FIREWALL ALBERTA

What the spectre of Alberta separatism means for Canada

In October, members of Alberta’s governing United Conservative Party (UCP) will elect a new leader who will then become Alberta’s next premier.

Lisa Young, Professor of Political Science, University of Calgary, University of Calgary \and Jared Wesley, Professor, Political Science, University of Alberta - 

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

Edmonton demonstrators gather to protest against COVID-19 measures and support the 'freedom convoy' in February 2022. Research suggests Alberta separatist sentiments have as much to do with antipathy about the federal government and Justin Trudeau as actually leaving Confederation.

A defining issue in this leadership race is Alberta’s place in Canadian Confederation, with several contenders openly discussing “sovereignty,” “autonomy” and even “independence.”

Are Albertans really so keen to sever ties with the rest of Canada? Should Canadians pay much attention to the separatist movement in Alberta? To answer these questions, we looked at data from the recent Viewpoint Alberta survey.

© Author provided

An infographic that shows the key findings of the Viewpoint Alberta survey.

Separatism and the economy

Support for separation remains a minority view in the province, with one in five believing Alberta “should separate from Canada and form an independent country.”

This is a small base from which to build a province-wide following. Yet separatists make up one-third of UCP voters — a sizeable constituency for would-be leaders to court.


© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntoshBrian Jean is among those vying to replace outgoing Premier Jason Kenney. His campaign slogan is ‘Autonomy for Albertans.’

What motivates these Albertans to take such a drastic position?

Unlike sovereigntists in Québec motivated by a desire to protect their culture, we find Alberta separatists are preoccupied with fiscal and economic issues.

According to our research, Alberta’s separatist movement is also grounded more in party politics than it is in nationalism.

Separatists place themselves further to the right than other Albertans. They are more likely to support conservative political parties both federally and provincially. And they strongly dislike the federal government and Justin Trudeau.
How committed are Alberta separatists?

In our analysis, we found two clues that suggest support for separatism is less a heartfelt desire to form a new country and more a tactical expression of grievances.

The first is that most Albertans – including the separatists themselves – think separation is unlikely. Barely one in 10 separatists think Alberta independence is “very likely” or “will happen.”

The second clue is that the majority of the separatists (62 per cent) retain a sense of attachment to Canada. Separatists are simply angrier and more pessimistic about the country’s future.



Related video: 'Free Alberta Strategy' seeks to declare Alberta a sovereign jurisdiction

They haven’t turned their backs entirely on Canada; they feel it’s headed in the wrong direction and in need of radical reform. 

THEY WANT IT TO BE AMERICAN, REPUBLICAN AMERICA

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntoshPremier Jason Kenney serves pancakes at his last Stampede breakfast in Calgary on July 11. Kenney’s resignation set the stage for a United Conservative Party leadership race and several contenders are already discussing Alberta sovereignty.
Pessimism and mistrust

Most separatists’ worldviews are grounded in a sense of status loss and mistrust for institutions that has fuelled populist movements elsewhere in the world.


They are more likely to feel like they are falling behind others in society, and they have very little confidence in governments and elites. These suspicions drew most separatists into supporting the so-called freedom convoy that occupied Ottawa for weeks in February 2022.

Read more: What the truck? The 'freedom convoy' protesters are heading back to Ottawa

Separatists stood out in their belief that the most recent federal election was unfair. This may be because their favoured party lost despite winning more votes, or a belief in conspiracy theories spread by right-wing news outlets.

Whatever the reason, this low level of trust — combined with a deep sense of pessimism about the future — has sparked movements like Brexit and Trumpism in other parts of the world.

Separatism in Alberta

While support for separation is a minority view in Alberta, it’s not a fringe position. An overwhelming majority of separatists support the UCP provincially and make up a substantial part of its base of support.

EXCEPT THEY HAVE BEEN IN POWER IN ALBERTA FOR 44 YEARS AS THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVES, AND AS RIGHT WING BIBLE BELT SOCIAL CREDIT FOR 75 YEARS BEFORE THAT 


Danielle Smith, Wildrose leader in this 2014 photo, is now a leadership contender to replace Jason Kenney.

Such a large voting bloc is enticing to leadership contenders. Veiled promises to restore Alberta’s “sovereignty” or secure greater “autonomy” can help sell party memberships. They may even lead to victory in the UCP race, creating pressure for the winner to deliver on promises that are politically and constitutionally impossible.

But our research tells us that flirting with separatism is likely to fall flat — if not backfire entirely — during a provincial election.

The broader Alberta electorate is federalist. The majority do not support measures that would further divide the province from Canada.

Eighty per cent of Albertans reject separation, and solid majorities also oppose abandoning the Canada Pension Plan, the RCMP and federal income tax collection. Most opposed the “freedom convoy” and what it stood for, and the majority have confidence in most political institutions.

Candidates running for the UCP leadership have a choice. They can pay lip service to populist and sovereigntist positions to gain internal party support. Or they can resist that temptation with an eye to winning the next provincial election, preserving national unity and strengthening democratic institutions in the process.

Implications for Canada

Canadians outside Alberta should keep a careful eye on this dynamic. Even though they lack the profile of Québec sovereigntists, Alberta separatists are positioned to exert significant political influence on intergovernmental relations in the years to come.

How much influence depends on the commitments made by the eventual winner of the UCP leadership race, and the response from the rest of Canada to their push for a fairer deal in Confederation.

If the next premier is unable to deliver on their promises by securing meaningful concessions from the rest of Canada, separatists would be further alienated from the democratic process. Their disappointment might lead to further civil unrest like what we saw from the “freedom convoy,” adding fuel to the politics of resentment.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:
Protests in Ottawa are a recurring disaster, affecting neighbourhoods and residents
Alberta budget means Albertans are trapped on a relentless fiscal rollercoaster ride

Jared Wesley receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Kule Institute for Advanced Study, and the Killam Trust.

Lisa Young does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

SEE 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2019/06/i-am-reposting-this-due-to-fact-old.html

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for FIREWALL ALBERTA 

THE PHANTASM OF ALBERTA SEPARATISM RAISES ITS UGLY HEAD WITH UCP 

HOORAY ANOTHER SPLIT ON THE RIGHT

'We can learn from Quebec': Alberta separatists look to the Bloc as Conservative support wanes

Jesse Snyder

© Provided by National Post Western alienation is about as old as the province of Alberta itself.

CAYLEY, ALTA. — Western separatists, dismayed by the current direction of Erin O’Toole’s Conservative Party this election, are drawing inspiration from an unlikely source: the Bloc Québécois.

“We can learn from Quebec,” said Jay Hill, interim leader of the Maverick Party, formerly known as Wexit Canada.

