Congratulations to Prime Minister Harper and local MPs Blake Richards and Kevin Sorensen for their well deserved and eagerly awaited election wins. With last week’s decisive victory by the federal Conservative Party, our province has an unmatched opportunity to work with the federal government to build a Canada that respects the constitutional rights of all provinces to govern themselves in the unique manner they feel will best bring prosperity to their people.
Whether it be unfair equalization transfers, proposed environmental policies such as cap and trade, or interference in developing our provincial resources, Alberta has been financially pillaged and our rights of self-governance repeatedly attacked by successive federal Liberal governments with the full support of New Democrat and Quebec separatist parties. We have learned by unfortunate experience that when the federal government seeks to centralize, it generally ends in failure.
The most financially draining area of concern is the massive transfer of wealth between Alberta and Canada’s so-called ‘have-not’ provinces. In 2009 alone, Alberta taxpayers sent $21 billion more to the federal government for direct use by other provinces than we received in return. This equates to roughly $5,700 for every man, woman and child in our province – by far the largest contribution per capita in Canada. A much larger portion of these dollars should be returned to Alberta for our infrastructure, health care, education and deficit reduction needs.
But as unfairly as our province has been treated financially by Ottawa, it is the current provincial PC government that has signed off on each successive equalization agreement. The PCs talk tough, but when push comes to shove they have repeatedly proven themselves pushovers - especially as it pertains to federal Liberals.
Last week, the Wildrose Alliance Party laid out a plan to strengthen our province and nation by implementing the following policies with regards to federal relations. It includes:
• Aggressively addressing the issue of interprovincial wealth transfer with the federal government as well as Canada’s premiers. Alberta must never sign another equalization agreement unless it is fair to the people of Alberta. Whether it be through the transfer of tax points, a formula-driven cap on net equalization transfers from Alberta, removing natural resource revenues from the equalization formula, or through constitutionally challenging the current equalization formula, a Wildrose government would ensure that billions more of Albertan’s hard-earned tax dollars remain in the province to help keep up with the growth pressures we face.
• Asserting our provincial constitutional rights by fighting any initiative which seeks to regulate Alberta industry or property through the auspices of environmental regulation. Alberta’s resource based economy is unique in all of Canada, and therefore so too should be our environmental strategy. Any proposal that imposes a ‘cap and trade’ wealth transfer scheme, an arbitrary emissions cap, restrictions on bitumen exports, or any other federal intrusion into a clearly provincial jurisdiction must be met with unflinching opposition using all political, media and legal tools at our disposal.
• Working with other provinces to greatly reduce interprovincial trade barriers by expanding the Trade, Investment, Labour and Mobility Agreement (TILMA) to include Canada’s other provinces and territories.
• Ensuring Alberta businesses and entrepreneurs continue to have the choice of a provincial securities regulator (in addition to any contemplated national regulator) that serves the unique needs and interests of Alberta’s investors and companies.
• Exploring the option of taking more control over immigration from the federal government as Quebec has done. A provincial immigration system, if administered properly, will greatly benefit Alberta’s economy by making it easier for qualified and financially sponsored working-age immigrants to enter, integrate, have their foreign educational credentials recognized, and contribute to Alberta on a permanent basis.
• Protecting the rights of law-abiding hunters and farmers by aggressively lobbying the federal government to eliminate the failed long gun registry.
• Working with the federal government and western provinces to make the Canadian Wheat Board optional rather than mandatory for our farmers.
• Insisting that only duly-elected senators be appointed to represent Alberta in the Senate. The provincial PCs refusal to hold new Senate elections for upcoming vacancies due to their fear of democratic competition from the Wildrose is but one more example of their propensity to support democracy only when it is politically convenient to do so.
A new day for federal-provincial relations is dawning. I hope we can elect a provincial government that will make the most of it.
