The Liberal Party of Canada is making an effort to woe Alberta voters. The so-called Made in Alberta approach is a radical departure during an election from the typical attacks on Alberta by Liberal cabinet members and prime ministers.

Highlights from the Liberal’s Alberta agenda include: a new transport infrastructure through $590 million Pan-Western Pacific Gateway Strategy to enhance Alberta’s access to overseas markets; working with the agricultural sector to open markets to exporters; promote sustainable agricultural land and water supplies and support farmers in bringing value-added products to market; and pledging to support alternative energy sources such as wind power and clean coal.

(More on the Made in Alberta plan here, here, and here [pdf]).

All this may sound fine. But where were the Liberals to help Albertans in bringing “products to market” when the BSE crisis ravaged through Alberta ranches for more than two years? Instead of negotiating with the Japanese, Canadian officials insulted them; instead of dealing with the United States diplomatically, Liberals were calling the American Head of State all kinds of names. If Liberals have added in this field of the economy, one would not call it value. The claim that Liberals will “open markets to exporters” from Alberta in the agricultural sector flies in the face of the Wheat Board. Alberta farmers have been arrested for opening markets for their products. Kyoto and Liberal conservation laws continue to threaten the pillars of our provincial economy; Liberals continue to appoint Supreme Court Justices who are disconnected with Alberta’s life. And the list goes on.

In fairness, Liberals have not seriously attempted to win Alberta votes for several elections so the appearance of an attempt would seem like good news. During the 2000 election, Jean Chretien, the Liberal prime minister, never even bothered to stop in Calgary for the whole of the campaign. But it’s hard to treat the current vacuous promises with any degree of enthusiasm when one observes the record rather than the discourse. Paul Martin promised to reduce sentiments of Western Alienation (whatever that means) if he became Liberal leader, and now claims that he has done the job by naming Ralph Goodale and Anne McLellan to cabinet.

Is it possible that Paul Martin is that lost? Alberta’s distance from the central government was never as great as when most senior ministers like Joe Clark and Don Mazankowski, and other senior westerners like Pat Carney, sat around the federal cabinet table. Even then, the lucrative CF-18 maintenance contract for the Canadian Airforce went to Bombardier of Quebec instead of Bristol Aerospace from Winnipeg in spite of Bristol’s technically superior bid. Ralph Goodale and Anne McLellan are no recipe for balancing the Central Canada vortex any more than Joe Clark was.

Witness Anne McLellan’s views on Homosexual Marriage:

I fundamentally believe that it is not necessary to change the definition of marriage in order to accommodate the equality issue around same-sex partners.

And yet, McLellan voted in favour of homosexual marriage. Her views once represented Alberta’s but she was ultimately forced to conform to central Canada-oriented Liberal policy for the sake of keeping her job. David Kilgour was less fortunate. He was forced to resign from the Liberal cabinet and caucus over the same question, but he kept his views and his self-respect. Is that how Liberal representation in Paul Martin’s cabinet treats Alberta? Clearly, electing Liberals to Parliament can be no guarantee that Alberta’s voice will not be forced to submit.

Given the discord between the discourse and the record, all that remains in McLellan’s Made in Alberta plan is a ploy to keep Anne McLellan in office. Albertans will not fall for that. So soon, when Liberals see that the strategy is not working, they will turn their attention to Alberta once again in the same way that they have done before. They will attack our values, our wealth, our provincial and federal representatives, and our way of life.

Crossposted from Civitatensis.ca