Resentments among some in the West toward Ottawa continue to run high in Western provinces, particularly in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where frustrations are mounting over a perceived lack of appreciation for its oil and gas industry and a federal transfer system that has starved the West of much-needed revenues.

In response, prairie separatists are seeking to establish a party that, similar to the Bloc, would act exclusively in the interests of the West as a way to elevate its profile within the federation and push for policies more supportive of a fossil fuel-based economy. Their bid comes as Liberal leader Justin Trudeau seeks to re-establish a majority government on election day Sept. 20, and as support among right-leaning voters for the Conservative Party of Canada has waned.

To ensure a purely Western orientation, the Maverick Party’s 27 candidates are running solely in prairie provinces and northern territories. Their pitch is simple: for decades, voters in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and mainland B.C. have almost uniformly supported a common vision, only to stand by as Ottawa crafts policies that appease the desires of Quebec and Ontario. The only antidote, they say, is true regional representation.

“Wrapping ourselves in the Maple Leaf Flag only ensures, as patriots, that we will continue to be abused by central and eastern Canada,” said Hill, a former member of Parliament for the Conservatives for 17 years.

Hill, a self-proclaimed “slow learner,” said he has since changed his tune on Canada’s parliamentary system, and is now seeking to consolidate a disgruntled Western voter base that has come to question its place in confederation. That involves proposing a softer version of separation, something like “separation-lite” that favours gradually shaving down Ottawa’s centralized power base and establishing a more distinct Western region.

It could prove a steep climb. Even in Alberta, where separatist sentiment is most prominent, alternative candidates are polling well below mainstream parties. Even so, their numbers are already high enough to influence races at the riding level.

In a recent Leger poll, a measly nine per cent of Alberta respondents said they intended to vote for alternative parties, roughly split between the separatist Maverick Party and Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada (PPC), which offers a more bare-knuckled populism than strict Western-first policy. Conservative support in the province, meanwhile, sits at 47 per cent, followed by the Liberals (24 per cent) and NDP (17 per cent).

© Al Charest/Postmedia/File Maverick Party interim leader Jay Hill: “Wrapping ourselves in the Maple Leaf Flag only ensures, as patriots, that we will continue to be abused by central and eastern Canada.”

Still, Western-oriented parties see opportunities to make major gains this election, as conservative voters’ grudging support for O’Toole remains low. According to the same Leger poll, just 24 per cent of Albertans thought O’Toole would make the best prime minister of all leaders, compared with 16 per cent for Justin Trudeau. That actually marked a substantial improvement from a separate Leger poll two weeks earlier, where just 15 per cent of voters chose O’Toole as best potential prime minister, several points behind both Jagmeet Singh and Trudeau.

“Even though a lot of people are voting for Mr. O’Toole, there’s not necessarily a bunch of enthusiasm for him,” said Andrew Enns, executive vice-president at Leger.

Western separatists, for their part, say O’Toole in particular has gone too far to appeal to the East, causing the Conservatives to adopt policies that they view as directly opposed to their interests or at best represent a watered-down conservatism that is hard to distinguish from the Liberals.

“That’s the difference between the Maverick Party and the Conservative Party of Canada: we have one stakeholder, and that’s Western Canada,” Josh Wylie, the Maverick Party’s candidate in the Foothills riding of southern Alberta, said during a recent rally in Cayley, Alta. “There is no conflict, there is no confusion. We can be very clear about who we represent and how we represent them.”

Around 60 attendees are packed into the small community hall in Cayley, a hamlet south of Calgary situated in the middle of a sea of canola and barley.

The event, which perplexingly begins with the singing of Canada’s national anthem, exhibits a deep distaste for Ottawa’s treatment of other provinces, most notably Quebec. A mix of ranchers, farmers, and other blue-collar workers in attendance audibly groan as the Maverick candidate references Trudeau’s recent decision to transfer $6 billion to Quebec without conditions, ostensibly to cover childcare costs.
John Ivison: Maverick Party stands alone in push for Western independence — for now
Why you're wrong if you think Wexit is just 'an Alberta thing'
The rise of western alienation ... again

Wylie, a square-jawed oilpatch consultant and former Conservative voter, tells his supporters that these sorts of policies have continued even after nearly every seat in Alberta and Saskatchewan went in support of Andrew Scheer following the 2019 election.

“We swept Alberta and Saskatchewan, we did what we were supposed to do at the time,” he says. “And in return for that loyalty that we showed to that party, we got Erin O’Toole and a carbon tax in their policy platform.”

Their frustrations extend beyond the energy sector. One cattle farmer in attendance says severe drought this season has obliterated his hay harvest, reducing his total output from 1,208 bales last year to just 67. While Western farmers in Canada have not been able to access government supports to make up the losses, he says, U.S. officials have offered payouts to farmers in Montana and elsewhere, who have in turn bought up the already-dwindling hay supplies in Canada and in turn caused a further spike in prices.

Among those in attendance, there is a common and repeated sense that a similar neglect would not take place under a more Western-oriented government.

At the root of their broader distaste around how wealth is distributed within the Canadian federation — most notably through transfer programs like equalization — that have remained unchanged even in times of Conservative rule.

“It didn’t really matter who we voted in for the [Conservative] party, it just seemed like they got mixed up with Eastern elites,” said Murray Williamson, an 83-year-old real estate agent selling farm land in the region. “The biggest thing right now is equalization.”

Angered voters often take particular umbrage with the federal equalization program, established after the Second World War as a way to ensure a more equitable fiscal balance among provinces. The Fiscal Stabilization Program, a much smaller transfer program designed to counteract provincial revenue losses, has also become a target of Western leaders, most notably Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who has made the issue a central piece of his appeal to voters.

Alberta pays an average of about $20 billion into equalization each year, a number regularly cited by frustrated Western voters. According to Fairness Alberta, an activist group, the province has contributed $324 billion more to Ottawa than it received in return during the two decades between 2000 and 2020.

Kenney commissioned a “Fair Deal Panel” that, in its final report last July, recommended Alberta “press strenuously” to reverse recent changes to fiscal stabilization, and push ahead with a referendum on equalization.

Many observers have said the referendum amounts to nothing more than political theatre, while economists, for their part, largely argue that frustrations over equalization are misplaced.

Alberta has a higher proportion of wealthy people than other provinces, so it contributes more under the program’s per-capita formula. Its relative young population also means that it receives a smaller chunk of major transfers like elderly benefits.

Despite all the angst over equalization and carbon taxes, separatist feelings in the West are lower today than they were following the 2019 election, according to Duane Bratt, professor at Mount Royal University.

