DOES the West really want “in”? New Liberal leader Paul Martin thinks so and he is vowing to make it happen.
But after much time spent in Western Canada campaigning for the Liberal leadership, Martin presumably understands that not all is quiet on the western front.
Or if it is quiet, it is a surly quiet flung eastward toward Ottawa by people who don’t believe it is worth their breath anymore to voice their complaints about arrogant Ottawa and out-of-touch Liberals.
Much of the West is prepared to offer the Liberals little more than the three Ds of angry regional alienation – disdain, derision and dismissal.
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Martin has vowed that ending western alienation will be one of his highest priorities, albeit one of his biggest challenges.
The Martin years in office will be judged a failure by the man himself if he does not leave relations between the West and the rest of Canada in better shape than he found them.
In some ways, that is quite a low bar.
The visceral hatred of the post National Energy Program period is gone but the disconnect remains as large as ever.
It also is a high bar oft promised and never attained, as Ralph Goodale, Martin’s chief lieutenant in the West, understands well. He figures Martin is the guy to do it.
“He has said very clearly … that if the sense of alienation is as strong at the end of his term as it appears to be at the beginning, then he will not regard his term as being successful,” says the Regina MP.
“I don’t think you can find that blunt a commitment ever before from any leader of any party.”
Yet the voices of two veterans of the western alienation wars – one who rode it to success and one who has spent his political career fighting it – offer just a glimpse of what a tough task Martin has set for himself, in part because of the outsider mentality of westerners themselves.
Preston Manning, founding leader of the Reform party, figures the Liberals are too accustomed to reacting to western grievances by ignoring them or sending money.
What’s needed, he says, is a change of political philosophy that recognizes western voices as an essential part of the daily Canadian modus operendi – brokering deals that marry regional interests with national goals.
But is there also a chance that the West doesn’t really want in because once inside as a powerful player, it will not be able to blame Quebec-centric biases for policy or economic failures?
Is it easier, more gratifying even, for politicians to explain local problems by blaming Canadian indifference?
“We still have this psychosis that we’re the poor little people of the West after the Depression that can’t take care of themselves and someone has to take care of them,” concedes Manning.
“That image that some westerners still have of themselves doesn’t help.”
Winnipeg Liberal John Harvard led a party task force on western alienation and saw first-hand how powerful a political card it can be and how tough it is to dislodge.
“I’m excited that we see an opportunity and will try to seize it,” he said.
“But in this, there is a natural advantage to the cynics and the critics. This ain’t going to be easy.”
Amen.
