Moment of Truth: How to Think About Alberta's Future

by Jack M. Mintz, Ted Morton (Editor), Thomas Flanagan (Editor)

Alberta is at a crossroads. Its situation in Canadian confederation is unfair. It is unequal. So...what comes next? What westerners ultimately need to decide if the best response to that unfairness and inequality is to leave Canada and the great
northwest to carve out a smaller but separate country. Or do we simply
need to clearly define what would constitute a genuine Fair Deal, not
just for Alberta, but for all Canadians who share our values and
perspectives on what this country should be? Moment of Truth is a series of provocative, thoughtful, and timely essays, curated by three of Canada's most respected and original
political thinkers, debating whether we should pursue the little western
path of yet another division of the northwest, this time via secession,
or march along the big western path aimed at nothing less than fairness
for ourselves - and everyone else - through a re-confederation.

Genres: Politics

300 pages, Paperback

Published September 23, 2020

Reviews

[Chuck Slack · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought provoking read that is thankfully balanced, pragmatic, and well researched. I feel a good book is one, regardless whether fiction or non, is one in which I learn or take away something. This is a really good book in that regard.

[Frederic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays by Western Canadian economists and political scientists. It's a concise, data filled answer to the question "What is Alberta complaining about?" It should be required reading in Canadian schools. If it were widely read in Alberta, sentiment in favour of separation would soar.

The Canadian political system was put together in the late 19th century, when there was very few Canadians West of Toronto. Now, Alberta and BC together have more people and economic dynamism than Québec, but the federal system is still politically stacked to favour Ontario, Québec and the Maritimes. Western Canada remains a colony to be exploited.

Australia, Germany and the USA have regional balance built into their Senate equivalents to offset the weight of population. Canada, with its population highly concentrated in Ontario and Québec, does not have any such institutions.

While some Prime Ministers, like the current one, have been particularly incompetent and even vandalous, the problem is structural. The Canadian political system has made it too easy for Liberal federal governments to drain Western resource-producing provinces of cash to subsidize voters in the parts of the country (Ontario, Québec and Maritimes) who vote Liberal.

The first, blatant example of this was Pierre Trudeau's heinous National Energy Program (NEP) of 1980-84. A generation later, Pierre Trudeau's vapid, innumerate son, Justin has imposed a series of discriminatory policies designed to strangle Canada's number one export, oil and gas, in the name of minimizing the less than 2% of global CO2 emissions produced by Canada. The result has been a massive flight of capital and employment from Western Canada and a loss of tens of billions of revenue that could have funded countless government programs across the country.

Read this book and consider the massive cost of Laurentian voter complacency handing power to destructive economic nitwits named Trudeau, twice.

Think about Canada's un-reformable Senate and undemocratic, whipped voting House of Commons. Canada is a political and economic mess, with low voter turnout, falling living standards, plummeting foreign investment, low productivity and raging inflation. We need to pay attention and elect better, more competent leaders who can institute reforms and attract investment.

[R G G Currie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The authors itemize Alberta's grievances - NEP, transfer payments, unelected Senate etc. - and lay out a plan to achieve a better balance in Canadian federalism. We must begin to put in place all the institutions that would be required by an independent state, even if we never pull the trigger on secession.

[X-Krow · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5/5

Wrote this for a class, so its kinder and more measured than if I'd written it personally, but overall, this books, though a "guide" for "Alberta's" grievances, is chalked full of out dated arguments, flawed reasoning, bad statistics and willful misrepresentation of things like equalization payments.

"Albertans are afraid of the future, at least according to Moment of Truth, an edited collection of essays by Calgary’s top political scholars. Set in the backdrop of a declining oil industry, climate change, and cultural opposition, this book attempts to tackle the question: what should Alberta do now? Each author seems to arrive at their own conclusion, but most agree – it is time to either re-confederate Canada to majorly rearrange its institutions, or Alberta must say goodbye to Canada. For the Albertan sympathizer, the book reads like a manifesto of their greatest grievances and a handy tool to cite their issues, but for the unconvinced, the repetitive arguments reshuffling the same points regrading oil, fiscal contributions, and Laurentian elites may grow tiring before they even finish the book. However, the work may still be worth acknowledging, as it could either represent an Alberta temporarily lashing out at those it deems responsible for its predicament, or a taste of times to come when the replacement of oil begins a transformation that no one knows the future of.

