Why plunder Alberta? What’s wrong with B.C.?
August 30, 2005 · By Peter Rempel
Liberals love to chime in that Alberta’s current enviable financial situation is attributable to nothing more than the fact that oil lurks underneath our soil. It helps to justify the inverse situations for Alberta and Ontario, the latter’s election of drunken sailors as guardians of the public purse to the contrary notwithstanding.
Which is why B.C. provides a little problem. A few short years ago, B.C. was a picturesque product of nearly a decade of socialist governance: an economic nightmare and wasteland. Now, under the direction of a fiscally-prudent government, things have turned around:
The province with the next-highest surplus [after Alberta's] is British Columbia with $220 million forecast in its most recent budget. Ontario’s financial outlook, with a deficit forecast of $2.8 billion, is the exact opposite of Alberta’s.
So how do Ontarians explain their failure relative to B.C.’s success? There’s not too much oil in B.C.. Let me guess: B.C. has lots of fish and trees! Any idiot could produce a surplus out of such a treasure of natural resources. Will B.C.’s salmon surplus become the next elephant in the room in inter-provincial meetings?
So why is Ottawa targetting Alberta but not B.C.? Oh right, that’s why:
Mr. Herle also said there is a “paradigm shift” in British Columbia, and said, “B.C. could move to us,” according to one source.
The Liberals have eight of 36 seats in that province, but always show strength between elections. The party never seems to be able to convert that strength to seats on election day.
When I see any evidence that the Federal Government is really about to “plunder” Alberta’s resources I’ll be worried. Until that time it looks a lot like Albertans are talking themselves into something that isn’t even happening.
Cerebrus says it very well:
“We have to recognize that Westerners have the same kind of unease and distrust of Liberal resource grabbing as most Canadians had of Conservatives’s “hidden agenda” in the last election.”
Both are straw-men
Sorry, the Cerebrus link is http://canadiancerberus.blogsp.....47943.html
The feds have in the past raided Alberta’s oil revenue, it was called the NEP. Given this past, I don’t think fear of a similar occurence in the future is a straw-man.
And, but you see, the conservatives did have a “hidden agenda”, BUT one only hidden because Central Canadians can’t quite get their head around it. The new Conservative party, post the Reform Party and post the Canadian Alliance, necessarily has a more Western Canadian outlook on the country—this is a given. It does not pander to the insular Central Canadian self-understanding to the extent that the Liberal do, mainly because the Liberals have benefitted most from being the chief architects of this view. The the project of the new Conservative party is to bring a different perspective to what Canada is and what it is to be about. It might be quite moderate on fiscal and social issues (similar to the Liberals on many fronts), but when it comes to federalism, decentralisation is the catch word for the new conservative—let provinces govern themselves to a much greater degree than now. If this project is successful, if may very well allay the separatist inclinations of different regions.
But as is oft said here, governing the country with more Western outlook on the country is a pretty foreign notion to Central Canada. And because it is so foreign, it makes the new Conservative party a very tenuous project indeed. However, the failure of the new Conservative party will be a big failure for Canada! Liberal Party dominance, and the Central Canadian view of Canada, does not make many a Westerner happy, nor many an Easterner in Atlantic Canada for that matter. The West has the economy empowering it not to sit back and take it once again.
George,
It seems to me that the constant rehashing of the NEP as some sort of political bogeyman is largely unfounded in today’s political - and legal - environment.
Yes, there are those who have their “eyes” on Alberta’s windfall. Such is always the case with apparently “free money” - whether it is oil royalties or lottery winnings.
I keep hearing the “Return of the NEP” being hashed out, and yet, not once, has any politician in a position to do such a thing actually mused about it in any concrete fashion. As you have pointed out, our economic state today, as well as an increased population weight has changed the dynamic of the country considerably from 1980, a fact that in its own right substantially changes the practical realities of such a piece of legislation.
One of the most reasoned minds in Alberta - and Canada -, Former Premier Peter Lougheed, has rightly pointed out that Alberta does need to use its newfound wealth and clout constructively within confederation. In essence, that is what others are saying as well.
Hoarding it all in Alberta is hardly a way that will help Alberta’s position within confederation, nor does it help Canada as a whole. I’m not talking cash handouts per se, but certainly underwriting debt can be very lucrative (note that the most profitable divisions of Ford, GM and Daimler-Chrysler have been their finance divisions - even when offering 0% financing - the business model is fascinating, and one that Alberta could easily use to make low interest loans to other provinces extremely profitable.
In other words, instead of fretting over the possibility of another NEP, Albertans should be looking forward and finding ways to make that wealth grow. With a little bit of creativity, we can do so in ways that happen to be beneficial to other provinces.