Western resentments were running high when First Nations groups blockaded a number of major railway crossings in early 2020 in protest of the building of the Coastal GasLink Pipeline through traditional Wet’suwet’en lands. At the same time, Vancouver-based mining giant Teck Resources had shelved its $20-billion Frontier oilsands mine, raising fresh doubts over the Liberals’ updated regulatory regime for oil and gas projects.

But the COVID-19 pandemic, Bratt said, put a damper on those resentments and rearranged voter priorities.

“It’s not as powerful a force as it was then, and it sure hasn’t gained momentum,” he said.

Still, Western alienation is about as old as the province of Alberta itself, and is not about to disappear.

Soon after joining the Canadian federation, Alberta and Saskatchewan were protesting Ottawa’s threats to remove freight subsidies on the Canadian Pacific Railway that would have hiked prices for farmers transporting their crops. British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba all fought for years for control over their natural resources, which was eventually granted through a series of legislative changes in 1930.

Today, similar sentiments are manifested in an exasperation over Alberta’s battered oil industry. That is often reflected in its inability over the last 20 years to build major export pipelines, which have depressed prices for Canadian crude and sapped the province of tens of billions in foregone revenue. New federal environmental policies only layer on new restrictions, according to some.

The Maverick Party and People’s Party of Canada have been railing against Ottawa’s carbon tax, now set to rise to $170 per tonne by 2030, saying it raises household costs in Canada while failing to curb pollution from some of the world’s largest emitters, like China. Supporters of the tax, meanwhile, say it’s the most efficient way to lower emissions in a world where sea levels are rapidly rising and atmospheric temperatures are gradually ticking upward

.

© Supplied Maverick Party’s candidate Josh Wylie: “That’s the difference between the Maverick Party and the Conservative Party of Canada: we have one stakeholder, and that’s Western Canada. There is no conflict.”

The Liberal government’s Bill C-69, which updated the regulatory review process for major projects, and C-48, which banned oil tankers from docking at ports along the northern half of the B.C. coast, are also viewed as explicit attacks on the West.

O’Toole has also promised to repeal both bills and has voiced support for Canada’s oil and gas industry. He has been decidedly more cautious about his position toward the separatist elements of the Conservative’s Western base.

Just one day after the Maverick Party’s rally in Cayley, O’Toole was in Quebec City presenting voters with a 10-point promise to Quebec nationals, who he said would be fully supported within a Conservative government.

“All Quebec nationalists are welcome in the Conservative party,” he said . “It is your home.”

His promises largely mirrored some of the requests that have been tabled in the west, including a pledge to give Quebec more control over immigration, a single tax return, and a commitment to stay out of provincial policies like its secularism bill, which outlaws government workers from wearing religious symbols.

Western separatists, if given the chance, say they would potentially create a Western-specific police force, similar to the Sûreté du Québec, or push for looser gun restrictions through a provincial Chief Firearms Officer.

It remains unclear whether Albertans, angry as they may be, will be wiling to support a pair of parties currently polling at around five per cent, and who held no seats in the House of Commons during the last Parliamentary session.

Others say they fear vote-splitting — a worry that the Maverick Party has sought to address directly by running candidates only in ridings where the Tories are dominant. In the Foothills riding, for example, Conservative John Barlow won 82 per cent of the vote, while the second-place Liberal candidate won just 5.8 per cent. The People’s Party of Canada, meanwhile, is currently running 249 candidates across the country.

The Mavericks have also sought to distinguish themselves from the PPC by steering away from more sensitive social issues like immigration and abortion, and have proposed a softer approach to separatism than its most hardcore supporters might desire.

All 27 Maverick candidates have signed agreements stating that they would not table private member’s bills on the topic of abortion. They would be free to vote as they like if such a bill was presented by another party.

“We want to be as inclusive as possible,” Hill said.

Rather than outright separation, the party proposes a so-called “two track” system, under which it would first put forward a series of smaller policy positions that would weaken Ottawa’s influence over the region and, according to the party, allow more autonomy for the West.

“Of course, there’s no procedure or mechanism to allow us to leave right now even if the majority supported that. So, somehow we have to bring along the majority of Westerners to the idea that we’ve tried everything possible to convince the rest of Canada to change.”

The Mavericks and PPC could be viewed as two factions of the now-defunct Reform Party, which was folded into the “big umbrella” Conservative Party in 2000. The PPC is more focused on fiscal restraint and social conservatism while the Mavericks are more strictly interested in constitutional issues and equalization.

Together they represent a conservative movement that has thus far struggled to establish itself in Canada’s parliamentary system. And seeing its own shortcomings, Hill said, they are now trying to model themselves after their sworn enemy: the Bloc Québécois and the province of Quebec.

“Who can realistically argue that the Bloc hasn’t been successful for the last 30 years?”

• Email: jsnyder@postmedia.com | Twitter: jesse_snyder

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Alberta NDP says premier's rejection of federal authority lays separation groundwork

Yesterday 5:00 p.m.

EDMONTON — Alberta’s NDP Opposition leader says Premier Danielle Smith's comments rejecting the legitimacy of the federal government betray her unspoken plan to lay the groundwork for eventual separation.


Alberta NDP says premier's rejection of federal authority lays separation groundwork© Provided by The Canadian Press

Rachel Notley cited Smith’s comments to the house just before members passed her sovereignty bill earlier Thursday, in which Smith rejected the federal government’s overarching authority.

“It's not like Ottawa is a national government,'' Smith told the house at 12:30 a.m. Thursday.

UH YES IT IS

"The way our country works is that we are a federation of sovereign, independent jurisdictions.  WRONG THIS IS THE AMERICAN STATES CONFEDERACY IDEOLOGY

ALBERTA AND SASKATCHEWAN WERE GRANTED PROVINCIAL POWERS FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 

They are one of those signatories to the Constitution and the rest of us, as signatories to the Constitution, have a right to exercise our sovereign powers in our own areas of jurisdiction.”

Notley, speaking to reporters, said, “At 12:30 last night when she thought nobody was listening, the veil was lifted and Danielle Smith’s interest in genuinely pursuing initial steps toward separation were revealed.

“(They) demonstrate that her view is actually that which is aligned with these fringe separatist wannabes like folks who drafted the Free Alberta Strategy.

“Those comments are utterly chaos-inducing.”

Free Alberta Strategy was a 2021 policy paper drafted in part by Smith’s current top adviser Rob Anderson.

The authors of the paper argue that federal laws, policies and overreach are mortally wounding Alberta's development.

They urge a two-track strategy to assert greater autonomy for Alberta within Confederation, while simultaneously laying the policy and administrative groundwork to transition Alberta to separation and sovereignty should negotiations fail. 

