Welcome Mr. Byfield, To 1988

By Alan Clark

    Link Byfield's recent article Time for Alberta to exit, stage right? is a real eye-opener, if that is, you've been in a coma since 1988. Link has decided that separatism can't be justified until Albertans have set out their historical grievances and the terms by which they are prepared to remain in confederation. Once our terms are refused, only then should separation become an option.

    About a year ago I started to realize the game that Link Byfield, Preston Manning and Ted Morton are playing. I was asked to speak at an Alberta Sons and Daughters of Liberty meeting and it was there that I mentioned my theory for the first time.

    It has never been easy to be an Alberta separatist with all the "new guys" popping up each year like a new crop of dandelions, often not even willing to wait until their second time in front of the media before shooting themselves, and the rest of us, in the head. But in spite of the Neanderthal neophytes, the Holocaust deniers, the anti-Semites, the nuclear submarine comments and various and sundry attacks from across the political spectrum, we patriots soldier on. And every time it appears that we might be getting some traction we can count on someone like Link Byfield or Ted Morton or Preston Manning to come along and try to steal our thunder with promises of "another way".

    I'm not sure if I can remember a time when Albertans were talking so freely as they are now about separatism other than during "the glory days" of the Alberta WCC. Poll after poll has recently shown that large numbers of Albertans, once again are beginning to believe that we'd be better off getting out of Canada.

    And along comes Link, who apparently left the country in 1985 and hasn't been back until now. He seems to have missed the entire "Preston Manning" episode which thoroughly detailed our grievances and set the agenda for the "New Canada". That episode was sub-titled "The West Wants In!"

    I know Link personally and I know he's not a dumb guy. For him to come out now and say we need to repeat everything we've done over the past 15 years isn't dumb of Link. He makes these comments however, in the assumption that Albertans are dumb enough to believe him. It worked for Preston in 1988 when he stole the momentum from the Western Independence Party. Preston said "we'll just explain what the problem is and tell them what the solution is and before you know it, we'll be back in Alberta with a Triple E senate under our arms".

    Since then we have sent a couple of hundred people, including several Premiers, to state as Link puts it, our "formal, historic statement of grievance." And it will not surprise Link or anyone else, that our "demand for redress, stated as a clear set of principles" has been repeatedly refused. That's putting it nicely.

    Link makes the entire case for separation in his article. "After four straight national defeats under three different Alberta leaders, it tells us that easterners prefer to be led by thieves than by one of us." He continues, "It tells us that they'll take our money, but they won't take us."

    Link then proceeds to say that Albertans need to tell the rest of the country that we want a Triple E Senate, Referenda, and Constitutional limitations on the powers of the Premiers and the Prime Minister. Imagine.

    Link knows that this is all old news. He knows it has been done to death. He knows that Walter Kuhl, John Deifenbaker, Elmer Knutson, Jack Ramsay, Doug Christie, Fred Marshall, Preston Manning, Stephen Harper, Ted Morton, Bert Brown, Peter Lougheed, Bill Vanderzalm and countless other western Canadians have been saying and trying all this for nearly a century. Meanwhile, Svend Robinson has accomplished more for the gays and lesbians in the past ten years than all of western Canada's best and brightest for the past century combined, have accomplished for us.

   And then Link puts the meat into his article. "As for me, I am not a separatist. I believe Canada should be reconstituted using the same principles and assumptions the provinces founded the country on in 1867...". Even in this statement he shows his contempt for the intelligence of the reader. "The provinces" didn't found the country in 1867. In fact, it was a foreign parliament, the House of Lords in Great Britain that "founded" the country and they did so with no other consideration than how to make as much money from it as possible. The British forced a "Constitution" upon us, if you can stretch credulity so far as to consider an Act enacted for the purpose of pillaging their North American Colony's wealth "a Constitution".

   The Statutes of Westminster granted Canada it's independence about seventy years later and the Canadian parliament went on as if nothing had happened. The Aussies meanwhile, who received their emancipation at the same time, set about writing a real constitution and putting it to a referendum which was subsequently ratified by Australian voters.

   As our momentum builds again, you should expect to hear more from Link and Ted and all the other enemies of our freedom. Keep in mind that they have an agenda and it doesn't involve doing anything that will stop Canada from crushing Alberta's economy, culture and political aspirations. As for the Neanderthal neophytes and the guys who talk about nuclear subs, I'll take a hundred of them to one Link Byfield any day.

Thanks for stopping by.