Each province West of Ontario has its own needs and concerns.

Angus Reid 
Vancouver Sun
 
Western Canadian alienation is back in the news.

Several weeks ago, the Calgary-based Canada West Foundation released results of a poll that showed most people west of the Manitoba-Ontario border feel unappreciated by the rest of Canada. And earlier this month, almost by coincidence, Liberal leadership front-runner Paul Martin breezed through Vancouver with the pronouncement that, if elected, he's going to reverse the tide of Western alienation.

I say "almost" because it turns out the Canada West Foundation is working for Martin, recruiting the giant focus groups sometimes called townhall meetings that he's been appearing at across the four Western provinces.

This sounds promising. But it raises two questions: Is this place called Western Canada really a meaningful political entity? Is its problem "alienation" or something else?

If Martin and his handlers have either the wrong patient or the wrong diagnosis, the cure could be worse than the affliction.

Every summer, my wife Margaret and I drive from our home in Vancouver to the cottage we built 20 years ago east of Winnipeg, in the Canadian Shield country that divides Ontario and the western regions. It's a nostalgic trip for me since I'm a product of Western Canada. I was born in Regina, grew up in Vancouver and moved to Winnipeg in my teens, where I lived for almost 30 years before returning to Vancouver a decade ago. Almost all my siblings live in Alberta, giving us lots of places to visit en route to the lake each summer.

My summer sojourns, coupled with a lifetime of conducting polls from Winnipeg and later Vancouver, have heightened my sensitivity to the heritage, culture and personality of the West. A web of family and friendship traces thousands of links across this vast area. Stop in Medicine Hat for the night and you'll invariably meet people who look at your British Columbia plates and wonder if you know a friend in Coquitlam or an aunt in Nanaimo.

Even though Saskatchewan and Manitoba may strike many in B.C. as more east than west, the reality of the four provinces in this region is that practically everyone looks west. In all my years of living and working here, I haven't met more than a handful of people who expressed a fervent desire to move to Ontario. But there have been hundreds who have set the arc of their lives in a westerly direction—to find a job or someday retire.

I love the West, its close connection to the land, its heritage of gritty self- determination and the exuberance that characterizes its communities and their politics.

But how meaningful is "Western Canada" as a phrase to describe the collective sense of injustice over the treatment from Ottawa that defines this place? I'm skeptical about how much can be accomplished in our various dealings with the rest of Canada if we continue to be cast as a single region. There are four distinct provinces in the West, and no single over-arching strategy or program can address its issues with Ottawa.

In many respects Manitoba is the least aggrieved of the four. Part of this is the result of strong representation in the federal cabinet over the last 20 years by people like Lloyd Axworthy and Jake Epp. Canada's equivalent of the Center for Disease Control was moved to Winnipeg a decade ago despite strong objections by the Ottawa bureaucracy. The Canadian Wheat Board, the National Research Council and the Royal Canadian Mint all have a significant presence in Manitoba. Five of Manitoba's 14 MPs are Liberals and polling shows that Manitobans stand alone in the west as "satisfied" with the effectiveness of Canada's electoral system.

Here in B.C., according to that same poll, almost 70 per cent of voters expressed dissatisfaction with the electoral system.

Who can blame them? With four times Manitoba's population, B.C. should have 56 seats in the Commons. Instead it has only 34. Compared to Manitoba, the federal presence in B.C. is shameful. Aside from a dwindling navy and under-equipped coast guard, the only agency of any significance headquartered here is the Pacific Pilotage Authority.

Sandwiched between B.C. and Manitoba are two provinces as different as their highway systems. Saskatchewan has been a "have-not" province for as long as I can remember, while Alberta keeps pumping billions more into the Canadian economy than it receives. Saskatchewan's political heritage is the prairie socialism that brought medicare to Canada. Alberta's is a Tory dynasty that grew from the Social Credit party. If medicare is dismantled anywhere in Canada, it will start in Alberta.

Despite the differences, both seethe with resentment against Ottawa.

Over the years I've conducted more than a dozen surveys on Western Canadians' attitudes towards Ottawa. What I've found isn't alienation but a growing sense of anger born of frustration over the indifference of successive federal governments.

I've also learned that, despite the sense of solidarity and friendship felt across the west, attempts by the federal government to seek a unified western Canadian "solution" will ultimately fail. That's because both the issues and the allegiances of the voters across the West are fundamentally provincial, not regional.

Which brings me back to Paul Martin's promise to reduce western Canadian alienation. I don't mean to seem unappreciative, but someone should tell our future prime minister that by setting his focus on "Western Canada" he does us all a disservice.

Recently, Martin mused about possibly setting up a western Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and holding one or more cabinet meetings in the West each year. But why bother? The department of Western Economic Diversification has been around for over a decade—but how many people realize it exists, or can name even one of its accomplishments?

There is no single road map that will lead to improved relations between the four Western provinces and Ottawa. But there is a common starting place. Forget Western Canadian alienation and grapple instead with the unique needs and legitimate concerns of each of provinces lying to the west of Ontario. Yes, there's a common anger, but it will only grow if Mr. Martin attempts a single solution.

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