Prairie alienation is real, as PM will find out

An exemplary MP in Goodale had to be sacrificed to send a message to Ottawa

With 157 seats, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals will have a secure minority government, just a baker’s dozen off a majority and 36 seats ahead of the Conservatives of Andrew Scheer. This will assure the PM a strong mandate to govern with support from more than 30 Bloc Québécois MPS and 24 New Democrats.

But challenges lie ahead for Trudeau from a Prairie West in no mood to be placated by rhetoric, spin and charm.

In a negative referendum on Trudeau’s policies, leadership and character, highly motivated voter turnout in Saskatchewan saw Conservatives ride a blue wave that swept all 14 constituencies and ended the career of longtime Liberal Ralph Goodale.

Voters here sent a message bigger than the prairie sky

— they are frustrated, even outraged, at a prime minister whose hubris, arrogance and total disregard for Saskatchewan are palpable.

As Goodale reflects on a life in politics — a 26-year run as an MP, an earlier provincial political gig and a single parliamentary stint in the mid-1970s — he can take consolation that he was an exemplary public servant.

But as the Godfather’s Michael Corleone observed, “it’s not personal; it’s strictly business” and voters meant business, having witnessed Goodale’s metamorphosis from Saskatchewan’s guy in Ottawa to a faltering apologist and mouthpiece for Justin Trudeau in Saskatchewan.

Goodale deserved what he got because defeating him was the only way that voters could send a message of their anger at Trudeau’s ham-handed array of policies measured more in virtue signalling and identity politics than sound public policy. From the costly and inefficient carbon tax to legislation creating uncertainty and delay in energy projects and

Trudeau’s open contempt of oil and energy development, Ralph Goodale’s political demise was the only way to be heard in Ottawa.

Now the emerging prairie consensus is that a “new deal” be struck with Ottawa on its relationship with Saskatchewan and Alberta. At least that’s what is being proposed by premiers Scott Moe and Jason Kenney on a range of important issues from equalization to pipelines.

Unlike Quebec’s incessant 50-year campaign of cultural and linguistic exceptionalism, garnished with humiliation and victimhood, the Prairie West is different: less dramatic, more purposeful, direct and resolute.

We are being hurt — abused and disrespected even — by federal formulas that finance confederation. On top of that, our economy is being harmed by policy-making that misunderstands extractive industries and agriculture.

Additionally, a deliberate government policy choice has been made to sacrifice our oil on the altar of climate politics. This has resulted in Canadians rejecting our oil while willing buyers in a world whose daily consumption of oil has risen this year to 100 million barrels are prevented from buying our oil by lack of market access.

Justin Trudeau has personally overseen the killing of two critical pipelines to tidewater and his government’s actions have raised the capital and political risk on future pipeline investments — so much that the only way to “de-risk” the last remaining pipeline project was for Trudeau’s government to buy it.

Central Canadians — like CTV broadcaster Craig Oliver contemptuously sniffing on election night that Westerners will “get over it” — have turned their backs on us. And they have been aided one too many times by Trudeau.

Prairie people are tolerant and have never backed down from generosity and nation-building, but our patience has a limit and when we act, we are decisive. The new Trudeau government should be on notice that ignoring us, patronizing us, or talking out the clock will not end well, either for the government or Canada’s future. John Gormley is a broadcaster, lawyer, author and former Progressive Conservative MP whose radio talk show is heard weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on 650 CKOM Saskatoon and 980 CJME Regina.