AND OF COURSE WITH MANY AMERICANS IN SOUTHERN ALBERTA WE KNOW WHERE A SEPERATE ALBERTA WILL GO

The strategy was the genesis for Smith’s controversial sovereignty bill that stipulates the Alberta legislature, rather than the courts, can pass judgment on what is constitutional when it comes to provincial jurisdiction.

The bill also grants cabinet the power to direct municipalities, city police forces, health regions and schools to resist implementing federal laws.

During question period, Smith rejected accusations the bill is a separatist Trojan Horse, noting its intent is contained in the title.

“The name of the bill is Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act,” said Smith.

“The (act) has nothing to do with leaving the country. It has everything to do with resetting the relationship (with the federal government).”

Related video: Alberta passes Sovereignty Act, strips out sweeping powers for cabinet (cbc.ca)

Duration 3:54 View on Watch

Political scientist Jared Wesley said it appears constitutional chaos and baiting the federal government are the actual aims.

“When you start to deny the legitimacy of the federal government, that is part of the worrying trend that ties all of this to the convoy movement and the separatists,” said Wesley, with the University of Alberta.

“Albertans need to know those comments are inappropriate and misleading at best and sparking a national unity crisis at worst. Sooner or later, someone’s going to believe her.”

Wesley added that there is a sentiment among a small group of people in Alberta, including the premier, who "are just tired of losing and don’t want to play the game anymore," he said.

“The sad thing is that that game is democracy and the rule book is the Constitution, and they’re just ignoring all of it now."

Political scientist Duane Bratt said Smith was not describing Canadian federalism.

“She is confusing the European Union with Canada,” said Bratt, with Mount Royal University in Calgary. “Canada is not made up of sovereign provinces. We share sovereignty between orders of government.”

Political scientist Lori William, also with Mount Royal University, said the comment “betrays a profound lack of understanding of Canada, of federalism, of what powers belong to the federal and provincial governments.”

During question period, Smith waved away Opposition demands that she refer the bill to Alberta’s Court of Appeal to determine if it is onside with the Constitution.

Smith told the house that Justice Minister Tyler Shandro, a lawyer, wrote the bill and that the government received independent advice from constitutional lawyers to ensure it was not offside.

“The constitutionality of this bill is not in question,” Smith said.

The bill was introduced by Smith a week ago as centrepiece legislation to pursue a more confrontational approach with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government on a range of issues deemed to be overreach in provincial areas of responsibility.

It was a short, brutish ride for the bill.

Smith’s government, due to a public outcry, had to bring in an amendment just days after introducing the bill to reverse a provision that gave it ongoing emergency-type powers to unilaterally rewrite laws while bypassing the legislature.

Alberta’s First Nations chiefs have condemned the bill as trampling their treaty rights and Smith’s Indigenous relations minister has said more consultation should have been done.

Smith told the house she met with Indigenous leaders just hours earlier to discuss concerns and shared goals. She rejected the assertion the bill doesn’t respect treaty rights.

“There is no impact on treaty and First Nations’ rights. That’s the truth,” she said.

Law professor Martin Olszynski said the bill remains problematic because it must be clear the courts have the final say on interpreting the Constitution in order to stabilize the checks and balances of a democratic system.

He said Smith’s bill threatens that, perhaps putting judges in the awkward position of having to decide whether they are the ones to make those decisions.

“Can that judge exercise their judicial function without being affected by that very politicized context?” said Olszynski, with the University of Calgary.

“It essentially politicizes the judicial process.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 8, 2022.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

Rebel Yell

THE PHANTASM OF ALBERTA SEPARATISM RAISES ITS UGLY HEAD WITH UCP 


RECENTLY GLOBAL TV INTERVIEWED BARRY COOPER A PROFESSOR EMERITUS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY. 

Don’t write off Western anger as ‘alienation’ — it runs a whole lot deeper: Calgary professor
It's not alienation, its abuse towards Western Canada: Cooper | Watch News Videos Online
Barry Cooper from the University of Calgary joins Mercedes Stephenson to discuss why, if the concerns of Alberta separatists aren't addressed, there will be a ...

Barry Cooper: Separation has become a real possibility, thanks to Ottawa’s abuses
The Canada option: Is it still viable for AlbertaSeparation has become a real possibility thanks to the abuses and injustices imposed by Ottawa, writes University of Calgary political science professor Barry Cooper. Updated: December 17, 2018

Dr. Cooper as he is known sometimes, is the highest paid academic in Alberta, his salary dwarves his colleagues at the U of C, because he is the leading light of the Right Wing in Canada, he gets grants and foundation funding. 

He was interviewed giving succour to the so called Separatist streak in right wing Alberta politics. Now along with being a founding member of the Calgary School of Right Wing Politics he is also a Pro Oil Climate Change Denier with his foundation the Friends of Science. 

Cooper is also an advocate for private schools, charter and vouchers schools developed under the Klein government. This was aimed locally at the Calgary education market more than it was for the rest of the province, where the dominant board the CBE was not quick to adapt to the reform change movement in Education, unlike the Edmonton Public School Board, so the right wing push for Charter schools was big in Calgary.

The so called separatism is also known as Firewall Alberta which Cooper, Flanagan and the Calgary School sold Harper on prior to his becoming PM.

To understand the so called Separatist politics of the right in Canada I thought I would share this with you, some blasts from the past about authentic Alberta History not right wing wishful thinking.

Alberta Separatism Not Quite Stamped Out

It originates in Alberta not in the dirty thirties but the early 1980's in the last days of the Lougheed government, with the Western Canada Concept (WCC) of rightwhingnut lawyer and defender of fascists Doug Christie. The WCC won a seat in a red neck rural riding, and had an MLA in the Alberta Legislature giving them some political credibility, some, enough for Lougheed to use them as a whipping boy against Ottawa. Which Ralph Klein continues to do today. Any time things got a little outta hand between the Liberals in Ottawa and the Alberta Government the bugaboo of Alberta Separatism would be raised. Clever ploy that.The reality is that during the 1980's two major right wing populist parties began in Alberta, both anti-semitic, white power, anti-biligualism, pro religious fundamentalist, pro Celtic Saxon peoples (code for White Power) anti immigrant anti multiculturalism, today add anti-gay. These were the WCC and Elmer Knutsens Confederation of Regions Party. The CRP did not win seats in Alberta but in New Brunswick, as a right wing backlash to that provinces French majority.Ironic eh.

See: 

Social Credit And Western Canadian Radicalism

The history of Alberta Alienation and the autonomous farmer worker resistance to Ottawa, the seat of political and economic power of the mercantilist state, dates back to the founding of the province one hundred years ago.

