A Canadian Alliance MP from Manitoba says Western Canada is sinking into a morass of political, economic and regional alienation because of the treatment it believes it receives from Ottawa.
Brian Pallister recently prepared a discussion paper on regional equity that solicited the opinions of ordinary westerners and their elected politicians.
He found that the federal government’ s failure to deal more visibly and decisively with the prairie farm income crisis is one of the core reasons for western alienation.
“It is widely felt that the federal government has abandoned farmers in their time of greatest need, while at the same time offering huge subsidies to other industries,” he wrote.
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“Most notably, many people mentioned the fact that the prime minister is willing to ‘fight fire with fire’ when it comes to Brazilian aerospace industry subsidies, but refuses to assist farmers in combating much greater foreign agricultural subsidies.”
He also mentioned rural anger about gun registration rules.
As first steps, Pallister recommended the government allow farmers to avoid the Canadian Wheat Board when they want to add value to their wheat and offer “adequate income support to Canadian farmers” while continuing to try to negotiate down foreign subsidies.
He concluded that regional alienation is rampant across Canada outside Ontario.
Many Canadians in the regions feel they have little impact on federal politics, are ignored by Ottawa and often face policy discrimination.
Pallister quoted one Manitoba MLA who said: “Let the West have a say in federal politics.”
There appears to be a particular problem in Western Canada, where voters regularly reject Liberal candidates and elect opposition MPs.
“It is widely believed that the federal government deliberately chooses to ignore or even belittle westerners to focus on making political gains in areas where Liberals are more likely to be elected.”
The MP, who was a candidate for the leadership of the federal Progressive Conservative party before switching to the Canadian Alliance, said his survey of regional grievance shows that some traditional Canadian myths are outdated.
For more than half a century, Canada has been seen as a reflection of “two solitudes” – French and English.
Pallister said there are multiple solitudes.
“To a large extent, the two solitudes model of Canada based on the two founding cultures has been rendered obsolete as the emergence of strong western and Atlantic Canadian feelings of alienation has engendered third and fourth solitudes,” he wrote.
In fact, Saskatchewan and Manitoba may constitute a fifth solitude because their dependence on agriculture and the predominance of rural and Indian populations make them different from the wealthier British Columbia and Alberta economies.
“On some issues, such as equalization reform, those two provinces align themselves more closely with the Atlantic provinces than with the other western provinces,” he said.
