"Defend the West: No to Wheat Board, No to Kyoto, No to Gun Registry"
- Western Canadian Bumper Sticker
I am an expatriot Maritimer now living in Calgary, Alberta. I've been here for nearly fifteen years, and have had the pleasure of seeing the growth of the 'Alberta Advantage' first hand. Not surprisingly the growth of the Western Political movement (post-Mulroney Conservatism) has boomed with the oil patch--Alberta still bitterly remembers Trudeau's NEP. Every sucessful Western Canadian politician in the last decade has played into the disaffection the West feels. Upon Stephen Harper's election as PM, multitudes of Western conservatives claimed the 'West was In'. But is it really?
Crossposted to The Next Agenda
Sure Harper's move to abolish the long-gun registry boosted himi in the eyes of his rural western base. What it didn't do is accomplish anything. Few people realise that the majority of the registry's cost came in the opening years--the ongoing costs of the registry are miniscule comparitvely.
Nor has Rona Ambrose's backing away from Kyoto been as successful as The Conservatives had hoped. In their pandering to their Big Oil contributors, they have run afoul of former PM Brian Mulroney himself--who has declared the environment a key topic. Harper's response has been predictably weak--he claims the environment is a priority, and will like shuffle Ambrose to another cabinet post.
But where the grassroots may have ignored the true effects of the gun registry, and left it to Mulroney to admonish Canada's New Government (TM) over Kyoto, where they are on fire is the wheat board, and the Conservative's heavy handedness in trying to move it away from a monopoly.
According to The Winnipeg Free Press, Harper may be Selling the Farm. Many farmers are upset by Chuck Strahl's firing of the Wheat Board CEO, including some Alberta farmers who voted Conservative last election.
It seems to becomming clear even to western conservatives that Harper and his ilk have already sold them out--that the West is NOT in, but instead has been a convienient tool to springboard into power with.
Unfortunatly, as has been show by the history of politics in the west, true believers will claim that Harper is no conservative--or that he was 'corrupted' by those Ontario conservatives--and attempt to once more play on the dissatisfaction of the western voter to gain power.
In my experience, we Maritimer's may not be very worldly, or politically savy, but rarely can you fool us more than once--we know when someone's selling us a plastic lobster.
The question becomes will the West keep itself 'out' in an attempt to get 'in', or will the western voter wise up enough to join the rest of Canada in trying to build a united, prosperous country--where we can all be In.