Rebel Yell

Populism and Producerism

Historical Memory on the Eve of the Election

Calgary Herald Remembers RB Bennett

Canada's First Internment Camps

FIRST READING: Is Alberta the new Quebec?

Tristin Hopper - NATIONAL POST

Danielle Smith celebrates at the BMO Centre in Calgary following the UCP leadership vote on Thursday, October 6, 2022.© Provided by National Post

The joke has been made quite often in recent weeks that Alberta and Quebec politics appear to have switched places.

Quebec – whose politics were once a decades-long struggle between sovereigntists and federalists – has now transitioned seamlessly into voting for an all-powerful, centre-right monolith.

And Alberta – which spent 44 straight years under the rule of the monolithic Progressive Conservatives – now has the most sovereigntist premier in its history.

On Monday, Quebec delivered an absolutely crushing re-election victory to Coalition Avenir Quebec, the big tent conservative-for-Quebec party headed by disaffected former separatist Francois Legault. The election also utterly demolished the Parti Quebecois, the province’s tradition standard-bearer for sovereigntist sentiment; they only got three seats.

Four days later, a leadership vote by the Alberta United Conservative Party confirmed Danielle Smith as the province’s premier-designate. The one-time leader of Alberta’s upstart Wildrose Party, Smith’s political comeback was due in part to her promise to champion an Alberta Sovereignty Act that would empower the province to govern itself “as a nation within a nation.”

But the wild rose and the fleur-de-lys aren’t so much trading places as they’re becoming mirror images of one another. Both Legault and Smith now share a common mission of aggressively seizing as much power as possible from Ottawa, but without all the red tape of literally trying to separate.

The Alberta Sovereignty Act was modelled to mimic Quebec’s unique level of control over its own affairs, something that Smith said specifically in an August National Post op-ed. “It would essentially give Alberta the same power within confederation that Quebec has,” she wrote.

Among other things, Quebec has control over its immigration, including the power to select the criteria and rate at which immigrants move to the province. Quebec also collects its own income taxes, rather than having the Canada Revenue Agency do it by proxy.

Quebec is also the most enthusiastic user of the Notwithstanding Clause, the section of the Constitution that allows provincial governments to ignore the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This has been used most recently by the Legault government to head off Constitutional challenges against Bill 21, which bans religious garb for anyone in the civil service, and Bill 96, which polices mandatory use of French in the private sector.

Legault’s Coalition Avenir Quebec was founded in 2011 with the stated mission of pursuing unapologetic Quebec nationalism without advocating for outright separation. The pitch has resonated, and the explosive CAQ victory this week was due in part to the fact that so many former separatists have flocked to the CAQ banner.

In 2021, the CAQ even passed a bill proposing to unilaterally change the Canadian constitution to mention “la nation québécoise” and to state that said nation had only one official language.

And for Smith – and the United Conservative Party faction who voted for her – it’s this view of nationalism that has proved most attractive.

“Quebec has asserted it is a nation within a nation … Under my leadership, Alberta will too,” Smith wrote in August.

Despite any emerging political similarities between the two, Quebec and Alberta continue to harbour a raging mutual dislike, usually over the issue of money.

In a Leger poll from just last month, Albertans were found to lead the pack among Canadians who harboured the most resentment towards Quebec.

In 2019, Quebecers were asked by the Angus Reid Institute to rank the provinces that they deemed to be most “unfriendly.” Alberta was the clear winner, with 81 per cent classifying it as an enemy.

This sometimes manifests itself in a very public airing of grievances between the two provinces. In 2018, Legault declared his opposition to Alberta’s “dirty energy,” sparking backlash from then Premier Rachel Notley.

“(Legault) needs to understand that not only is our product not dirty, but that it actually funds the schools, the hospitals and potentially even some of the hydro-electricity infrastructure in Quebec,” said Notley at the time.

Three years later, a clear majority of Albertans voted “yes” in a referendum calling for the abolition of Canada’s equalization program – a program that disproportionately functions to transfer wealth from Alberta to Quebec. (NOT JUST QUEBEC)

THIS IS BULLSHIT PROPAGANDA, VERY LOW VOTER TURN OUT ON THE VOTE, EDMONTON OVERWHELMING MAJORITY VOTED NO, 

SOUTHERN ALBERTA HISTORICALLY AMERICANIZED POPULATION 

VOTED YES.

WCC REDUX

WESTERN SEPARATISTS

Alberta to defy Canada power rules in face-off with Trudeau

Robert Tuttle, Bloomberg News

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith invoked a measure to defy federal regulations that aim for a net zero electrical grid by 2035, setting up a confrontation between the Canadian province and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government.

The resolution proposed under the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act orders provincial government agencies to not enforce or aid in enforcing Canada’s clean electricity regulations, arguing that power generation is the jurisdiction of the provinces under the constitution, not the federal government’s. 

The move is likely to set up a major court battle and standoff between Trudeau and Smith, a conservative premier who has vowed to thwart federal regulations that would undermine the province’s energy sector.

Smith’s government said in a statement that Alberta, which relies on natural gas for the bulk of its power generation, is able to achieve a net-zero power grid by 2050 but the 2035 target would be “unaffordable, unreliable and unconstitutional” and puts people at risk of “freezing in the dark” when temperatures drop as low as minus-23F. 

The federal rules are flexible enough to be “realistic and accommodate Alberta’s needs,” Steven Guilbeault, Trudeau’s environment minister, said in a statement. “We have been collaborating in good faith on clean electricity investments and regulations as part of our Canada-Alberta working group, which we created at the request of Alberta with the express intent to work through these issues collaboratively. The government of Alberta has never brought up a constitutional veto at the negotiating table.

Smith has railed against the federal clean power rules for months, even launching a multimillion-dollar ad campaign against the measures. But Wednesday’s move marks the first time she has invoked her signature sovereignty law, which her government argues allows her province to override federal laws or regulations, but which has yet to be tested in court.

The step comes a month after the Supreme Court of Canada largely struck down a separate federal law on the review major resource and infrastructure projects, legislation that was opposed by Canada’s oil industry. 

The province doesn’t have time to wait years for the courts to rule on the constitutionality of the clean electricity regulations and must act now, Smith said at a news conference on Monday.  

The federal clean electricity regulations are discouraging private investors from submitting applications for needed natural gas power plants in Alberta, Smith’s government said in its release. While the resolution to defy the feds wouldn’t apply to private individuals or corporations, the legislation instructs the province to study the feasibility of setting up a provincially owned corporation that could bring on and maintain “more reliable and affordable electricity” at a later date, regardless of federal net-zero government’s rules.

