An elected Senate crucial to Alberta’s “fair deal” from Ottawa

At “The Value of Alberta” conference hosted by Alberta Proud, and other conservative groups, UofC professor Ted Morton delivered the opening speech on the imbalance of power within Canada.

Morton posed the question of whether Alberta was better off today than we were 30 years ago. He answered by reminding the audience of around 700 that despite all the great provincial and federal Conservative leaders, because of Liberal gaming of the system, Alberta is worse off.

Morton exemplified this by showing how despite Peter Laugheed’s section 92-A in the Candian Constitution Act, which made provinces in charge of their own natural resources, new federal Liberal government policy such as C-48 (the tanker ban) and C-69, have obfuscated section 92-A.

Of course, those new environmental “protection” acts allow the federal government to indirectly control Alberta’s resource and energy development through regulatory barriers and delaying actions.

Morton said these types of actions are typical of the modern-day Liberals, as he said the Liberals, “Pursue power through the use of policy” rather than using power to implement good policy.

The way Liberals get power according to Morton is not isolated to just Canada. He said then in both Spain and Italy along with Canada the governing part stays in power by paying off poorer regions by taking money from richer regions.

Although Morton noted that despite becoming wealthier Quebec is given more transfer payments. Quebec is of course currently happy with its place in Canada because of the monetary privileges they have been given along with dominating the bilingual elite.

The reason Alberta gets such a raw deal within Canada, much like Spain and Italy, is according to Morton because we don’t have an elected Senate. Morton points to the US and Australia as examples of how elected senators better represent the regions of their countries. 

Even small US states like Wyoming with its two senators, like all other states,  cannot be simply ignored by the rest of the states in the union. 

Morton stressed that structural changes need to be made to the Canadian government system in order to stop the “predatory strategies” of Ottawa. An action that might be difficult to be in a position to change with all the regional barriers to Conservatives achieving another majority government. 

For now, both Albertan and Canadian conservatives like Ted Morton can only promote ideas of reform without the current ability to challenge the federal Liberals and Quebec politicians.