Trudeau’s victory sparks ‘Wexit’ separatist talk in Canada’s west

Within hours of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party winning re-election on Monday, a hashtag began trending in Canada that reflects the deep regional divisions that emerged from the poll: #Wexit, as in Western exit, or more specifically, Alberta separatism.

By the next morning a group called Alberta Fights Back had put up billboards in the province stating “I support an independent Alberta”, complete with a maple leaf, a symbol from Canada’s flag, with a line struck through it.

The separatist rhetoric, while on the fringes, reflects a drawn-out period of economic malaise in the region and poses an early test for Mr Trudeau. He has faced intense criticism in fossil fuel-dependent Alberta over his government’s national price on carbon and inability to get a pipeline built to transport crude from the oil sands to world markets.

The Liberals won the most seats in the House of Commons but not enough to secure a majority, and were completely shut out of the two western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The Conservative Party, which came second in the polls nationally, swept nearly every seat in the two provinces, securing 69 per cent of the vote in Alberta, the highest level in a century.

Humbled Trudeau must redefine his political brand

The balance of the electoral districts went to the left-leaning New Democratic Party, the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party, all of which support policies that would restrict development in Alberta’s oil patch.

On Wednesday Mr Trudeau offered an olive branch to the region. “There’s a lot of thinking to do on that, and a lot of listening to Albertans as I have endeavoured to do over the past number of years, but obviously I’m going to have to do a lot more,” he said.

He also reaffirmed his support for the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which his government acquired for $4.5bn in 2018 in a decision that led the Liberals to lose support among many left-leaning voters.

“The environment and the economy need to go together,” he said. “We will be continuing with the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.”

Yet Mr Trudeau’s outreach has done little to cool emotions in Alberta. This week Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced that a panel of experts would travel the province to hear from the public about how Alberta can improve its standing in Canada’s confederation of provinces and territories.

While Mr Kenney said he does not support the idea of separatism, he has embraced the rhetoric of resentment. “Landlocking ourselves through separation is not a solution to the problem of a campaign to landlock Alberta,” he said, but added “we should not let Justin Trudeau make us feel unwelcome in our own country.”

Meanwhile, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe this week criticised Mr Trudeau for “dividing” the country and said it is time for “a new deal” with Canada.

Western alienation is not a new phenomenon in Canada. But talk about Alberta going it alone has not been this prominent since the 1980s when Mr Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, was prime minister and the province’s oil industry was grappling with low prices and unpopular federal energy policies.

A poll in August by Research Co found 30 per cent of Albertans believe the province would be “better off as its own country,” up from 25 per cent in a similar poll eight months earlier.

In practical terms, Wexit is a non-starter. Alberta and Saskatchewan are landlocked, while more than 200 First Nations communities own hundreds of thousands of acres and their treaty rights are a federal jurisdiction.

Yet behind the separatist bombast is the reality of a region that has suffered repeated economic blows over the past few years. In the two years after oil prices cratered, triggering a recession in the province, incomes in Alberta fell 20 per cent, according to Trevor Tombe, an economist at the University of Calgary.

After what appeared to be a strong recovery beginning in 2017, the province’s economy hit another wall last year that coincided with pipeline developer Kinder Morgan pulling out of the Trans Mountain project. Shortly after a court blocked the project from going ahead, ruling the federal government had failed to adequately consult with indigenous communities along the pipeline route.

Despite the Trudeau government’s purchase and reapproval of the project business consumer confidence took a big hit, said Mr Tombe. Meanwhile, transportation bottlenecks have forced oil sands developers to accept lower prices than they would with increased pipeline capacity.

“There’s clearly frustration that’s real, which you’d find in any jurisdiction that goes through a deep and protracted period of economic weakness as Alberta has,” Mr Tombe said. “But very little of that weakness can be attributed to the federal government.

Mr Trudeau’s recommitment to the Trans Mountain pipeline comes as construction on the project is well under way. Barring another court ruling against the project, which cannot be ruled out, it will eventually bring relief to struggling oil sands producers. “There’s not a magic wand the federal government has to get pipelines built,” said Mr Tombe.

The election results have left Mr Trudeau with a vexing problem of how to assemble a cabinet that includes representation from the region when he has no elected members from his party to draw from. One option is for Mr Trudeau to tap an Alberta or Saskatchewan member of Canada’s unelected Senate, the upper chamber in parliament, to join his cabinet. He could also appoint someone from outside parliament to cabinet, though that approach is rare.

Not all western leaders have been willing to stoke separatist sentiment. “You overcome your difficulties together, you don’t threaten to leave,” said Brian Pallister, the premier of the prairie province of Manitoba and another longtime critic of Mr Trudeau.

“I’ve listened to this from Quebec for years and I don’t like listening to it from western Canadian friends of mine, so I have no time for that kind of thing.”


Source: https://www.ft.com/content/423bdfb2-f6a9-11e9-a79c-bc9acae3b654