Saskatchewan starts tribunal to review

Ottawa's clean electricity regulations

Jeremy Simes, The Canadian Press

Bronwyn Eyre was announced as Saskatchewan’s minister of justice and attorney general at a press conference  at Government House in Regina THE CANADIAN PRESS/Michael Bell

The Saskatchewan government is using its autonomy legislation for the first time to review the federal government's proposed clean-electricity regulations.

Justice Minister Bronwyn Eyre told reporters Tuesday she's implementing the Saskatchewan First Act to establish a tribunal to study the economic effects of the rules.

The regulations would require provinces to work toward an emissions-free electricity grid by 2035, which Eyre said is creating investor uncertainty. 

"(The regulations) are about emission reduction, but what does it mean? How will it impact our companies in anticipation of these policies? Not exploring as much, not doing as much? Absolutely," Eyre said. 

"We need to get a nuanced, detailed sense of what these policies mean for the economy of Saskatchewan and the people of Saskatchewan."

The act, passed in the spring, is meant to reassert Saskatchewan having jurisdiction over natural resources and electricity generation. It also allows Saskatchewan to set up a tribunal. 

Eyre said the tribunal's members are to submit a report outlining costs of the federal regulations.  

She said they are to work over the next few months, speaking with researchers and those in industry to help inform their report.

The minister said there are no plans to speak with environmental groups, as the tribunal is to only focus on economic costs. 

Its members also have the power to compel witnesses to speak with them.

Michael Milani, a Regina lawyer who will chair the tribunal, said it's unlikely members would use that power.

He added he will ask Ottawa to make a submission.

"If the goal is to obtain the best and most complete information possible, I would think, as chair, we'd want that from all places and all quarters," Milani said. 

"It may well be that the federal government will provide us with additional information and details so that the report will be the most complete and accurate that we're able to create."

A spokesperson for the office of federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault did not immediately provide a comment on whether Ottawa will participate in the tribunal. 

Both Saskatchewan and Alberta have long been at odds with Ottawa over the regulations.

On Monday, Alberta used its sovereignty act for the first time, tabling a motion to empower provincial officials and regulators to not co-operate with the clean-electricity rules.

Alberta and Saskatchewan say Ottawa's 2035 timeline is not doable and would cause higher electricity bills and reliability issues. Instead, they are targeting 2050 for emissions-free electricity. 

Guilbeault has disputed claims the regulations would impose unfair costs and reliability problems, saying Ottawa plans to cover up to half of the cost through tax credits, low-cost financing and other funds. 

His office said Ottawa has spent $40 billion to help provinces build emissions-free electricity infrastructure, which supports jobs while reducing emissions. 

Earlier this month, Dustin Duncan, the minister responsible for Saskatchewan's electricity utility, said the regulations would cost the province $40 billion. 

Saskatchewan finance officials have also estimated a slew of federal environmental policies — the price on carbon, clean fuel regulations, emissions caps and methane initiatives — would cost the province $111 billion by 2035. 

Eyre said even though officials have already outlined these costs, the tribunal is needed to "look at all angles."

"There are a lot of trickle-down impacts from these federal policies that have not been economically canvassed or plumbed or completely analyzed or quantified."

She added the tribunal's report could also be used as evidence in court, should the province file an injunction application in the future.

The province is to spend $150,000 this year on the tribunal, Eyre said. It would then cost $250,000 per year.

The tribunal's members have been appointed for three years and are expected to undertake additional studies after they review the regulations. 

The tribunal also includes former Saskatchewan finance minister Janice MacKinnon, former SaskEnergy CEO Kenneth From, agriculture researcher Stuart Smyth and oilsands worker Estella Peterson.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 28, 2023.

FROM THE RIGHT

Carson Jerema: Jason Kenney puts Alberta on path he can't control with equalization win

A victory for the 'yes' side could do little more than raise expectations, creating a larger opening for separatist elements in the province

Author of the article:

Carson Jerema
Publishing date

:Oct 19, 2021 • 

 

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is very likely pleased with the referendum result, with voters approving a proposal to remove equalization from the Constitution.

 PHOTO BY IAN KUCERAK /Postmedia

Judging purely from the results of the equalization referendum, Jason Kenny made the right bet, but he has also put himself and Alberta onto a path he may regret. The referendum, which early results show Albertans voting to remove equalization from the constitution, was always a gesture meant to shore up support for his government as the province’s true defender against a hostile Ottawa.

But in the years since the premier took power his popularity has plummeted, largely due to his handling of the pandemic, which energized the more conservative factions in the province, and his party. Those factions will want to drastically change or dismantle equalization and won’t be satisfied with a symbolic victory.

Complaints against equalization are indeed well founded. Because Alberta, which hasn’t qualified for the program since the 1960s, is richer than other provinces and incomes are higher, its people pay a disproportionate amount of federal taxes, portions of which are distributed to “have-not” provinces so they can offer similar services at similar levels of taxation. Most of the payments go to Quebec, which will receive $13.1 billion of the nearly $21 billion in equalization payments for 2021-22, which is particularly galling given Quebec’s staunch opposition to pipelines carrying Alberta oil.

While the purpose of equalization is to smooth out inequalities between provinces, fiscal capacity has been converging, especially since the oil price collapse of 2014. 

RIGHT WING Political scientist Bill Bewick of Fairness Alberta estimates that the per capital fiscal gap between have and have-not provinces fell from about $5,000 in 2015, to $1,600 this year. Because the program has a predetermined pool of funding, equalization is currently paying out more than the formula would call for.

University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe said in an interview on Monday that while he opposed the referendum, he agrees that the program needs to be reformed. “In 2018, following the drop in oil prices and provinces getting more equal, the formula actually wanted to pay out fewer dollars than that preset amount,” he said.

Another objection is that equalization favours provinces with publicly owned power companies, because it calculates revenue based on the price the government sets for electricity. This is a particular boon for Quebec. “There is a strong incentive to keep power prices low,” Tombe says. If Quebec “were to have just two cents per kilowatt hour higher electricity prices, they would still have low electricity prices, relative to North America, but their equalization payment would have been $10.7 billion, instead (of $13.1 billion).”

So, yes, grievances against equalization are justified, and with respect to the referendum, equalization really has no business being in the Constitution. No federal spending program, especially one so easily manipulated for political aims, should be enshrined alongside rules that dictate the powers and limits of government. The wording of the equalization clause itself suggests it doesn’t belong, as it commits Ottawa to merely the “principle” of making equalization payments to poorer provinces.

