Quote:
Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker
Western alienation is definitely real. It’s impossible for it not to exist in Canada, even if a good portion of it is self-inflicted.
It’s natural for people who live outside a federation’s core to feel dissatisfied with imperial rule, especially when they are linguistic, cultural, and political differences between them and the core. That’s true of basically everywhere outside southern Ontario.
In Western Canada’s case, there are a number of other factors that exponentially increase this sentiment:
- Election results are known before their votes are counted, a sharp contrast to the foreign system they would naturally be most familiar with, the United States.
- They often don’t vote for the governing party, meaning they may not have ministerial representation in their own federal government. The Liberal AB just elected will almost certainly be a Minister. So that province with millions of people will probably have the same amount of ministerial influence as Newfoundland with one.
- That lack of influence, which is the main self-inflicted part, ensures the federal government remains indifferent or even hostile to niche local issues that only matter in the west.
There’s also a groupthink, lockstep thing going on that’s very counter-productive. The West’s relationship with Ottawa is very similar to Newfoundland’s with Quebec. They feel wronged, it impacts their decision making even on matters that have nothing to do with Ottawa. It becomes a matter of national identity to hate Ottawa, and the feeling isn’t entirely undeserved - but the response chosen can never be productive.
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Western alienation is very real and in many ways is similar to how those in the Maritimes and Newfoundland feel regarding central Canada. The plain reality is about 60% of Canadians live in a (relatively) small band from Windsor to Quebec City. Politics is absolutely dominated by the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal elites. I mean, I live almost 3000 km away from Ottawa. That's the same distance as Lisbon to Berlin.
It really goes back to before the prairies even became provinces. Louis Riel was killed 136 years ago and his views can at least partially be considered Western Alienation and resentment at Ottawa imposition. Our entire political elite from the 1880s until the Depression were either UK or Ontario born. Saskatchewan and Alberta became two separate provinces (instead of one large one) was to subdue the political influence of the prairies.
The Depression hit the prairies harder than Ontario and Quebec. The helped created populist movements in the CCF and Social Credit parties. Those alternative parties did far better in western Canada than central Canada (at least, pre-1960) and can largely be attributed to westerners feeling the PCs and Liberals were not representing them.
Things got a lot worse in the PET days, with the NEP still being a source of contention to this day. We've basically been dealing with the repercussions of this era through its manifestation of Reform->Alliance->Further right Conservatives to this day.
The prairies have large agricultural economies and heavy reliance on natural resources. This will always put us at odds with a largely urban and service economy of Central Canada. It should be no surprise that the further the economies go from resource-based the further they go from the far-right rural mindset (see, Winnipeg, Victoria, Vancouver).
Even things like Bell buying out MTS are seen as Central Canada taking economic advantage of western Canadians.
Not all of us feel this way (I certainly don't), but it's hard to not empathize with someone in the oil, wheat, or potash world who looks at both the federal Conservatives and federal Liberals as groups that don't care about him.
Equalization payments are part of it. Quebec politics are too. But there has been a steady undercurrent of western alienation that ebbs and flows on the times, and has been here since Confederation.
It's just the simple reality of how our country was settled, is developed, and the economic realities of diverse regions.
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