Oddities of Wexit

Let me be clear from the start: western alienation is a real thing based on real concerns. It has an important history, one that has served as a fundamental challenge to the Canadian political system, one about which we should learn. I find Wexit more challenging and more problematic and I can't shake the feeling that there are other issues -- almost Trump-like issues -- lurking in the background. I don't blame premiers of Albert and Saskatchewan for trying to convince the federal governments to address economic problems in parts of the west. That is, one might argue, part of their job. Nor, do I blame people who have lost their jobs for wanting help in getting new employment. Policy either advances employment or it doesn't and I think it should. But, current elements of western protest and some of the Wexit dynamics in particular have other dimension to them. What I would like to do in this blog is explore some of these dimensions without, in any way, rejecting the legitimate claims and concerns of western Canadians.

First, while politics is politics, one idea that seems to haunt current western Canadian discourse is the comparison with Quebec. There is nothing new in this. We've heard this before: Quebec threatened to leave and it  got a bunch of goodies in return. We want the same thing. I am not going to argue that the regional equalization formula is fair, but this is a drastic simplification of what has been going on with Quebec politics. Separatists, for instance, were not looking to get things from Canada. They were looking to get out. Separatism was not a negotiating strategy; it was an aim. Federalists, like, say, Pierre Trudeau, made a different argument altogether. They never argued that Quebec should be given things. In fact, Trudeau, Sr., Jean Chretien, Stefan Dion, and other French-Canadian federalists argued precisely the opposite. What they said was that Canada needed to change. It needed, for instance, to recognize the equality of French-speaking citizens. A failure to do so would have negative consequences (because Quebecers would not accept being second-class citizens in their own country, which makes sense to me because ... well ... why would anyone accept being a second-class citizen?), but that was an argument about changes on the national level.  Those changes were about things like Charter rights, bilingualism, diversity, and the social welfare state, but they were not about giving Quebec things to pacify it.  Yet, somehow, this discourse has persisted.  At least part of the current discourse, in other words, is based upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the way in which Canadian federalism has operated with regard to Quebec.

Second, I find the current aspects of western alienation interesting because they seem to have a price. Again, let me say, I get it. It is a premier's job to try to do things that will help their province.  But, past versions of western alienation did not do this and I am not at all certain I like it. In effect, in putting a price on it, the current premier of Alberta is saying "I will sell my province's support for this price." What if you get close to that amount, but not quite? Is that good enough? Would you engage in negotiations? How much is the support of your province for the federal system worth to you? How much is your identity as a Canadian (I'll return to this later, in another blog) worth to you? There is an odd and mercenary feel to this current manifestation of western alienation not on the part of ordinary people, but on the part of political leaders.

What is odd about this is that past versions of western alienation were not based on a cost-benefit analysis of federalism. To be sure, they had their problems with federalism, its operation, and federal policies. But, they were not fixing a price and putting the province in the store window for Ottawa to buy. Instead, they challenged what they saw as the fundamental institutional dysfunction that hampered the effective and democratic operation of the Canadian political system. The United Farmers of Alberta, the Progressives, the CCF ... I would even argue that the Reform Party had elements of this as did the early days, at least, of the Social Credit movement.

One can agree or disagree with the perspectives of these movements. There were a bunch of them, including other united farmers movements, labour parties, and a range of small social credit parties. Some of these movements may have been misguided and they do not amount to a cohesive whole. The CCF was not the same as Social Credit.  What pushed them forward, however, was a believe that the problems the west (and, other parts of Canada), lay not simple in economic disparity but in a dysfunctional political system and, while this dysfunction had particular regional effects, it was not bounded to a region. The effects were part and parcel of the overall political-economy of Canada and, as such, had generally detrimental effects (limiting democracy, promoting inequality, etc.) that could be felt in other parts of the country. IOW, while western alienation movements allowed for and spent a great deal of time discussing regionalism, they were not limited to region. They did not erect a price tag and say "this is what it takes us to be quiet." Instead, they said "can we talk about the character and nature of democracy in Canada and how it functions?" It is this larger dynamics that is missing in this current version of western regionalism.

