Liberals fail in the West

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s outreach to Western Canada is showing l ittle greater progress than previous Liberal attempts to win over the part of the country west of Ontario.

Unless a sudden shift in sentiment occurs, Manitobans look certain to elect a Progressive Conservative government on April 19. A recent poll gave Brian Pallister’s PCs almost 50 per cent of the vote, against just 28 per cent for the New Democratic Party government and 20 per cent for the struggling Liberals, who have seen their popularity decline since the campaign began.

Saskatchewan gave a third consecutive mandate to Premier Brad Wall, whose conservative Saskatchewan Party won 51 of the 61 seats on April 4 and attracted more than 62 per cent of the vote, cementing Wall as the most popular premier in the country.

Trudeau’s stated desire to win over Albertans from their historical affinity for the Tories hasn’t had much traction. Though the PCs have been replaced by an NDP government, Premier Rachel Notley has seen her popularity fall off sharply in the face of severe economic challenges and the perception that neither she nor the federal government is handling it effectively.

In all three provinces, it’s been the NDP that has seen its fortunes fall most dramatically, but it’s noteworthy that none of the party’s troubles has produced an increase in Liberal support. Liberals won no seats and garnered less than four per cent of the vote in Saskatchewan, have just 17 per cent support in Manitoba and remain a distant afterthought in Alberta. British Columbia’s Liberal government has little in common with the federal party beyond its name.

While Trudeau’s government has been in power just a short time, there are already signs it has no greater grasp of Western views and aspirations than its Liberal predecessors. Wall has openly questioned Ottawa’s priorities, noting that his province’s economy is commodity based and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Recent changes to employment insurance “excluded two- thirds of our oilpatch,” he said. Wall also opposed Ottawa’s effort to wring approval from the provinces on a carbon tax deal that would set a national minimum. While supporting efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, he argues that Western realities have to be taken into account in the process.

On Thursday, Notley delivered a televised address to Albertans, in which she raised the stakes again on the need for a pipeline to transport the province’s oil to port for export.

“We can’t continue to support Canada’s economy, unless Canada supports us. That means one thing: building a modern and carefully regulated pipeline to tidewater,” she said. “I can promise you this: I won’t let up. We must get to ‘yes’ on a pipeline.”

While Trudeau has voiced support for the proposed Energy East pipeline from Western Canada to New Brunswick, there remain signs the project will be allowed to bog down in delaying campaigns by environmental and aboriginal opponents or parochial posturing in Quebec.

Western Canadians have every right to suspect they are once again getting little more than lip service from the Liberals in Ottawa. Confronted by the worst economic picture in a generation, Albertans have received shrugs and half- measures. The number of Albertans collecting unemployment insurance has risen 91 per cent since the beginning of 2015, yet parts of the province, including Edmonton, were excluded from eligibility for the new EI benefits. To Trudeau’s assertion that “cold hard mathematics” supported Ottawa’s decision, Notley retorted that it’s not numbers, but people who are in question.

Ottawa has devoted much study to a request for $1 billion to subsidize Montreal’s Bombardier aircraft operation, including a $ 500,000 expenditure on a study of the firm, while pledging just $ 700 million in infrastructure funding — which had already been announced by the previous government — for all Alberta.

It remains clear that Trudeau and his team from Ontario and Quebec find it difficult to raise their eyes beyond the concerns of their main constituencies in the east. The Liberals swept the Atlantic provinces and won 120 seats in Ontario and Quebec. They have just 29 west of Ontario, mainly in B.C. Fly-in visits to Calgary or Edmonton aren’t enough to offset the lack of a strong Western voice against the overwhelming representation of Eastern and Central Canada in the caucus and cabinet.

The West is paying the price for that now. The Liberals will pay for it later, if Western alienation is allowed to fester and grow once more.