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Article Excerpt
BY ELI BYFIELD
On May 5, five Albertans accosted shoppers amid gusting flurries in Edmonton's west-end commercial strip to get them to sign a petition. The issue: a request for a provincial referendum on Alberta's secession from Confederation. Ed Goodliffe, leader of the quintet, has been a separatist ever since the National Energy Program (NEP) destroyed his nail-production business in the early 1980s. Now he was braving unseasonably late snow to see if the mood for independence had hardened.
Definitely not interested were retail managers at Home Depot and Canadian Tire, who kicked the interlopers from their parking lots. The petitioners persisted, setting up out of the snowstorm on the ground floor of the parkade at West Edmonton Mall. There they gathered 80 signatures in about an hour-and-a-half. Close to half of the passersby agreed to sign up in favour of a referendum on Alberta's leaving Canada. "Not bad for 'Redmonton,'" notes Mr. Goodliffe, a former candidate for the Western Independence Party. His group typifies the flock of small-scale political initiatives now trying to capitalize on the West's increasing dissatisfaction with this country's federal system.
Mr. Goodliffe's petition work started in early April at a Social Credit rally in Barrhead, an hour's drive northwest of the Alberta capital. Speeches against the federal firearms
registry were made by Jim Turnbull, who had been arrested on New Year's Day in Ottawa for violating that law, and David Klassen, president of the Social Credit Party. Mr. Goodliffe, an English immigrant, also addressed the crowd, describing his pro-secession petition.
Forty-eight of 50 participants at the rally signed on the spot. Trevis Kerr, Trent Marshall, Dean Byvank, Glen Dul and his son Rory Dul went a step further. They assisted the secessionist farmer, taking the petition to his hometown of Westlock as well as the nearby communities of Clyde, Morinville and Alcomdale. During April, the team accumulated over 1,000 signatures.
"Support has been overwhelming," Mr. Goodliffe exclaims. "We're running 70% to 80% in the rural areas. Fifteen years ago, when I advocated separation, people would often go ballistic. Now most people just ask 'Where can I sign?' No one has lost their temper." He notes that in the '80s, women were less supportive than men. "These days, only immigrants have been difficult to persuade," he says.
One petition signee at the mall was Perry Nelson, a salesman who is unsure how he would vote if the referendum were actually held by Alberta. "I've had it up to here with the federal government," says the 36-year-old Edmontonian. "The West is powerless."
The referendum-petition drive was initiated in February by Douglas Christie, founder of the Western Canada Concept (WCC). Mr. Christie is astounded at the reaction in Alberta, where 10,000 signatures had been gathered by late April. "Resentment is much deeper and less emotional than we've ever seen before," he says. The separatist party brought to Alberta Premier Ralph Klein 6,000 signatures at a recent provincial convention of the Progressive Conservatives. The WCC hopes to sign up at least 100,000 Albertans by the end of year. Its petition form is available at www.westcan.org.
The separatists have tapped into a surging sense of western alienation, revealed in a recent opinion survey conducted for the Canada West Foundation (www.cwf.ca). Pollsters interviewed 3,200 residents of the four western provinces. Results were tallied for the West and broken down by province. The survey indicates that 71% of westerners believe their provinces are poorly represented federally.
Dissatisfaction is most intense in Saskatchewan, at 78%. Fifty-seven percent believe their province is shortchanged by federal transfers. Unhappiness about transfer funds is even deeper in B.C., where the issue upsets 60% of those surveyed. Across the West, 40% believe their premiers best represent their provinces in national politics, and 15% feel no one at all represents them effectively. Twenty-six percent of Albertans and 18% of westerners think that separation would leave their provinces better off financially.
Roger Gibbins, president of Canada West, blames this discontent on political frustration. "Westerners feel they have no power in Confederation because their ideas are ignored in central Canada," he suggests. For example, the political scientist points out that the notion of deep reforms to the federal Senate consistently draws 85% support in the West. (Reformers want an upper house which is Triple-E, a formula which refers to equal representation from each province, whose senators would be elected and have effective legislative powers.) Yet Ottawa, beholden to voters in Ontario and Quebec, barely pays lip service to serious Senate reform.
Dr. Gibbins is far from convinced that western alienation will translate into outright separation. Yet he does not entirely dismiss that possibility. "The option hasn't been abandoned," the Canada West CEO observes. "The West has always had an appetite for new solutions."
The modern western independence movement originated in the 1970s. Frustration over unfair tariffs, enforced bilingualism, oil royalties and prejudicial freight rates inspired several separatist groups. The Western Canada Party formed in 1971. They sought a majority of western parliamentary seats to push favourable regional policies, but accomplished little.
John Rudolph, co-discoverer of the Rainbow oilfield in northern Alberta, founded the Independent Alberta Association (IAA) in 1974. Backed by Calgary businessmen, the IAA had about 500 members. Their goal, like soft Quebec separatists, was to use the threat of separation to force national change. Mr. Rudolph, nicknamed Iron John, declared...
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