PUBLICATION:  Citizens Centre Report
DATE:  2003.03.03
PAGE:  14

March 3, 2003 Issue
An unyielding voice

Highlights of the West’s continuing struggle with central Canada:

1869. The Red River Rebellion erupts. Metis leader Louis Riel proclaims a provisional government to press concerns about land title and self-government.

1870. Manitoba enters Confederation. While this represents a victory for regional autonomy, the province’s area is smaller than demanded, and public lands are controlled by the federal government.

1871. British Columbia joins Confederation, having been induced by Ottawa’s promise to build a transcontinental railway. The province waits 15 years for the promise to be kept.

1879. Prime Minister John A. Macdonald introduces the high-tariff National Policy, designed to bolster central Canadian industry. Western farmers complain they are forced to pay artificially high prices for farm equipment, yet have to compete on the world market.

1883. The Canadian Pacific Railway prints its first freight schedule. Westerners are angered by the fact most rates are 50% higher than those of the Grand Trunk Railway, which serves central Canada.

1885. The Northwest Rebellion breaks out, with the rebels passing a 10-point Revolutionary Bill of Rights. Louis Riel is hanged.

1888. Lawyer F.W.G. Haultain is elected to the Territorial Assembly of the North-West Territories and soon emerges as a leader in the drive for responsible government on the rest of the prairies.

1905. Alberta and Saskatchewan enter Confederation as separate provinces, after the federal government rejects Haultain’s plan for the establishment of one giant western province. Ottawa is worried such a province could rival Quebec and Ontario. The feds also refuse to allow the two new provinces to control crown land.

1909. The United Farmers of Alberta form in Edmonton. The movement demands changes in farmers’ dealings with central-Canadian-run railways, banks and grain-elevator companies.

1920. The Progressive Party of Canada is formed by Ontario and prairie farmers, united with breakaway Liberals in demanding free trade, direct democracy and nationalization of railways. The year also sees the founding of the United Farmers of Manitoba.

1921. The Progressives win 65 seats in the West, Ontario and New Brunswick, and become the second-largest party in Parliament. In Alberta, the United Farmers of Alberta take office under the leadership of Henry Wise Wood. The party remains in power until 1935.

1922. The United Farmers of Manitoba wins the provincial election and holds power until 1924.

1926. The Radical United Farmers of Canada (Saskatchewan Section) is founded, and pushes for all grain to be pooled and marketed by government.

1930. The federal government passes the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement, allowing Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba to derive revenue from their own natural resources.

1932. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) is founded in Calgary by left-leaning Progressives, socialists and labour activists. It ultimately gives birth to the New Democratic Party.

1935. While Ottawa dithers in the face of the Depression, William Aberhart leads the new Social Credit Party to victory in Alberta on a platform of economic reform. It is the first of the party’s nine successive election victories.

1935. The federal Social Credit Party wins 17 seats in House of Commons, including 15 from Alberta.

1944. The CCF wins the Saskatchewan provincial election, forming North America’s first socialist government.

1952. W.A.C. Bennett leads the Social Credit Party of British Columbia to victory on a platform combining populism and B.C.-first policies.

1961. Saskatchewan becomes the first province to introduce a State-run medical insurance program, Medicare.

1971. The Canada West Foundation is established with a mandate to provide “non-ideological” research on issues of critical importance to western Canadians.

1973. The first issue of St. John’s Edmonton Report, the predecessor of this magazine, is published. In the 1980s, magazine founder Ted Byfield helps coin the terms “Triple-E Senate” and “The West wants in” to express western aspirations, and is a key figure in the founding of the Reform Party of Canada (RPC).

1974. The Fraser Institute is established in Vancouver to counter the prevailing view that government should be the principal source of growth and development in the economy.

1978. Victoria lawyer Doug Christie launches the Committee for Western Independence. It becomes the Western Canada Concept (WCC) two years later, promising to hold independence referendums in each of the four western provinces.

1980. Separatist sentiments explode in oil-rich Alberta after the federal Liberals impose the National Energy Program (NEP). The Western Canada Federation (WestFed) is founded by Elmer Knutson.

1982. The WCC elects Gordon Kesler in a provincial by-election in the riding of Olds-Didsbury, Alta., but he is later defeated in a general election.

1986. The federal Conservative government dismantles the NEP, but enrages westerners when it awards a maintenance contract, for CF-18 fighter planes, to Canadair Ltd. of Montreal, even though Bristol Aerospace of Winnipeg had submitted a better bid.

1987. More than 300 delegates attend the Western Assembly on Canada’s Economic Future in Vancouver. The assembly gives birth to the RPC in Winnipeg later that year. Albertan Preston Manning is elected leader

1989. Albertans elect RPC candidate Stan Waters to the Canadian Senate to push demands for an elected, equal and effective upper chamber. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney appoints him to the Senate the following year.

1992. B.C. and Alberta record the highest percentage of “no” votes, as Canadians reject the Charlottetown Accord, which would have given Quebec special rights.

1993. A general election sees the RPC capturing 52 seats, primarily in B.C. and Alberta.

1997. The RPC captures 60 seats in a general election and becomes the Official Opposition.

1998. Alberta stages another Senate election, but the Jean Chretien Liberal government refuses to appoint the two victors, Bert Brown and Ted Morton.

2000. The RPC transforms itself into the Canadian Alliance (CA), to broaden its appeal. However, under new leader Stockwell Day the CA captures only 62 seats and remains in opposition.

2001. With anger rising over central Canada’s rejection of western reform initiatives, separatist sentiments emerge once again. The Alberta Independence Party is formed. In B.C., similar resentments fuel the Western Independence Party of B.C. Six prominent Albertans (Mr. Morton, Stephen Harper, Ken Boessenkool, Rainer Knopff, Andrew Crooks and Tom Flanagan) issue a declaration demanding more autonomy for Alberta within Confederation.

2002. Mr. Harper is elected leader of the CA. Western dissatisfaction with Ottawa’s passage of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming grows amid fears it will amount to another NEP. Thirteen Albertan farmers are jailed for refusing to sell their wheat through the Canadian Wheat Board.

2003. On New Year’s Day, Alberta’s lifetime sergeant-at-arms, Oscar Lacombe, defies the federal government gun-control legislation, which many westerners feel was foisted on the West by central Canada.