If we cannot achieve more Western influence within Ottawa (the purpose of Senate reform), let's pursue reasonable policies to reduce Ottawa's influence in the West: Withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan and create our own provincial pension plans; collect our own income taxes; cancel our contracts with the RCMP, and create our own provincial police forces; take control of our health-delivery systems; and use the notwithstanding clause when nine, non-elected judges in Ottawa try to impose their notion of good public policy on our democratically elected governments.Sadly, Morton's not a lone wolf here; there are countless others, many of them published in the Sun papers across Canada, howling at the moon with him. Oh yes, Ontarians loathe Alberta so intensely that first and foremost in our minds when we go to cast our ballots is how to spurn Alberta. It's all about Alberta. It's always about you, Alberta. Give me a smurfin' break. The rest of us are getting more than a bit sick and tired of the "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!" routine.
Because the article mentioned above might not last at the Globe-- and because the paper is pushing for registration now-- I'll include Morton's wisdom here for posterity's sake. Yikeees.
The firewall's looking good again
By TED MORTON
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Monday's election results were a bitter pill for most Western Canadians. Not only did Stephen Harper's new Conservative Party fail to make the necessary breakthrough in vote-rich Ontario, the so-called ''party of national unity'' again used the regional divide-and-conquer strategy to bring stray Ontario sheep back into the Liberal fold.
For Westerners, all the old policy irritants remain (wheat board, gun registry) or get worse (Kyoto). All the structural reforms sought by Western reformers for the past 20 years -- Senate reform, a public vetting of Supreme Court appointments, democratic reform of House of Commons -- will remain frozen in the netherworld of think tanks and policy forums.
To rub salt in the wounds, the Prime Minister will now fill the three Alberta Senate vacancies with some combination of defeated Liberal candidates, jazz musicians and ex-hockey stars. With two current Supreme Court vacancies and a third opening up next year, the Liberals, who have averaged only 40 per cent of the vote in the past four elections, will have appointed 100 per cent of the judges.
It gets worse. Equalization payments and transfers to have-not provinces will now be increased. Jean Charest's Liberals are desperate for outside cash, and have been demanding that the "fiscal imbalance" be immediately addressed with an increase of $6- to $8-billion dollars a year, half of which goes directly to Quebec. Now that the election is safely behind him, Paul Martin will open the spigot and money will flow to Quebec and loyal Liberal Atlantic Canada.
While equalization is nominally a transfer from the federal government, it is paid for mostly by Ontario and Alberta taxpayers. If it achieved its primary goals (national unity and economic prosperity), Alberta's complaints could be dismissed. Equalization achieves neither of these. Separatist sentiment in Quebec remains in the mid-40-per-cent range, double what it was two decades ago. Thanks to the Liberals' new electoral-finance law, the Bloc will now get millions of taxpayer dollars to stir the separatist pot. Some unity strategy!
As for national prosperity, Canada continues to fall behind. In the decade of the 1990s alone, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Holland and Switzerland passed us in per capita income.
The Liberals (and much of the national media) caricature Albertans as insular and backward. Perhaps it is Eastern elites that are preoccupied with re-fighting 19th-century French and Indian wars, rather than plotting Canada's path to prosperity in the 21st-century global economy.
This refusal to contemplate change was most evident in the election's health-care debate. Three of the four national parties talked only of pouring billions of new dollars into the existing system, the very policy that has driven waiting lists to all-time highs while consuming ever larger percentages of provincial budgets. We all know this is unsustainable, yet noparty had the nerve to say so.
What is Canada's future with this mindset? What is Alberta's future within this Canada? To pay the bills but have no say? To be vilified as un-Canadian every time we say something sensible about reforming an unsustainable health-care system or object to public policy being made by unelected judges? To watch our farmers go to jail for marketing their own grain, something Eastern farmers can do with impunity?
In 1985, Bert Brown, my fellow senator-elect, plowed into his barley field Alberta's message to Ottawa: Triple-E Senate or else. That was 20 years ago. The West's complete failure to make any progress since then on Triple-E Senate reform is directly linked to our lack of progress on the "or else" side of the equation. Why would the beneficiaries of the status quo (Ontario and Quebec) agree to Senate reform if there are no costs for ignoring the issue? The Liberal Party knows that it can form governments without the West's support.
If we cannot achieve more Western influence within Ottawa (the purpose of Senate reform), let's pursue reasonable policies to reduce Ottawa's influence in the West: Withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan and create our own provincial pension plans; collect our own income taxes; cancel our contracts with the RCMP, and create our own provincial police forces; take control of our health-delivery systems; and use the notwithstanding clause when nine, non-elected judges in Ottawa try to impose their notion of good public policy on our democratically elected governments.
Media pundits characterize this as the radical firewall agenda. It's anything but radical. Each of these policies is already in place in either Quebec, Ontario or both. For many Westerners, it's time to start working on the "or else." Ironically, the model for Plan B --and its most likely ally -- is Quebec.
F. L. (Ted) Morton, a professor at the University of Calgary, is one of Alberta's two senators-elect.
ADDENDUM: On the other hand, after reading this piece, I'm starting to think perhaps we "Ontarianses" ought to start doing whatever Alberta doesn't want us to do. If Alberta's going to be the mad Gollum/Smeagol, then I guess that makes Ontario Samwise. Sounds good to me.
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