The result was disastrous for Albertans. Capital investment and drilling rigs fled south. Hundreds of companies went bankrupt; thousands of Albertans lost their jobs or homes. Alberta plunged into a decade of deficits and debt.
This is how the Liberals have won elections for the past six decades: by promising and implementing policies that transfer wealth from resource-rich/voter-poor Alberta and Saskatchewan to voter-rich/resource-poor Ontario and Quebec—which together have 199 seats in the House of Commons, well over the 170 needed to form a majority.
The result? Over the past 60 years, net federal transfers out of Alberta have surpassed $700-billion and now average $20-billion/year. Over the same time Quebec has been the net recipient of over $500-billion. In the most recent equalization program, Quebec received two out of every three dollars.
Alberta’s liability to predatory federal policies is structural. It is entrenched in the constitutional status quo. To protect our future, the status quo must go. We must either increase Alberta’s influence in Ottawa or decrease Ottawa’s influence in Alberta.
The key to the former was senate reform: an elected, equal and effective (EEE) senate, as in democracies such as the US and Australia. This was a principal policy of the Reform, Alliance and Conservative parties and strongly supported by voters in the Prairie provinces. But Senate reform is dead. In 1996 the Chrétien government enacted the Regional Veto Act, which effectively gives Quebec a constitutional veto. In 2014 the Supreme Court went even further, declaring Stephen Harper’s informal consultative Senate elections unconstitutional. Only by formal constitutional amendment, it ruled, can the Senate be reformed. No Quebec government will ever consent to this.
That leaves one alternative: decreasing Ottawa’s influence in Alberta. Some 23 years ago Harper, I and several others laid out a plan to do precisely this—the Alberta Agenda. We recommended that Alberta withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan and create a provincial plan; collect our own personal taxes; and establish a provincial police force to replace the RCMP. Better known as the Firewall Letter, it was widely denounced as too radical or impossible. Too radical? Quebec already does all three. Impossible? The Alberta Agenda was the centerpiece of my 2006 PC leadership campaign. I nearly won.
More recently Jason Kenney and Danielle Smith have succeeded where I fell short, first with Kenney’s Fair Deal Panel and the 2021 referendum to repeal equalization, and now with Smith’s Sovereignty Act. Both premiers have won majority governments campaigning on these issues. As Don Braid recently observed, the Firewall is now mainstream in Alberta.
jared wesley says no
U of A political scientist and former director of Alberta intergovernmental relations
If decades of polls, elections and government panels have taught us anything, it’s this: Albertans don’t want more autonomy. They want more respect. They don’t want less influence over national affairs. They want less politicking over Confederation. But this hasn’t stopped right-wing politicians and operatives from seeking to seal Alberta off from the rest of the country. Whether threatening to withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan or RCMP, bar provincial bodies from receiving federal funding, or disregard federal jurisdiction altogether, autonomists have advanced a radical, elite-driven platform unbefitting Canada’s most conservative province.
This is why Albertans have repeatedly rejected the autonomist agenda. Decades apart, two panels sought Albertans’ views on building a “firewall” around Alberta. Ralph Klein’s MLA Task Force (2004) and Jason Kenney’s Fair Deal Panel (2021) heard the same thing loud and clear: Albertans don’t want less to do with Canada. They want more say in how the country is run.
Most Albertans see autonomism for what it is: at best, consolidating more power in a provincial government they don’t trust; at worst, slowly paving the way to separation from Canada. Most are enamoured with neither prospect. Instead, polls show Albertans consistently support measures to enhance their voices on the national stage. Dating back to the days of the Reform Party, Albertans have longed for more influence in federal institutions. Recent Viewpoint Alberta surveys (part of U of A’s Common Ground project) show Senate reform, freer internal trade and more federal jobs in Western Canada are among the most popular solutions to regional alienation. Leaving the RCMP, CPP or Canada Revenue Agency and establishing the Sovereignty Act rank dead last, as these moves would lessen Alberta’s standing within Canada. Albertans want their governments to work together. A majority feel Canada is better off with a strong federal government.
This isn’t to dismiss the deep sense of alienation felt across the province. Since 2019 our Viewpoint surveys have shown that a majority of Albertans feel their province doesn’t receive its fair share of federal funding, that Ottawa treats their province worse than others, and that Alberta deserves more respect in Canada. It will be interesting to track these sentiments should Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives win the next federal election.
But these same Albertans feel a strong sense of belonging within Canada. A full 85 per cent report feeling somewhat or strongly attached to their country, just higher than those with the same connection to Alberta (82 per cent). This helps explain why autonomist fantasies fail to resonate with most Albertans: people don’t like being asked to choose between loyalties or shift power from one order of government to another.
