Many years ago my dad had a computer. I loved to play games on that computer and quickly filled the hard drive with many different ones. As the hard drive filled, the performance suffered. So, I decided, in my youthful wisdom, to solve the problem by removing wasteful files that were cluttering the memory. These were files that I did not think served a purpose. I went through the documents folder, deleting a kilobyte here and another one there, and then I saw the jackpot: a wasteful file with many megabytes of data, labelled WINDOWS. Surely this file had many things in it that were unnecessary. With excitement I began the task of deleting any file that did not seem to me to be useful. After much deleting I had indeed gained more free hard drive space, but something strange was happening: the computer was malfunctioning. It got worse though. The next time I tried to start the computer I was met with errors and blue screens. Thos files that I thought were unimportant turned out to be vital for the proper running of the computer. 

Why do I tell this story? Because I think the independence movement in Alberta has a similar problem. We are all tired and fed up with Ottawa, with the problems in the country, with all the structural issues that we are seeing around us. We are ready to do something about it. To start deleting files, as it were. Out of frustration, however, some in the movement are targeting some of the wrong things:

1. Some are attacking the Crown
2. Some are attacking Westminster
3. Some are attacking all of Canada
4. Some are attacking Easterners
5. Some are attacking the Conservative Party of Canada

As I watch this I grow increasingly concerned. While there are problems that Alberta needs to overcome, we need to see the true source of those problems, or we are just as liable to delete good things as we are to solve the problem. So, let’s look at the things above one at a time.

The Crown

The Crown is a useful and important element of our constitution, keeping final power from the hands of the Prime Minister, and ensuring that there is a failsafe should politicians ever go completely off the rails. It provides a useful focus for non-partisan loyalty, enabling us to be deeply loyal while still opposing the government. 

The Crown is not a secret cabal of Illuminati puppet masters, controlling the world through their hidden councils. We can relax and be confident that the King has not been responsible for any of the problems that Alberta has encountered in the last century. 

Westminster

The Westminster system of government is a form of constitutional parliamentary government that has been used and altered all over the world by former colonies of the British Empire. It is able to be altered and adjusted as needed, while still providing a basic structure and a thousand year history of development that informs the growth of our own system. It is flexible enough to be changed to fit local needs, but firm enough not to produce some of the anomalies common in those countries that attempt to fashion a new governmental system out of whole cloth. 

For Canada, the Westminster form of government itself is not responsible for the problems we are encountering, but rather the particular and strange clauses in Pierre Trudeau’s constitution which have twisted and bent our system into an unequal and imbalanced system. These particular provisions such as the inequality of different provinces and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are not native to the Westminster model as a whole, and can be altered without altering the whole system. 

Canada

Canada has not always been broken and abusive. This is a vital thing to realise as we pursue independence. There was a time when the country did indeed work well, even as we occasionally had our disagreements and problems with the Rest of Canada. We were able to work it out because we were all marching the same direction and had a common sense of national culture and purpose. This common direction has broken down since the 1970’s, as Trudeau’s new Canada took over and broke the consensus that had been shared beforehand. The glories of Canada’s past are our glories too. We have the right to be proud of MacDonald and Cartier, of Vimy Ridge and Juno Beach, because this is the country Albertans helped make. It is not Albertans who tear down statues, rename memorials, and claim that we are a genocidal state with no national identity. We understand the greatness and the purpose of Canada past, and we will maintain that Canada through an independent Alberta.  

Easterners

Some people lash out at the regular people of the East. They see that there is a vastly different culture and values in Eastern circles, but they take the next step and decide to hate Easterners. This is not a healthy focus for our movement. We believe in self-determination, and we should believe in this for all the people of the Rest of Canada. They have the right to have different culture, different goals, different focuses. It is Confederation and the imbalances of Ottawa that have led us to the straits we are in, not the normal people of Eastern Canada. We can gain our independence and still maintain cordial relations with those others in the Rest of Canada after we are gone. No hate is required. 

CPC

The Conservative Party of Canada is a national party. This means that the interests of the party will not solely line up with those of Westerners, despite the fact that we are far and away their biggest source of membership and funds. We must recognise that if they want to get elected in the East, they will be forced to devalue Westerners. This is a sad reflection on the reality of the imbalances  of Confederation, but it is a reality. They are the best that we have as a conservative option in Canada, and until we are independent we should work to ensure the maximum electoral victory for the Conservatives, understanding that the Liberal Party of Canada, the heirs of Pierre Trudeau, will not be a friend to our purposes as an independence movement.

I hope that everyone in our movement will keep laser focused on the problem: Ottawa, Parliament, the Laurentian Elites, and Pierre Trudeau’s Constitution. These are the things that are blocking us, holding us back, stopping us from being all that we can be as a province. It is the Federal government that we must separate ourselves from. It is a wrong-headed Parliament that does not value Albertans that we must defend ourselves from. It is a Laurentian cabal that seeks to govern the whole country for their own selfish ends that we must repudiate. And it is the twisted constitution of Pierre Trudeau that we must reject, allowing the people of Alberta to create a new and effective one that both preserves and values our heritage and looks to a better future.