Third, I find it odd that western regionalism has now so closely associated itself with the oil industry. Let us be clear, this is not all the west. It represents a particular part of western Canada and speaks generally in the name of the entire region. It does not represent, for instance, either Manitoba or BC. The northern west is completely absent for its discourse. And, everything is directed against the federal government. Thus, for instance, pipeline development is a matter of pitting one western province against another. The federal government is not, in other words, being asked to do something for the west. In reality, it is being asked, in the name of the west, to force one province (BC) to bend to the will of another province (AB).

This is a very odd form of western alienation and a point where the politics of the matter have become so extreme as to seem almost as they were a fantasy. In effect, the logic of the argument is that one needs to screw the west (force BC into line) to promote the west (help the AB economy). One might forgive any federal government for feeling that they would be damned if they did and damned if they didn't.

But, the issue goes further than that.  Western alienation was, traditionally, forward looking. Again, you can argue about specific policies and self identities, but even the Reform party argued it was wanted to build a different type of Canada. The Progressives, the United Farmers, the CCF, the Dominion Labour Party, etc., were all about the future. This version of western alienation is about the past and, in particular, about the economic past. There are some other elements to it, I'll address in a minute but, economically, its infatuation with the oil industry has caused it to miss a key and important point: the carbon economy has a best before date and that date is fast approaching.  In other words, rather than looking to the future, the current Wexit campaign is looking for ways to try to squeeze a few more years out of an economy that is dying.

I will leave the oddity of this to one side for now, but this near complete focus on the carbon economy explains why the proponents of western alienation are so fascinated with speed. They often argue that X or Y needs to be *done now*. I think this is not simply a focus on the need to have its concerns addressed, but an implicit recognition that we are dealing with an economy that is so rapidly declining that even with concerted federal action, its future is bleak.

This also explains why Wexit proponents see things like the rule of law and environmental protection as serious problems. After all, the rule of law is important and the demands that the federal government just skip it -- ignore court rulings, say -- are antithetical to good government. They are confusing coming from people who are self-professed conservatives who, regardless of what one thinks of them, often claim to stand for law and order. In this instance, a central element of the conservative edifice is being put on hold. Likewise, I have no reason to think that westerners are any less concerned about the future and their children's place it in than, say, folks here in the Maritimes. The idea that environmental protection is an attack on a region is odd; the idea that it be ditched is odder still. Why, then, is it being made? I suspect it is being made because someone has done the calculations and figured out that with proper environmental protection, the carbon economy is not profitable. It used to be and, to be clear, Canadian environmental protection laws and policies are no more advanced than they were a decade ago. Our environmental policies are considerably behind those of other countries. The only thing that has changed is that carbon economy is losing profitability. Getting around that seems to involve -- at least according to the oil economy's proponents -- ditching laws we find inconvenient, forcing BC to heal, and dropping the country even further behind international environmental standards. All this in an effort to preserve an industry that has a limited life span anyway.

If we put all these things together, we get an picture of contemporary western alienation. I want to repeat a couple of points: I understand the person who is having a hard time putting food on the table or worried about what her or his kids will get for Christmas. Economic downturns have a human cost. We need to recognize and address that cost. We, in other parts of Canada, need to reach out to our fellow citizens in the west and let them know we sympathize with their plight and, indeed, to begin a concerted conversation about addressing it. I'd expect that if my province experienced a sudden economic downturn and I think we owe the same thing back.

The beginning point of that conservation, in my view, needs to be about transitioning the economy of AB and SK away from the carbon industry. That used to be a plan. The proponents of western alienation when I was younger (Peter Lougheed, for instance) subscribed fundamentally to the idea of western economic diversification. I do too. The west has a lot going for it, let's put those things on the table and enhance them. And, of course, there will also be an oil industry for one reason or another. It will just be smaller.

What I am talking about here, however, is that the current form of western alienation -- Wexit and its slightly more moderate political forms in the UCP and SP -- represent a different form of western alienation and regionalism and it is one with which I have a difficult time. It has tied its raison d'etre to an industry with a best before date, suggested we play fast and loose with the rule of law, rejected environmentalism not because it is wrong but because it is a drain on profits, it lacks the progressive character of earlier forms of western alienation, suggests that one of the proper jobs of the federal government is to beat other western provinces into line in the name of the west, and draws inaccurate comparison with Quebec separatist.

This is an ideological perspective that, in my view, does not serve the west well.