PUBLICATION:  The Leader-Post (Regina)
DATE:  2003.07.22
EDITION:  Final
SECTION:  Viewpoints
PAGE:  B7
SOURCE:  The Leader-Post

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alberta home to separatists
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next to Quebec, the separatist fever is strongest in Alberta.

Now that doesn't mean that Alberta separatists pose the same threat to the future of Canada that Quebec separatists did -- and still do. (Only a fool would say the separatist threat in Quebec ended with the victory earlier this year of the Jean Charest-led Liberals. The separatists will come back, just as they did in 1984 after two election victories by the Liberals.)

In October 1995, Quebec's separatists came within a whisker of winning a separation referendum. The vote was 50.6 per cent against and 49.4 per cent for, a frightening change from the 1980 referendum result when 60 per cent voted against separation and 40 per cent in favour.

Alberta's separatists don't have anywhere near that strength. In fact, the latest Alberta separatist iteration -- the Separation Party of Alberta -- has only managed to gain 2,450 signatures in its bid to become an official party. That's less than half of the 5,769 required by Elections Canada and just over a a quarter of the party's stated aim.

However, before dismissing Alberta separation as a joke, here's a couple of things to chew on. The party was only formed in May of this year when Bruce Hutton, a former member of the RCMP and founder of an anti-gun registry group, managed to persuade three existing separatist parties to unify under his new banner. And lending Hutton encouragement is a recent poll showing that 16 per cent of Albertans support separation in one form or another.

A quick history lesson. When Peter Lougheed took over as Alberta Progressive Conservative leader in 1965, his party didn't have one sitting member and Lougheed was widely seen as wasting his time. In the general election of 1967, Lougheed and five other Tories won seats and in 1971, he ended the 35-year reign of the Social Credit Party.

That's not to say Hutton is another Lougheed or the Alberta Separation Party another Progressive Conservative party. They aren't. But they are a warning that a growing number of Albertans are deeply unhappy with the status quo.