The opening chapters of the book attempt to paint a vivid picture of Alberta’s cultural roots, but aside from the historical information, their hopes for unique symbols and historic heroes fails to definitively take hold throughout the book. The first chapter, by Preston Manning, gives the united West movement a symbol, the buffalo, in reference to Fredrick Haultain’s hopes for a united northwestern province of Buffalo in the early 20th century. But despite the power of iconography, the buffalo never shows up in the rest of the chapters, being forgotten as fast as its namesake. A similar fate befalls Sisyphus, coopted by Tom Flanagan in the third chapter, who barely manages to last five pages before too being fizzled out of Alberta’s mythology. However, what does persist throughout the book are the major complaints these chapters raise – equalization payments, the National Energy Program, the Trudeaus (and Liberals in general), the Senate, climate policy, and most of all, reduction in oil investment and production. The cast of villains continues to expand throughout the book, with the Liberals being joined by Quebec, Laurentian elites, the Supreme Court, Atlantic Provinces, British Columbia, Indigenous peoples, and climate activists whenever the authors need to point a finger at someone for Alberta’s problems.

The middle chapters of the book represent a detail oriented and focused review of specific policy and economic issues that have brought about Alberta’s current oil slump, along with a quantitative breakdown of Alberta’s fiscal contributions. Robert Mansell leads the charge with chapter six where he showcases that, per capita, Albertans make the largest (by a big margin) per capita net contributions to federal programs but get little in return, representing a “cash cow of confederation” (para. 4). Herb Emery and Kent Fellows continue to press Alberta’s importance to Canada in the following chapter, emphasizing its role as an importer province, and how central Canada has been afraid to give it its due. This is reinforced by their explanation of the National Energy Program that halted an Albertan oil boom in the early 1980’s to supposedly appease energy consuming provinces like Ontario and Quebec, something that lost the province billions. Chapter eight and nine continue to expand on the resource issue, asking the politicians to take advantage of the post-Covid economy to invest in responsible energy to appease the climate protestors but also expand the supposedly declining Albertan economy. Rather than look to alternatives for the future, Canada should stop with its “ostrich-like mentality” (Burney & Hampson, ch. 8, para. 47) by pretending that fossils fuels are finished and should again begin to compete aggressively in the global market. It is a tight knit middle that represents the strongest section in terms of presentation.

Now that the strict policy talk and solutions for Albertan future have been discussed, the final stretch of chapters take advantage of their placement at the end to the discuss the boldest idea of the collection: secession. Though this section starts off with a near-textbook chapter ten that lists the steps needed to secede as a province along with a note of caution of its difficulty, it is Barry Cooper’s chapter eleven that lives as the highlight. Starting off with an inflammatory comparison of an environment minister with Goebbels, using the term “Laurentian Canadians” more times than the entire collection combined, and ending by claiming that a western secession is forthwith unless the politicians act fast, this chapter is a tour de force in summarizing the most aggressive side of secessionists and the offenses they feel from central Canadian politicians. Rather than follow the lead however, David J. Bercuson’s chapter twelve is a sober look at how an independent Alberta may secure itself, greatly emphasizing cybersecurity given the new country’s relatively safe but landlocked position between Canada and the US. Finally, the editors of the collection, Tom Flanagan, Jack Mintz, and Ted Morton return to cap off the collection with a final chapter summarizing the book’s position and asking Canada to either offer them a re-confederation to restructure important institutions or give Alberta more autonomy. If not, a separation from Canada, which they emphasize is the absolute last position, would be preferable to Albertans who understand what their province has long withstood.

