Energy, Ag & the West

As the election looms large, some western Canadians are pondering secession, wouldn’t mind becoming a 51st U.S. state, and produce grains and oilseeds.

‘Western alienation’ refers to a populist movement within the Prairie provinces that has long felt left out of the federal democratic process, and has grown angrier in recent years. Culminating in the ‘trucker protests,’ this group might seem at times to be driven by rights and freedoms, but they’re also a lot about oil and gas.

In an op ed last week, former Reform Party leader Preston Manning wrote that support in western Canada to break away from the rest of the country has the potential to spread, and that we must vote Conservative in the upcoming federal election, to stop it. This argument is flanked by Alberta Premiere Danielle Smith, a list of demands, and polls suggesting significant numbers of westerners think they’d be better off on their own.