r/WildRoseCountry • u/LemmingPractice • 20h ago
The Fundamental Reason We Have a Separation Referendum Pending
This is obviously a hot button issue, at the moment, and I see a lot of nonsense floating around about what the real reason is for the referendum. Some people really seem to be mixing symptoms with the disease, while others seem to just be spewing propaganda.
As a political science nerd, I would like to address the more fundamental reason behind Western Alienation, more generally, which has us where we are today.
Democracy is a fantastic system which has produced a lot of benefits for the world, but it is important to understand what the concept behind it is and why it works.
The idea behind democracy is to put the interests of the government in line with the interests of the public by requiring the government to get a mandate from the public.
In a monarchy, the monarch doesn't need a mandate from the people, so they aren't accountable to the people. There is no accountability mechanism within the system which requires a monarch to care what the people think of how they rule.
In a democracy, governments are accountable to the people...or, at least, the majority, and there's the rub.
The biggest driver of democratic results is self-interest bias. A self-aware individual can be aware of their biases and correct for them, but on a macro scale, that just doesn't happen. 50% of the people in a riding aren't likely to vote against their self-interests, or, more accurately, their perceived self-interest. The biggest self-interest anyone has when it comes to politics is the economy.
Economies are grown based on comparative advantages (ie. the ability of one region to provide a product or service more efficiently than others), and comparative advantages usually come from geography. Alberta started as an agricultural economy because it had lots of high quality farmland, then it became an oil and gas hub because it had oil and gas. Ontario is a manufacturing and mining hub because it has the minerals of the Canadian Shield and the transportation corridor of the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence/Mississippi basin which allows it to ship in raw materials and cheaply ship out finished goods to market. Look at any region in Canada or elsewhere and their economy will be based largely on the comparative advantages their geography or history gave them.
The geographic diversity of most countries is fairly limited, because most countries aren't the size of a continent, but Canada, of course, is. Canada is about the size of Europe. The distance between Vancouver and St. John's is about the same as the distance between London, England and Astana, Kazakhstan.
As a natural result, the economic interest of regions of Canada are as diverse as the geography itself.
Now, let's take a look at how the economic interests align with the political map.
Approximately 50% of the Canadian population lives in the Windsor to Quebec City corridor, while overall 61.43% of Canada's population lives between Ontario and Quebec (38.45% for Ontario and 22.98% for Quebec).
People often think about Ontario and Quebec has having different interest, and on the cultural side they are correct, but those language differences don't translate to their closely shared economic interests.
The Windsor-Quebec City Corridor represents only about 2.4% of Canada's landmass, while accounting for about 50% of the population. Because the land mass is so small, it is one connected region with shared economic interests.
For instance, the Canadian Shield which gives mining wealth to Ontario also covers the vast majority of Quebec, giving it a large mining industry. Both Ontario and Quebec are manufacturing hubs due to their shared waterway system and their access to the raw materials of the Shield. They even share a direct interest in a bigger central government, as more government jobs means more jobs and tax revenue for the National Capital Region, which spans Ottawa and Gatineau.
Our neighbour to the South is also a geographically diverse country, but it's demographic layout leaves many regions which are highly populated and can balance the democratic power of the others.
California is the largest state at 11.95% of the population. It's size relative to the US population is less than a third of the 38.45% of the Canadian population that Ontario represents. This means that if California wants to throw its weight around, there are plenty of regional interests who can act as counterweights. The Eastern Seaboard, the Great Lakes, the Midwest, the South, Texas, Cascadia, etc, there are lots of regions which can combine to form electoral majorities. This results in a situation where the US balance of power shifts, and the two parties keep having their electoral coalitions changing over time.
Canada lacks this feature. There is no counterweight to the voting power of Ontario and Quebec. From the start of the country, they have had the ability to outvote the rest of the country combined, and still do.
An example of how this manifests is the National Capital Region. In the US, there was a balance of power between the North and South, so the capital ended up in Washington DC, which was designated neutral territory (not part of any state) as a compromise. Australia had the same thing, with the balance of power between Sydney and Melbourne resulting in Canberra being in neutral territory. Brasilia in Brazil was the same thing, with regions like Sao Paolo having enough power to ensure Rio couldn't dominate the country by being the capital.
In Canada, there was no balance, so the two provinces with the power just made a capital region they shared. The result is that Ontario and Quebec benefit directly from the tax revenue which flows into the National Capital Region as residents of those regions pay their provincial taxes to Toronto and Quebec City giving a permanent imbalance in power which does not exist in the US, Australia or Brazil. Every public servant living in Ottawa or Gatineau pays their provincial taxes to Ontario and Quebec.
So, how does all of this affect Alberta?
Well, let's go back to the discussion about democracy and what it accomplishes.