Much has been said about the Supreme Court’s 1998 secession ruling and a duty “to come to the negotiating table” which was a specific reference to the threat of separation, not a general point on more trivial constitutional changes. However, elsewhere in the ruling, the court did affirm “the duty on the participants in Confederation to engage in constitutional discussions in order to acknowledge and address democratic expressions of a desire for change in other provinces.”

We could quibble over the legal distinctions between “negotiating” versus holding “discussions,” but if you wanted to remove the equalization clause from the Constitution, holding a referendum, followed up by a resolution in the legislature (as is planned), is indeed how Alberta would initiate the amendment process.

It just isn’t obvious what Kenney and his United Conservative Party government hopes to accomplish. “Our expectation is not that there will be a constitutional amendment or the end of equalization, but we’re using this to get leverage,” Kenney said in a Facebook Live event last week, where he fully acknowledged that he doesn’t expect to get the necessary support from other provinces to amend the Constitution. The whole purpose, then, appears to be to kick up dust.

Certainly, if the vote were to go the other way, it would be worse for Kenney, but a victory for the “yes” side could do little more than raise expectations, creating a larger opening for separatist elements in the province.

The so-called Free Alberta Strategy , which was announced with a splash earlier this month, goes well beyond the usual plans to assert autonomy, such as a provincial police force and pension plan. Supported by some current and former MLAs, it advocates for the provincial government to claim authority to “refuse enforcement” of federal laws and court rulings, and pushes for independence if Ottawa doesn’t end its “economic tyranny.”

Kenney won power with a coalition that included the nascent independence movement, despite the fact that he is a federalist. If Albertans strongly approve of making changes to equalization and Kenney is unable to deliver for them, will that further embolden the separatists within his base?

National Post
cjerema@postmedia.com

Buffalo Party's strong showing in Saskatchewan vote a warning to Moe: experts

© Provided by The Canadian Press

SASKATOON — Right-wing, pro-independence candidates had a stronger showing in Saskatchewan's election than the Opposition NDP in some rural ridings and experts say that means Premier Scott Moe's Saskatchewan Party can't rest easy in victory.

The Buffalo party ran candidates in 17 of 61 constituencies and captured nearly three per cent of the votes cast on Monday, excluding mail-in ballots that have yet to be counted.

While they didn't manage to snatch any seats, Buffalo candidates outdid the NDP by considerable margins in the ridings of Estevan, Cannington, Cypress Hills and Kindersley.

"We accomplished more in the last three months than anybody ever gave us credit for and everyone is extremely happy and pleased," said Wade Sira, who was a distant third in his constituency north of Saskatoon.

In July, the Buffalo party changed its name from Wexit Saskatchewan — an apparent play on the U.K. Brexit movement — and chose Sira, a municipal reeve, as leader.

Sira said his party wants a Quebec-like relationship with the federal government that would have Saskatchewan take control of immigration, policing, pensions and firearms.

Many platform ideas echo proposals Alberta Premier Jason Kenney's United Conservative government has been examining to get what it calls a "fair deal" from Confederation.

"As Buffalo, we see ourselves not as separatists. We see ourselves as sovereigntists," Sira said in an interview Tuesday.

"We need to be treated equal in Canada and not like a colony."

Moe's Saskatchewan Party was decisively re-elected in Monday's vote, although some seats are too close to call until mail-in ballots are counted.

Moe acknowledged in his victory speech that some people voted for the Buffalo party to express their frustration with Ottawa.

"And to those voters I want to say: I hear you. And I want to say this government hears you," Moe said.

"We share your frustrations and we share many of your objectives. We are not happy with the federal government either."

A brand of conservative populism fuelled by anger at Ottawa and hatred of big government has been simmering in Saskatchewan and Alberta since Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's re-election last fall.

Lisa Young, a professor at the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy, said it's a challenge for both Moe and Kenney — the Alberta premier more so because of the strength of Alberta's NDP under Rachel Notley.

"But if the NDP in Saskatchewan is able to recover and be more popular, it will be the same issue for Moe," Young said.

"There's a danger that the votes on the right split, and that's where conservative governments can run into electoral trouble."

Alberta's Freedom Conservative Party and Wexit Alberta combined into the Wildrose Independence Party earlier this year.

Kenney replied with an emphatic no when asked during the UCP's annual general meeting last weekend whether he would support separation.

"We're likely to see Moe take some pages out of Jason Kenney's playbook," said Young, who pointed to the Kenney government's "fair deal" panel as a way to show alienated westerners their provincial government is listening.

Greg Poelzer, a University of Saskatchewan political scientist, said Moe is at a crossroads where he can either chose to be — in Reform Party founder Preston Manning's words — a "little westerner" or a "big westerner."

The former turn inward and protect their own interests, while the latter build bridges and play a constructive role in federation, Poelzer said.

"If the Buffalo party wasn't here, didn't exist at all, I think the premier would have more room to manoeuvre."

Poelzer said Moe would be wise to differentiate his party from Buffalo and not get pulled to the right — both for the public good and as a way to prevent a centrist challenger from rising on the left.

"That takes a lot of courage because it's a lot easier, especially after a massive win and a very decisive win, to go the other route."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published October 27, 2020.

By Lauren Krugel in Calgary. With files from Stephanie Taylor in Regina

The Canadian Press

Another Fascist Bites the Dust

RON GOSTICK, R.I.P.

Actually its good riddance to this home grown Alberta fascist, who founded the Canadian Intelligence Service (sic), Canadian League of Rights, etc. etc ad naseum.

His eulogy is written by current fascist spokesman Paul Fromm and published here at the Australian League of Rights site, which is a creepy slimy fascist organization, that came about as part of the Right Wing League of Rights groups in Canada (Gostick was its founder), the US, and England. You can tell them by their motto:"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" Edmund Burke

You have been warned. I publish this here because its important to learn the links that the right wing rump of the Reform/Alliance/Conservatives and their friends have to the fascist movement in Canada. Interestingly Gosticks death was over shadowed by that of Wolfgang Droege, leader of the Heritage Front, who died this spring.

Gostick's importance in the continuation of the post war fascist movement (packaging itself as an anti-communist movement during the long Cold War) of the right in Canada should not be underestimated. Often overshadowed by those high profile fascists in the media like Droege, James Keegstra, and Zundel whom would not have existed had it not been for Gostick and his pal Pat Walsh.

Their hatred of Trudeau and publication of scurilous attacks on him, as well as their unrepentant anti-semitism, pro-white/Celtic/Saxon, anti-bilingualism publishing lead to the creation of the anti-hate laws in Canada. They drew attention to themselves and their small publishing empire by their continued attacks on Trudeau.