The arguments, grievances, and solutions presented in this book are not revolutionary. The authors do not make profound contributions to the understanding of Alberta’s position in Canada, and neither are they extremely successful in propping up a careful mythology for Albertans to look up to, and their ultimate idea, secession, has already been exhausted by Quebec. But to expect that depth might be asking a fish to climb. The book is not meant for the outsider looking in, but for the frustrated Albertan that has been hurt by reductions in the oil industry. The book is less a work of scholarship than a general handbook for those people, a justification for their anger, for their contribution to the “western alienation”. And to those people, the book reads loud and clear – at every facet of policy demonstrated, Alberta puts in more than it gets out. That fiscal transfers equal to an “effective tax rate” (Mintz, ch. 4, para. 50) of 10% of every Albertan’s income. Or that, if other governments want to provide more services, Alberta should not have to bear the costs. Cooper says “equalization has been called a welfare trap for provinces” (ch. 9, para. 42), arguing that Alberta should not have to increase its tax rate to bear this burden – another idea that would strike with the average Albertan.

But that may be a mischaracterization. It is true that, per capita, Albertans pay more than any other province, but it’s not a set amount being deducted from a province’s GDP at the end of the year. It’s an aggregation of all the business transactions, sales, corporate gains, and personal income generated by every individual. So, the fact that Albertan’s are wealthier means that they are going to end up paying more, even at the exact same percentage as other provinces. But that is not where the economic issues end. Senate reform has been a major issue in the west, and it seems unlikely to be dealt with anytime soon due to the electoral leverage it gives the overrepresented Atlantic provinces. A fairness argument, on population count, is to be made, or even for equal regional representation like the U.S. But the economic focus of this book does not mesh with these normative questions, which appear to boil down the issue to: “We make more money, so give us more representation”. That argument cannot work in a democracy. Just as those of the upper class cannot be allowed to demand greater rights for the sole fact of their wealth, neither must a province be allowed to do the same. As such, the goal of the authors is amiable, but their argumentation seems to lead them astray in these matters.

The book also lacks a diverse set of thought presented in the collection. Although the editors proclaim they love Canada as the final sentence of the book (Flanagan, Mintz, & Morton, ch. 13, para. 126), there is no author presented that is strongly opposed to separation. They take it as a given that most Albertans, if shown all the evidence, will believe that if an answer cannot be found within confederation, then Alberta must leave. As the editors slightly acknowledge this in a single paragraph, there are Albertans who feel an attachment to Canada, or have family here (para. 102), or (even though they do not acknowledge it) secession might be a bad idea. There is also barely an acknowledgement of Indigenous claims in the text, let alone an author. It is hard to see the collection as a comprehensive view on Alberta’s future when it represents only a specific portion of its population.

On the oil issue, it’s a matter of perspective. A person unfamiliar with Alberta reading the book would raise an eyebrow when an MP became offended at being called an oil shill (Emery & Fellows, ch. 7, para. 37), because that is precisely the impression that reader would have gotten from a book laden with calls for expanding the oil industry and forcing provinces to build pipelines they are opposed to. The average Albertan would seem desperate for the oil economy as their source of economic growth. But what looks like “shilling” to the outsider is a deeply personal fact for many Albertans. It is their livelihoods, or of someone they know. Albertans on average are better off than the rest of the country, but the source of that wealth seems to be in danger, and what is of deep annoyance to the authors is that the government they deem responsible is one they cannot control. The Liberals’ lack of interest in winning in Alberta has only further fueled the distrust they feel towards the federal government.

Those ideologically opposed to the authors may find themselves groaning at these incessant complaints and demands. And as mentioned above, to those outside of Alberta, the collection is not a deeply important issue. But it is an issue nonetheless, and one that may need to be paid attention to in the future. If the situation is like the 1980’s with the NEP, then the oil industry will bounce back and these demands will be pushed to the fringes again. But if it continues to worsen, whether through policy control or market mechanics, then an Alberta in its death throes may be a dangerous beast, and handbooks like this only seek to make the animal more dangerous. The less time Laurentian elites spend discussing and fraternizing with Alberta is more time it gets to build up resentment like a poison – and the bite, if or when it comes, may end up being deadly."

[Jim Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collections of essays on Alberta's current status within the confederation of Canada. What Alberta's and Canada's historical relationship and where the province finds itself now.
If you did not understand how confederation works, or the Canadian constitution (1867 & 1982), you should read this book.
I found the Moment of Truth very enlightening.