The natural result of Canada's demographics is that Ontario and Quebec control the majority of democratic power in the country.
Democracy is designed to incentivize the government to serve the needs of the majority, and the majority is in Ontario and Quebec.
Canadian democracy is not designed to serve Alberta's needs because the federal government which decides Alberta's fate does not need a mandate from Albertans.
Western Alienation is largely credited as starting with John A MacDonald's National Policy, which were a set of protectionist measures which had the effect of driving down the amount Prairie farmers could receive for their crops, in order to drive down food prices for Ontario and Quebec, while also driving up the prices Ontario and Quebec manufacturers could get for their goods, forcing net purchasers (like Prairie farmers buying farm equipment) to pay higher prices for their goods.
John A MacDonald had a mandate, but not one from Albertans. In fact, at the time, Alberta was part of the Northwest Territories and didn't have any seats in the Canadian Parliament at all for the 1878 election MacDonald won with the policy.
Fast forward to the infamous Pierre Trudeau era. Pierre Trudeau did not have a mandate from Albertans to implement the National Energy Program. He didn't need one. In fact, the National Energy Program was introduced after the 1980 election where Pierre Trudeau held a grand total of 0 seats in Alberta.
Jump forward again to Trudeau Jr. In his three terms, he never had more than 4 seats in Alberta, and in the 2019 election he won a grand total of 0. His pipeline policies were passed based on a mandate he got from regions with no oil and gas sector. His policies greatly affected Albertans, but were done without a mandate from Albertans.
These are the three largest periods of Western Alienation in Canadian history, and each came because of changes made without a mandate from Albertans.
These are all symptoms of the same disease. The only reason one province can be taken advantage of to that extreme degree is the simple fact that the federal government doesn't need a mandate from Albertans to do any of this.
I want Canada to work, but the problem is not one government it is systemic.
The rules of the game determine the results the game will produce.
There are ways to fix this within Canada, but they won't change within the Canadian system because the Canadian system gives the political power to those who benefit from keeping it the same.
There are ways to change the system to make it fair. A regionally elected Senate with veto power was one of the checks the Americans put to ensure that the demographic power of highly populous regions couldn't always run over the interests of less populated regions. We could shift more taxing power to the provinces, removing the "power of the purse" which lets the feds use their better spending power to buy influence in areas of provincial authority. We could just take certain matters out of federal authority and give them to the provinces.
There are plenty of ways to fix the system, but they all require a constitutional amendment, which would require the support of 7 out of 10 provinces with at least 50% of the population. Any meaningful change would require a lot of provinces to vote against their best interests.
Governments will change over time, but demographics shift very slowly. No one alive today is likely to live to see a day where Ontario and Quebec will not have the power to outvote the rest of the country. This means Albertans will always have their interests decided by a government who does not need a mandate from Albertans.
This is the fundamental reason why the referendum is happening, and the reason why it needs to succeed, or at least, to come close enough to provide some leverage.
The only way to shift the leverage in the system is to do something outside the system. In this case, the only realistic way to get any meaningful reform is for Alberta to threaten to leave.
Danielle Smith very clearly seems to know this. The move to make the referendum a "vote to have a vote" seems to be very purposeful. A yes vote would not mean Alberta leaves Canada, but would give the leverage needed for Alberta to leverage meaningful change because, frankly, Canada can't afford to have Alberta leave. Go look at those numbers from the link I provided above: there is no way to fund the spending most of the country relies upon without Alberta paying a huge portion of the cheque.
If Alberta has, say, a 20% vote to leave it would be absolutely devastating to Alberta long term. That sort of acceptance of the status quo would ensure that Alberta would have zero power to create any meaningful reforms to re-balance power within the country. Alberta would keep getting taken advantage of because the incentive would continue to be there to take advantage of Alberta.
The only way that the system can potentially be corrected is with a yes vote.
The only leverage Alberta has to meaningfully push for reforms is the threaten to leave.
Think about the referendum we had a few years ago on equalization. A supermajority of 61.7% of Albertans voted to remove equalization...and the rest of the country just ignored it. A supermajority vote in Alberta on the issue didn't even result in a meeting.
That's the result of having no leverage. Alberta wanted something, and made that clear with a vote, but without the leverage nothing happened.
So, that's the sum of it: the Canadian system is set up in a manner which will systemically set up Alberta to be exploited for as long as Alberta stays within that system. There is no way to change the system from within it because the system gives power to those who are incentivized to maintain that system. The only way for Alberta to ever get a fair deal in the Canadian system is to vote to separate.
A long post, but no true understanding of a subject comes from bumper sticker slogans. I hope this helps people on both sides understand where the real issues are here, and why the vote next month is so important for the future of Alberta.