Gostick and Walsh had the base of their operations in Southern Alberta, and Southern Ontario, in the farming and evangelical protestant communities. Today Southern Ontario is still a base for fascists like Paul Fromm.

In Canada itself, neo-fascist groups continue to organize. Over the past few months, in southern Ontario, the Canadian Heritage Alliance has developed as a youth organization with links both to former Heritage Front members and to long-time far-rightists, Paul Fromm and Marc Lemire. At the same time, a new group associated with White Power Skinheads, the Canadian Ethnic Cleansing Team, has emerged in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. In Calgary, there is a new presence of the National Alliance, a US-based international neo-Nazi organization; in Ontario and in BC, the white racist World Church of the Creator is showing renewed strength, while in Quebec, the Vinland Skinheads are organizing in both the Anglophone and Francophone communities. Fascism at the End of the Twentieth Century, David Lethbridge

In Southern Alberta Gostick and Walsh found a fertile base for their ideology, as it was also the home of Dutch Emirgres of the Calvinist Christian Reformed Church and the Mormons. Both of these sects viewed the choosen people as being 'white', the CRC was strongly affiliated with the aparthied State in South Africa.

They can be credited with having influenced Alberta Seperatism as the ideology that lay beneath the populist Western Canadian reformist veneer of Doug Christies Western Canada Concept (WCC), and Elmer Knutsen's Confederation of Regions Party,

A reading of any of the WCC or CRP publications from the seventies shows the same belief in creating a 'white only' ( Celtic/Saxon peoples), anti-Quebec/Anti-bilingualism/Anti-Multiculturalism Independent Alberta/Western Canada. These ideas today are still thinly vieled in the Alberta Seperatist movement.

A Separation Party of Alberta government will establish and administer its own immigration program and support an immigration policy based on acceptable applicants who will embrace our way of life and accept our standards of behavior and abide by our laws.

The reason for this calamity is that Family Class immigrants constitute
over 60% of all immigrants. Asians are displacing the founding race of
this country at an alarming pace specifically because we allow them to
bring in family members from Third World nations. Meanwhile, highly
qualified European workers have to go through the rigours of the points
system, where their eligibility is appraised according to their
proficiency in English or French and the correlation of their specific
occupational history to the list of underrepresented occupations established by
Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Family class immigrants, of course,
have no requirement to know English or French and their occupational
history is considered irrelevant. BC White Pride

Gostick and his gang were the fascist rump of the Social Credit party, which was always inherent in Major Douglas's Social Credit ideology. In Albera it was a direct result of the party moving from being a populist reformist movement in Alberta to taking state power under the direction of the Evangelicalists Bill Abreheart and then Ernest Manning. Manning's son Preston of course resurected his own right wing populist movement post WCC/CFR which became the Reform/Alliance/Conservative party.

I am surprised that Warren Kinsella, Mr. Right Wing Watch himself, missed this. But then again he is being busy with his efforts at self promoting and of course sucking up to the Tories, well I guess his anti-fascism is in the past replaced with his current neo-punk rocker career.......

Ron went to college in Calgary and took further business studies in Chicago. He joined the Canadian Army in 1941 and served as a court reporter in Ottawa and Toronto. Immediately after the war, Ron served as the General Secretary of the Social Credit Party of Canada. Party intrigues soured him on political parties. Major Douglas had warned against the formation of a Social Credit Party, believing that it would be better to spread the philosophy of economic reform, hoping that people of good will in many parties would adopt it. Ron began his publishing activities, at first distributing copies of his newspaper by motorcycle around Ontario.

A Social Creditor and journalist would seem to have made Ron fairly mainstream - at least not a subject for law enforcement scrutiny. However, his voluminous RCMP file, obtained some years ago by lawyer Barbara Kulazska reveals than his meetings were under Mountie surveillance as early as the late 1940s. Ron's Christian principles led him into many causes. He was a firm anti-communist at a time when trendy Canadians like Pierre Trudeau were open admirers of tyrants like Fidel Castro and Mao tse-Tung. When Rhodesia declared independence in 1965, he rallied to the cause of the Ian Smith experiment, grounded in Christianity and a gradual approach to Negro involvement. Ron strongly opposed the Pearson's pennant coup d'etat, the invention of a "new" Canadian flag and the abandonment of the Red Ensign, as a prelude to the changing of the country the flag symbolized, through massive Third World immigration, multiculturalism and the sacrificing of our sovereignty through internationalism. When Royal Canadian Legion Branch 333 became a hotbed of pro-Red Ensign sentiment, Dominion command in Ottawa, under political pressure, decreed that Ron Gostick must be purged as president or the branch would lose its accreditation. He was. Assisted by his longtime associate, former RCMP undercover agent Patrick Walsh, burly Irishman from Quebec City who spoke with a distinctly French accent, Ron warned repeatedly of communist infiltration and subversion in Canadian politics.

In the early 1980s, Ron warned of the dangers of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Far from granting us rights, it, in fact, restricts them. Under British Common Law, one had the right to do whatever one wanted, except what was expressly forbidden by law. Under the Charter the State grants citizens a seemingly impressive list of rights. Yet, this list can be and often is severely restricted by the courts - see, the many and growing limitations on freedom of speech. Other essentials, such as the ownership of property, aren't even listed as rights at all.

More recently, Ron formed the Third Option for National Unity Committee. He worried both about Quebec separatism and Western alienation. There was a third option, he argued, to the extremes of separation, of totalitarian interfering rule from Ottawa. That option was to return to the letter of the BNA Act which granted direct taxation, education, health and many other functions to the provincial governments. Federal usurpation of these powers was at the heart of the legitimate grievances of the Quebec nationalists and the Western separatists.
Paul Fromm

Phillip Butler of Australia
I first met Ron Gostick in London towards the end of 1966 as he was returning from Rhodesia. On behalf of the Canadian Friends of Rhodesia, he had presented the commander of the Rhodesian Armed Forces with monies raised to purchase fuel. The Candour League, headed by A.K. Chesterton had arranged the meeting. From then on Ron and the Gostick family played a big part in my life. I flew to Toronto and spent an incredible family-orientated Christmas with them. Australians can only dream of a "White Christmas", but that year in the little village of Flesherton, Grey County - approximately 100 miles north of Toronto - I was welcomed into a caring, jovial Gostick family gathering to share a truly "White Christmas". (SIC) [and he isn't talking about Snow, ep]
The office of Canadian Intelligence Publications is centred there, out of which grew the Christian Action Movement (CAM) and in turn - after much consultation with his close political and social crediter friend, Eric D. Butler of Australia - The Canadian League of Rights (CLR) was set up. In late 1969 I commenced a 20 year stint with the CLR as Ron's Deputy National Director.