Alberta separatists look to Bloc as Conservative support wanes
Maverick Party proposing a softer version of separation
CAYLEY, ALTA. — Western separatists, dismayed by the current direction of Erin O'Toole's Conservative Party this election, are drawing inspiration from an unlikely source: the Bloc Québécois.
“We can learn from Quebec,” said Jay Hill, interim leader of the Maverick Party, formerly known as Wexit Canada.
Resentments among some in the West toward Ottawa continue to run high in Western provinces, particularly in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where frustrations are mounting over a perceived lack of appreciation for its oil and gas industry and a federal transfer system that has starved the West of much-needed revenues.
In response, prairie separatists are seeking to establish a party that, similar to the Bloc, would act exclusively in the interests of the West as a way to elevate its profile within the federation and push for policies more supportive of a fossil fuel-based economy. Their bid comes as Liberal leader Justin Trudeau seeks to re-establish a majority government on election day Sept. 20, and as support among right-leaning voters for the Conservative Party of Canada has waned.
To ensure a purely Western orientation, the Maverick Party's 27 candidates are running solely in prairie provinces and northern territories. Their pitch is simple: for decades, voters in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and mainland B.C. have almost uniformly supported a common vision, only to stand by as Ottawa crafts policies that appease the desires of Quebec and Ontario. The only antidote, they say, is true regional representation.
“Wrapping ourselves in the Maple Leaf Flag only ensures, as patriots, that we will continue to be abused by central and eastern Canada,” said Hill, a former member of Parliament for the Conservatives for 17 years.
Hill, a self-proclaimed “slow learner,” said he has since changed his tune on Canada's parliamentary system and is now seeking to consolidate a disgruntled Western voter base that has come to question its place in confederation. That involves proposing a softer version of separation, something like “separationlite” that favours gradually shaving down Ottawa's centralized power base and establishing a more distinct Western region.
It could prove a steep climb. Even in Alberta, where separatist sentiment is most prominent, alternative candidates are polling well below mainstream parties. Even so, their numbers are already high enough to influence races at the riding level.
In a recent Leger poll, a measly nine per cent of Alberta respondents said they intended to vote for alternative parties, roughly split between the separatist Maverick Party and Maxime Bernier's People's Party of Canada (PPC), which offers a more bare-knuckled populism than strict Western-first policy. Conservative support in the province, meanwhile, sits at 47 per cent, followed by the Liberals (24 per cent) and NDP (17 per cent).
Still, Western-oriented parties see opportunities to make major gains this election, as conservative voters' grudging support for O'Toole remains low. According to the same Leger poll, just 24 per cent of Albertans thought O'Toole would make the best prime minister of all leaders, compared with 16 per cent for Justin Trudeau. That actually marked a substantial improvement from a separate Leger poll two weeks earlier, where just 15 per cent of voters chose O'Toole as best potential prime minister, several points behind both Jagmeet Singh and Trudeau.
“Even though a lot of people are voting for Mr. O'Toole, there's not necessarily a bunch of enthusiasm for him,” said Andrew Enns, executive vicepresident at Leger.
Western separatists, for their part, say O'Toole in particular has gone too far to appeal to the East, causing the Conservatives to adopt policies that they view as directly opposed to their interests or at best represent a watereddown conservatism that is hard to distinguish from the Liberals.
“That's the difference between the Maverick Party and the Conservative Party of Canada: we have one stakeholder, and that's Western Canada,” Josh Wylie, the Maverick Party's candidate in the Foothills riding of southern Alberta, said during a recent rally in Cayley, Alta. “There is no conflict, there is no confusion. We can be very clear about who we represent and how we represent them.”
Wylie, a square-jawed oilpatch consultant and former Conservative voter, tells his supporters that these sorts of policies have continued even after nearly every seat in Alberta and Saskatchewan went in support of Andrew Scheer following the 2019 election.
“We swept Alberta and Saskatchewan, we did what we were supposed to do at the time,” he says. “And in return for that loyalty that we showed to that party, we got Erin O'Toole and a carbon tax in their policy platform.”