In short, Albertans view themselves as integral parts of the federation. They simply wish more Canadians, particularly those in power in Ottawa, would see them in the same light.
Ted morton responds to jared wesley
“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” Critics portray the Sovereignty Act as new and dangerous. Nothing could be further from the truth. Alberta has always had to challenge Ottawa’s central Canadian bias. In 1904 Frederick Haultain, premier of the Northwest Territories, urged Ottawa to admit Alberta and Saskatchewan as a single province: Buffalo. But prime minister Wilfrid Laurier refused. He didn’t want to create a province so large it might one day challenge the power of Quebec and Ontario. (That day has arrived!) He also refused to give the new provinces ownership of Crown lands and natural resources. Alberta Premier John Brownlee fought a long battle with Ottawa to acquire what every other province received at Confederation.
In the “Dirty Thirties” Ottawa used the discredited federal powers of disallowance and reservation to strike down Alberta policies designed to help bankrupted farmers and ranchers. Premier William Aberhart responded by cutting off funding for Government House, the office and residence of the federally appointed governor general. No lieutenant governor has resided there since.
Ottawa’s next attack on Alberta was Pierre Trudeau’s infamous 1980 National Energy Program. Premier Peter Lougheed fought the NEP tooth and nail. He cut oil and gas exports to Eastern Canada. He launched a constitutional challenge to the Liberals’ export tax on gas (and won!). He insisted that the principle of provincial equality be entrenched in the new constitutional amending formula—no more veto for Quebec. He demanded that a notwithstanding clause be added to Trudeau’s Charter of Rights, thus protecting provinces from policy vetoes by federal judges. And he made Trudeau add a clause to the constitution (section 92A) to give provinces jurisdiction over natural resources—and prevent another NEP.
Critics call the Sovereignty Act new and dangerous. But we’ve always had to challenge Ottawa’s central bias.
But now there is another Trudeau NEP—Justin’s national environmental programs: the carbon tax, Bill 69; cancellations of Energy East and Northern Gateway; clean-energy regulations that are easy for hydro-based provinces like Quebec but an expensive disaster for Alberta and Saskatchewan, which depend on natural gas.
Fighting for more Alberta, less Ottawa is not new. In politics the beneficiaries of the status quo never willingly give up their advantages. Change requires push. Kenney and Smith are only the most recent in a long line of Alberta premiers to push.
jared wesley responds to ted morton
Hinging on anti-Liberal grievances from the 1980s, Ted Morton’s argument is out of step with Alberta today. The proposed withdrawals from the CPP, RCMP and Canada Revenue Agency are also unpopular in Ottawa. Even Conservative governments place as low a priority on these ideas as most Albertans do. A signatory to the “Firewall Letter,” Stephen Harper had nine years in government and didn’t advance a single measure from the “Alberta Agenda” he co-authored with Morton.
For good reason. The measures are tough enough to sell in Alberta. For a party trying to win a majority in Ottawa, destroying popular national institutions would be political suicide. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, a one-time member of Harper’s government, knows this as well as anyone. It’s why he has openly supported the CPP and remained silent on other autonomist goals.
The same goes for the constitutional reforms Morton suggests. Reopening talks on the division of powers would jeopardize Alberta’s control over its natural resources, a hard-earned win in previous reforms. And Alberta already has an effective veto over constitutional reforms by virtue of the same law that grants Quebec that power. That too would be back on the table if we reopen the constitution.
Instead, a Poilievre government would likely follow Harper’s “open federalism” approach. This benefited Alberta, particularly as the federal government vacated areas of provincial jurisdiction. Harper also improved Alberta’s fiscal situation by restructuring fiscal federalism. In exchange for bolstering equalization, Harper shifted the Canada Health Transfer to a per capita formula, which brought Alberta an additional $1-billion annually. These reforms did more to address Alberta’s “net federal transfer gap” than any other initiative—aside from Justin Trudeau’s investment in the TransCanada pipeline.
Fortunately the autonomist agenda will likely melt away if federal Conservatives gain power. Aside from fitting an anti-Liberal narrative, the ideas are massively unpopular. Indeed, a provincial government that actually pursued them would struggle to win a referendum, let alone an election. That’s why neither Jason Kenney nor Danielle Smith ran on withdrawing from the CPP or RCMP. In fact, Smith flatly denied intending to tamper with pensions just months before launching a campaign to do exactly that.
