Beware Albertan's, the Federal Liberals need a new enemy!
A Kyoto style carbon tax?
......................................................
Alberta next as Ottawa's bad guy
Chrétien won't have separatists to kick around any more
Ezra Levant
National Post
Lucien Bouchard, the Premier of Quebec, announced his retirement on Thursday -- which just happened to be Jean Chrétien's 67th birthday. But the demise of Quebec's most charismatic separatist was hardly a happy birthday present for the Prime Minister. The retreat of Mr. Bouchard leaves Mr. Chrétien with a greater problem than the one it solved: Who will be Ottawa's new scapegoat?
For more than 30 years, Mr. Chrétien's favourite political speech has been his tirade against Quebec separatists who, he warned, would tear up the country were it not for him. But for a dragon slayer to have any appeal, there has to be a real, fire-breathing dragon. Mr. Chrétien's "I love da Canada" shtick requires a Mr. Bouchard, just as Pierre Trudeau's routine required a René Lévesque. Mr. Chrétien needs someone or something to blame, to fear, to use as a distraction -- especially if Canada's economy heads into recession.
Something like Alberta.
In an interview after the election, Mr. Chrétien addressed his dismal showing in the West. The Liberals had been reduced to just 14 seats there, but instead of reconciliation, he chose escalation. He warned that he will be as combative with disgruntled Westerners as he had been with Quebec separatists -- a strange comparison, considering Western separatism has been dormant for decades. But rechristening patriotic, if unhappy, Westerners as separatists was a deliberate shift in vocabulary. "Tough love" is what Mr. Chrétien called it. Even before Mr. Bouchard resigned, the Liberals had begun to replace the devils from Quebec City with the devils from Calgary.
Alberta was the only province attacked by Liberal TV ads during the election. Private medical clinics flourish in almost every province, but only Alberta was accused of fostering "U.S.-style" health care. The West was the only region insulted by Mr. Chrétien during the campaign; Westerners were "different," he said, and not in a good way. Even his travel schedule showed his bias: During the five-week campaign, Mr. Chrétien did not visit Calgary, Canada's fourth-largest city. For a generation, he rubbed salt into the divide between Quebec and the rest of Canada.
The new axis will be the Ontario-Manitoba border.
Of course, the Canadian Alliance will squawk its opposition. Big deal: Mr. Chrétien's anti-Western policies, from gun control to land claims to the Wheat Board to regionally skewed pork-barrelling, all sailed through Parliament over the Opposition's noisy objections, too.
No, the defence against this new belligerence cannot come from the Alliance, nor from Manitoba or Saskatchewan (poor provinces weakened by NDP premiers). It could come from Gordon Campbell, the Liberal who will soon be premier of British Columbia. He opposed his Ottawa cousins on aboriginal land grabs, and might find the courage to stand up for other Western issues, too.
But the only real and immediate counterweight to Mr. Chrétien is Ralph Klein, Alberta's Premier. Mr. Klein can easily absorb the fiscal penalties that will come by rejecting Mr. Rock's health care fiats. Alberta, with its strong, young workforce, can profitably replace the Canada Pension Plan with a provincial alternative that does not transfer billions of dollars to Ottawa. Mr. Klein could dismiss the RCMP and form a provincial police force, like Ontario's or Quebec's, that would spend Alberta's resources on fighting crime, not registering duck hunters. Fact is, many of the weapons Mr. Chrétien wields are constitutionally illegitimate. Without a premier's consent, Ottawa cannot intrude.
So far, Mr. Klein has not parried Mr. Chrétien's thrusts. Maybe he is too focused on the looming Alberta election. But as Mr. Chrétien puts his threats into action, Mr. Klein will no longer be able to ignore him.
Perhaps Mr. Chrétien's first assault will be his proposed endangered species act, which violates property rights -- a provincial matter, constitutionally. Perhaps it will be a Kyoto-style resource tax -- again, provincial turf. In any event, Mr. Klein will be pressed to fight, whether he wants to or not, by the 90,000 Alliance members in Alberta. They are angry and frustrated by the rejection of their party by Eastern voters, but more so by the caustic and personal campaign waged by Mr. Chrétien. They are spoiling for a rematch with Ottawa -- now, not in three years.
Mr. Klein's strength has always been his populism: When he sees the public marching in a direction, he runs to the front to lead them. Public opinion transformed him from a fiscal liberal to a budget balancer, and from being a constitutional agnostic to calling a Senate election in 1998. He does not look for fights, but neither does he run from them. It will not take Mr. Klein and his pollsters long to detect Albertans' new anti-Ottawa mood. Their mood will be his mood.
This will not be the first war between Ottawa and Alberta; it will be the latest episode in a feud that goes back before Confederation. Ottawa has won every round so far, a statistic not lost on Mr. Chrétien. But in the new Alberta -- more populous, confident, rich, politically experimental and angry than ever -- he might just find his match.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
