Wha-Cha Gonna Do?

By: Alan Clark

    I have long worked in the cause of independence. First I was involved with Doug Christie's Western Canada Concept. Then I became more committed while helping Dr. Fred Marshall form the Western Independence Party in 1987. I ran as a candidate in the federal election in 1988 and served as the party president. When the WIP failed to capture the hearts of our people I became scornful of politics entirely.

    While working with Doug Christie and the WCC, I really didn't know much about Canadian politics other than there was a problem with the way the Canadian system works in western Canada. Or rather, the way the system doesn't work in western Canada. Doug Christie was making a great deal of noise about some ideas developed, I believe, by a man named Elmer Knutson. Elmer decided one day, that westerners would be better served in confederation if the power structure was a little more equitable. Elmer concocted or rather adapted from America I guess, the idea of a triple E senate. Elected, equal in numbers and effective for all the regions. This would balance the inordinate amount of power controlled by Canada's Prime Minister.

    Originally, as you know, Canada was and still is really, a marriage of Ontario and Quebec. The two sent out explorers and settlers and raced the Americans to the west coast. They were planting the flag as they went. They colonized the territory that later became Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Before any of these colonies existed, Ontario and Quebec had devised, with the help of a bunch of un-elected hacks in the British House of Lords, a political system which would allow Ontario and Quebec to share the spoils of their new Dominion. The country was basically set up like a compact between two mafia families. They agreed to share the spoils more or less equally.

    As new settlers arrived from Germany, China, Scandinavia, Holland, Ireland, India and elsewhere, the dominion outside Ontario and Quebec grew. With it grew the production of the hinterlands and the industry and the population. It was soon obvious that trade competition from foreign countries like America was going to threaten the hegemony enjoyed by Quebec and Ontario. This was their dominion and they would use it for their benefit! Tariffs were enacted. Duties imposed. Marketing boards, transportation policies, bureaucracies of many shapes and sizes installed, all for the expressed purpose of keeping western industry and production feeding money into the coffers of the dominion. The coffers in Ontario and Quebec.

    As time passed, the hinterlands became even more restless. Their population was growing and they were demanding political equity. As with every colony before it, the west of Canada was growing tired of it's subordinate roll. They demanded services, healthcare, schools, roads. Most dangerous of all, they demanded a voice. They had views, desires, even aspirations that could only be answered politically. Canada could no longer be a mafia compact, it must become more of a Confederation of Regions.

    It was about this time that an evil Marxist became Prime Minister of Canada. His name was Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Mr. Trudeau realized two things. He knew that he could make some fairly minor changes to Canada’s constitution that would forever consolidate the power in Ontario and Quebec and he further realized that the existing bunch of provincial Premiers were such dolts that he could easily trick them into helping him do it. Only one Premier of the time, Quebec’s Rene Levesque wasn’t interested in participating in this sham "repatriation" because being a separatist himself, he wasn’t interested in anything Canadian or constitutional.

    Trudeau lied to the Canadian people in saying he was "repatriating" Canada’s constitution. He often said he was "bringing the Constitution home to Canada". What he was in fact doing, with the help of most of Canada’s provincial premiers, was making substantial changes to Canada’s Constitution. Before the new Constitution was enacted, many facets of the Canadian myth simply didn’t exist. Trudeau’s changes made Canada officially bilingual. Official multiculturalism was also newly invented. Canadians were stripped of their Property Rights and criminals were given the gift of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which in retrospect seems equally intended to protect politicians from prosecution.

    Most importantly, after enacting the new Constitution which would re-confirm the political dominance of Ontario and Quebec, Mr. Trudeau put the icing on his cake. That icing is the Amendment Clause which requires that any amendment to the Constitution will require the approval of the House of Commons, the Senate and at least seven of the provincial legislatures representing at least fifty percent of the country's population.

    At the risk of boring you with the repetition, I feel I must repeat this last fact. Canada’s Constitution cannot be changed without the consent firstly of the Prime Minister, then his Cabinet, then his entire party in the House of Commons. If an amendment survives this far it must now be approved by a majority of the members in the Senate. Then it must gain the acceptance of seven provincial legislatures which represent at least 50 percent of Canada’s population.

    What is it that makes a person become a separatist? Is it the fact that Ontario and Quebec decide who will govern the entire country? Is it discriminatory laws and practices which injure our western economies? Is it cultural policy which alienates a vast majority of Canadians and discriminates in favour of only a select few. It could be one or a variety of issues but I believe it should be two things: 1.) fact; and 2.) reason.

    Here’s the fact that should make everyone outside Quebec and Ontario a separatist. Canada’s political system cannot be changed. It was originally designed to work in Ontario and Quebec’s favour. It was designed by them and for them. If we wish to make any substantive changes to that system which would incorporate Alberta’s desires, we would need their permission which they will never give.

    Their hero, the Great Genius Pierre Elliot Trudeau had entrenched their perpetual power, their perpetual domination of all things Canadian. It was his crowning achievement. His greatest legacy. Could they now vote to undo what the Great Genius had done? The great works of Pierre Trudeau are holy to liberals, inviolable. Any and all constitutional change is impossible. And the much coveted Triple E Senate is D-E-D, dead. Deader than Deifenbaker.

    The long and the short of it is this: anyone who truly understands the Canadian Constitutional Amendment process cannot hold out any hope whatsoever that the Constitution will ever change to reflect the desires, values or principles of the people of Alberta. Once you accept this fact and rationally reason it through, you will become a separatist. Or you will resign yourself to sheepishly accept that this is the way things are and that they will never change so, as Tony Soprano would say "Wha-cha gonna do?"