An attack on reason worthy of our outrage

Before we get too deep into the folly of the Buffalo Declaration, a few words about the historic success of the Alberta economy within this current confederation.

After all, this is what the Buffalo Declaration is all about, isn’t it? We are talking about how hard done by Albertans are by the raw deal since it and Saskatchewan — its twin sister in confederation — joined Canada in 1905, aren’t we?

First, let us fully acknowledge there’s no way to soften the pain of Alberta losing more than 100,000 jobs in the volatile oil sector. Last November alone, Alberta shed 18,000 jobs and the province has exceeded the national unemployment rate since 2016 — a cold statistic that hardly captures the family stress. (By way of comparison, the Saskatchewan Party government here rightly boasted of 6,700 more jobs here at the end of last year.)

But let us be clear that last week’s manifesto from four Alberta Conservative MPS seemingly fronted by Michelle Rempel-garner (that 29 Alberta CPC MPS didn’t sign this may be telling) is not about historic wrongs that have left Alberta desperate.

Well, notwithstanding the oil downturn and drops to household income in the province, Alberta has recently led the country in annual income and real per capita GDP. The latter not only has traditionally exceeded every province but also every American state.

Add to this the “Alberta advantage” that includes Canada’s lowest overall income tax and corporate tax rates and no sales tax — something all familiar to Saskatchewan which has lost more of its children to Alberta than anyone.

But how is this even possible in a nation that the Wexit/buffalo Declaration crowd so deeply despises?

Well, it wasn’t just courtesy of that Leduc gusher 73 years ago. It was the quirk of this particular confederation that allows provinces — rather than the national government — to most benefit from the natural resources in their regions. The supposed cost of this is our equalization in which perennial “haves” like Alberta draw nothing from the pool that benefits less-resource-rich “have-not” provinces in the Maritimes plus arguably less deserved Quebec and Manitoba.

To this, the Buffalo declaration demands “status quo of the Equalization program (that) is fuelling western alienation” must end and should be immediately changed by “treating all resource revenues in each province/territory the same under the program.” Without a second’s pause for irony, it demands this without acknowledgment of the Conservative Party’s 2006 election promise by prime-minister-to-be Stephen Harper to remove natural resources from the equalization formula — a universally supported proposal demanded by all parties in Saskatchewan and Alberta that then premier Brad Wall bailed on as a favour to Harper who knew he could never sell the notion in Quebec.

Wall said at the time Saskatchewan’s focus should be only on becoming a “have” province. Now, Wall bizarrely gushes over the Buffalo Declaration that Rempel-garner calls a line in the sand?

The Buffalo Declaration (presumably, not to be confused with Wall’s Buffalo Project) describes Canada as “in crisis” and uses barely veiled language that “one way or another Albertans will have equality.”

Rather than solutions or vision, it’s an outpouring of clumsy grievances borrowed from others — what conservatives once called “whining.”

It claims Alberta “has never been, an equal participant in Confederation,” is “a culturally distinct region” and bemoans “Eastern Canada functionally treats Alberta as a colony, rather than an equal.”

Yes, it’s rightly drawn mocking derision from the likes of Energimedia that fiercely called it “vapid, inaccurate, hyper-partisan, torqued, overwrought, blinkered, out of touch, myopic, and downright braindead.”

But it is dangerous in that it’s further demarcation of Canada into East-west, oil-environment, right-left factions — another knife plunge into the heart of nation founded on reasoned compromise.

For this, we should all be outraged with the Buffalo Declaration.

Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-post.