Harper’s government increased Alberta’s capacity to act within its existing policy space and jurisdiction, without needing the drastic measures proposed by autonomists. Achieving greater influence for Alberta within Canada requires a co-operative federal partner and diligent work behind the scenes, not bluster from Alberta autonomists when their team isn’t in power in Ottawa. The autonomist agenda is, at best, all hat and no cattle.
Ted morton’s concluding response
Strengthening Alberta’s political autonomy is not about “anti-Liberal” grievances. It’s about Alberta’s constitutional vulnerability to predatory and destructive federal policies. The Liberal Party is not so much the cause as it is the consequence of the constitutional status quo: the ability of a national party to win majority governments with policies that transfer wealth from resource-rich, voter-poor provinces like Alberta to voter-rich/resource-poor provinces like Quebec and Ontario. “Screw the West. We’ll take the rest.” It’s simple and predictable.
And it’s getting worse. Lougheed’s three greatest constitutional wins—section 92A, the notwithstanding clause, provincial equality—have been erased or gutted.
Quebec has regained its veto over formal constitutional amendments. Section 92A has been stripped of any meaningful legal force. In the words of former Alberta chief justice Catherine Fraser, the Supreme Court’s acceptance of Ottawa’s “national dimensions” standard is a “constitutional Trojan horse that under the guise of fighting CO2 emissions would give the federal government potentially unlimited power over provincial regulations.”
As for the notwithstanding clause: Lougheed saw that Trudeau’s proposed Charter of Rights could become a form of “disallowance in disguise”: a federal veto over provincial policies exercised by the Supreme Court rather than by cabinet. Neither Lougheed nor any of the “gang of six” premiers would have accepted Trudeau’s Charter without the addition of the notwithstanding clause.
Federalism is itself a form of protecting minority rights. Each province is a minority. But this version of Canadian federalism is now being sacrificed on the judicial altar of a new version of minority rights. This centralization of power in Ottawa has been fuelled by the Court Challenges Program, which funds the litigation costs of groups that the Liberals support and who in turn support the Liberals. Harper cancelled the program, but it was resurrected by Justin Trudeau. Pierre must be smiling from his grave.
Where do I advocate “reopening talks” on amending the constitution? I’m advocating acting, not talking; adopting policy reforms that all provinces have the right to pursue. And how are these “massively unpopular” with Albertans? Kenney and Smith campaigned on an equalization referendum and a sovereignty act, and voters gave them both majorities. Why does Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid—hardly a fan of the UCP—describe the once “infamous” firewall reforms as now “mainstream”?
If Albertans could renegotiate our relationship with Canada, we’d never accept the status quo. If Quebec had been treated like Alberta, it would have separated long ago. I’m not advocating separation, but the status quo must go. As Peter Lougheed said in the 1970s: The time is “Now!”
jared wesley’s concluding response
Albertans don’t want more autonomy; only a small number of conservative elites do. Outside of political backrooms, schemes like an Alberta pension plan, police force and revenue agency remain impractical and unpopular. Like zombies, these measures come back from the dead anytime provincial conservatives want to take on the federal Liberals for political gain. Designed to distract from failures at home and to unite a fractious base, autonomist policies are little more than props. If they were serious policy proposals, provincial and federal Conservatives would have advanced on them decades ago. They haven’t, and that’s good for Alberta and for Canada.
Outside of political backrooms, an Alberta pension plan, police force and revenue agency are unpopular.
Over decades of polling, elections and panels, the message is consistent: Albertans don’t want less Canada; they want more respect within it. The autonomist agenda is also a non-starter nationally. Most Canadians are bridge-builders when it comes to national priorities such as retirement security and public safety. Albertans are no different, according to our Viewpoint surveys. While aware that Alberta doesn’t get the respect it deserves in Confederation, they are overwhelmingly attached to Canada—even more so than to their provincial identity.
For these reasons they are far more likely to prioritize and support measures that bring Alberta voices to bear on national issues than to wall themselves off from Canada. Albertans want freer internal trade, more federal jobs in the West and more representation in Parliament. They don’t want to sever ties with the CPP, RCMP and CRA. And they don’t like being asked to choose between orders of government; they want their leaders to work together on issues that matter to them.
In other words, typical Albertans aren’t fed-up radicals seeking to upend the constitutional order. They’re jilted realists when it comes to Alberta’s place in Canada. They feel misunderstood and undervalued, but they have little interest in igniting firewalls and hiding behind them. Indeed, a majority of Albertans prefer a strong federal government and can distinguish between a governing party they dislike and federal institutions they value.
When the federal Conservatives return to power, this will be good news for the majority of Albertans who want constructive intergovernmental relations. With no Liberal menace to haunt them, autonomists will fade into the shadows, and the real work of empowering Alberta and increasing its influence within Canada will restart.
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