Western alienation

Western Canada, defined politically

Political map of Canada

In Canadian politics, Western alienation is a concept that the Western provinces - British Columbia (B.C.), Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba - have been alienated, and in extreme cases excluded, from mainstream Canadian political affairs in favour of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Western alienation claims that these latter two are politically represented, and economically favoured, more significantly than the former, which has given rise to the sentiment of alienation among many western Canadians. This feeling is most pronounced in B.C. and Alberta.

History of alienation

Following Confederation in 1867, the first Canadian Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, announced a "National Policy" to develop and unite Canada geographically and economically. The policy aimed to build a transcontinental railway, to settle the prairies, and to develop a manufacturing base in Eastern Canada.

In 1980 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau developed the National Energy Program (NEP), which intended to use Alberta's oil revenues to subsidize gasoline prices nationwide. The program was extremely unpopular in the west, where most of Canada's oil is produced, and heightened distrust of the federal government, especially in Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan. Many Albertans believed that the NEP was an unjustified intrusion of the federal government into an area of provincial jurisdiction, designed to strip their province of its natural wealth. By keeping the oil prices below world market prices, the eastern provinces were essentially being subsidized.

Current factors of alienation

There are a number of factors that have fueled disgruntlement in Western Canada. Political factors include low political representation and the pronounced attention paid to the ongoing issue of Quebec sovereignty by the federal government. A more potent, but ambiguous claim, is that the political agenda is controlled predominantly by politicians from Eastern Canada; who focus more on the vote-rich central regions of Quebec and Ontario at the expense of western interests. Economic factors include a general redistribution of income from western provinces to eastern ones through taxation and equalization payments.

Economic factors

Economic factors, including equalization payments and other transfer payments, have caused great discontent, especially in Alberta. In 2005, Alberta's share of equalization payments was calculated to be approximately $1.1 billion, less than that provided by, but significantly higher on a per capita basis than, Ontario. Equalization payments are made by the federal government to the six current "have-not" provinces. Unlike social and health transfers, there are no restrictions over how this money is spent at the provincial level. In 2009-2010, Quebec received $8.552 billion, making it the single largest beneficiary, as it has been throughout the program's history. In the 2009-2010 fiscal year, Ontario received an equalization payment of $347 million, the first time in the 51 year history of the program.

British Columbia was a "have-not" province for just over five years, ending in 2006-2007, when it received $459 million.

Equalization payments

2006-2007

Note: Amounts are in $ millions	Newfoundland	Prince Edward Island	Nova Scotia	New Brunswick	Quebec	Manitoba	Saskatchewan	British Columbia	Total
Regular	632	291	1,386	1,451	5,539	1,709	13	260	11,282
Adjustment*	54	-	-	-	-	-	-	199	254
Total	687	291	1,386	1,451	5,539	1,709	13	459	11,535
Per capita (Not in millions)	$1,334	$2,102	$1,475	$1,927	$725	$1,445	$13	$107	-

Notes: Totals may not add up due to rounding.

* For those provinces where there is a decline from the amount they had been advised of in November 2005, a one-time adjustment will be made to offset this decline.

2011-2012

The Canadian Government states that payments for the 2011-2012 period will total $14.7 billion:

Note: Amounts are in $ millions	Prince Edward Island	Nova Scotia	New Brunswick	Quebec	Ontario	Manitoba
Total	329	1,167	1,483	7,815	2,200	1,666

State of affairs since 2006

As of 2006, Western alienation does not appear to be a significant force in Canadian politics. Protests over equalization payments from former Alberta premier Ralph Klein and others objected to the formula the federal government used to determine the distribution of the payments. Klein had been quoted as threatening to drop out of the program, although this would have been a symbolic act with no legal weight since the program is funded from the federal government's general revenues.

There were also calls for the separation of at least Alberta from Canada, most notably from University of Alberta professor emeritus Leon Craig; however, such arguments were rare, while not necessarily new, and were not expected to materialize into a significant political movement in the near future.

Later decisions of the minority Conservative government of Stephen Harper – on issues such as income trusts and the recognition of the Québécois as a "nation within a united Canada" – caused some dissent amongst a segment of Western Canadians who traditionally supported the Tories. These feelings fostered only a small ripple in the Tories' popularity in Alberta, with the formation of the new federal Party of Alberta in late 2006.

See also

• Maritime Rights Movement