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Carson Jerema: My plan to turn Canada into Alberta

Four ways to fix the country without separation

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EDMONTON — Alberta’s various independence leaders are insistent that there is no chance of altering how Canada functions; that Ottawa views the province as merely a source of revenue, and that this will never change. Alberta has tried everything, they say, and none of it has worked. This is a gross oversimplification.

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From the very beginning, Albertans have been shaping Canada. Separatists fixate on the fact that a proposal for what is now Alberta and Saskatchewan to become one large province called Buffalo was rejected by Ottawa, ahead of both being given provincehood in 1905. But surely the most important lesson is not whether the West got everything it wanted, but that it achieved the most important outcome: raising mere districts of the Northwest Territories into full-fledged provinces, the fruits of a years-long campaign.

Carson Jerema: My plan to turn Canada into Alberta Back to video

The alienation felt out West is real, particularly over the last 10 years, as the Liberal government in Ottawa targeted Alberta’s energy industry with policy after policy aimed at suppressing development in the name of climate change. But it is more ingrained than that. Even when learning about Canadian history in schools, it is taught as if the “real Canada” — i.e., Ontario and Quebec — is far away from the West.

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However, what the separatists and those dismissive of Alberta both overlook is that throughout history, Western Canada has consistently pulled the centre of power and influence away from Ottawa.

There are several such examples, usually centred around the control of natural........

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