I agree, in part, that Albertans shouldn’t fret too much over the possibility of another NEP. However, to say that Albertans should not be fretting at all is pretty foolish. First, if Albertans didn’t have the fear of another NEP that they do have, they would be easier targets for those who want to wrestle monies from Alberta’s windfall for their own benefit. Second, provincial rights — the heart and soul of a Western approach to federalism — have never ceased to be under attack since the early part of the twentieth century. The JCPC used be the great standard bearer of such an approach to interpreting the BNA Act, but since the Supreme Court of Canada became the final authority on Canadian law — a national court in a national capital — and with the entrenched Charter of Rights — giving the judiciary untold power to reinterpret federalism — it is imperative that provinces be noisy guarantors of their own rights.
For instance, I really think the Alberta government, and other provincial governments for that matter, should have picked a very big fight with the Supreme Court on the question of same sex marriage, on their reference decision. In Alberta, a provincial government opposed to same sex marriage was told its power to solemnise marriage essentially amounts to giving out to a piece of paper, that this power does not entitle a provincial government to any say, whatsoever, on what a marriage is or should be. The federal division of powers on marriage stems from a time when the definition of marriage was not altogether controversial, there was general agreement on what a marriage is and should be. The fundamental altering of the definition of marriage, posed by same sex marriage, suggests that the powers over marriage should have to arrive as some sort of compromise, at least SOME compromise—for the good of the federation. But as we all know, courts don’t make good compromises and the power to define marriage went solely to the feds, by convention too. As is often the case, when provincial rights are abrogated, as is the case here, provincial governments lack the political will so see the fight through—to state that the decision of the Supreme Court is unacceptable, a pandering to convenience on the part of an ideologically bent judiciary to further their own agenda (knowing the feds will bring same sex marriage legislation to bear anyway). Therefore, those who want to see the exercise of more provincial rights, not less, need to speak up and be noisy.
While same sex marriage is a very different ball game from energy resource royalties, they remain part of the larger game of provincial rights. As is demonstrated in Canada, if provincial rights are not defended with due diligence and lots of noise, they will likely be abrogated. And for that matter, Peter Lougheed is not THAT great of a premier. When the original NEP was hatch, which had cost the Alberta economy dearly in the late 1980s, Lougheed should have hit the trenches even more than he did. As a matter of principle, the federal government that since the world wars has had a fat revenue should not be raiding revenue from a province’s energy sector. Lougheed should have invited Rene Levesque to tip wine glasses with rather than Pierre Trudeau.
Depending on how long the Alberta boom goes, your suggestion is a feasible one. But Alberta has needs of its own that are requiring attention, namely, its tremendous backlog of infrastructure development as well as the further development of its oil and gas industry, and other industries for that matter, well into the future.
And on that note, beyond friendship, I fail to see how Alberta is obligated to help other provinces straighten up, especially those financing debts acquired because of irresponsible governments with an overly fond love of government and little willingness to make tough budgetary decisions. Canada is a very wealthy nation across the board. In reality, there is no good reason for any provincial government nor for the revenue fat federal government to be too terribly hard up. The perpetual elephant in the room here is Canada’s dogmatic love of public healthcare, and the unwillingness to tackle the exorbitant costs of public healthcare with imagination and also with courage.
In the final analysis, griping about the NEP or future grabs at Alberta’s wealth does not make one a sour hoarding old grump—it helps defend provincial rights. And provincial rights matter! A clear agenda directed toward them is desparately needed in Canada because without it Canadians continue to get government they don’t know how to hold accountable, a bloated federal government and provinces unduly limited in their ability to govern themselves.
“I keep hearing the “Return of the NEPâ€? being hashed out, and yet, not once, has any politician in a position to do such a thing actually mused about it in any concrete fashion.”
Dalton McGuinty is sniveling about the current “unfair” equalization regime. When a politician says something is unfair, he means that his constituents pay too much and get too little. It is very unlikely that any re-jigging of equaliztion will lead to a reduction in payments to poorer provinces, so if Ontario is to reduce its net contribution it will have to come out of either Alberta or BC’s (by the time it all works out) pocket. Okay - so it’s not NWP v2.0 but it has the same economic effect.
Thomas Courchene (granted, a bien pensant, not a politician) is making similar noises. Carbon taxes contemplated under Kyoto (and made possible by the inclusion of Carbon Dioxide as a controlled pollutant) will also have the same effect - a large financial transfer from Alberta, BC, and to a lesser extent, Saskatchewan to Ottawa, where it will be used to protect the (Ontario-based) auto industry from the effects of Kyoto. again - it will not be dressed up as another NEP, but it will have the same impact, and will be driven by the same desire to keep ‘the rednecks’ in their place.
Since Ottawa has previously undertaken a deliberate strategy of attacking the hydrocarbon industry to benefit eastern oil consumers, while it has never had a deliberate strategy of eliminating the French language, I think Albertans are no more unjustified in worrying about NEP v2.0 than Quebeckers are about the future of French in North America. Funny - I never hear anyone accusing them of needless worry, or trying to assure them that it is a straw man; on the contrary, the entire country bends itself like a pretzel to accomodate their concerns.
Dean