Poilievre says listen to Albertans, don’t attack them
He urged Canadians who still believe Canada should remain united to “listen carefully” to the concerns of Canada’s independence movements rather than demonize them for wanting to separate.
Author: Clayton DeMaine
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called for national unity, urging Canadians opposed to separatism to listen to Western separatists’ concerns rather than alienate or attack them. He also urged Albertans not to give up on the country generations of Albertans helped build and defend.
In a keynote address in Calgary, Poilievre launched his campaign for “a strong Alberta” within a “united Canada,” promoting national unity while addressing many of the grievances driving separatist sentiment in Western Canada.
Speaking at a legion hall, Poilievre called on Albertans to honour the soldiers who gave their lives fighting for Canada.
“Making Canada was hard. Before we risk it, let us remember the Albertans who sacrificed to provide this inheritance, the people who, through hardship and heroism, never gave up on Canada,” He said. “The warriors who built this legion and haunt its halls, and the brothers that did not return, they never gave up, and neither should we. The Canada for which they died is the Canada for which we must live.”
Poilievre told the Calgary crowd he takes immense pride in Alberta’s workers, ranchers, roughnecks, farmers and small-business owners, whom he described as having made the province “the engine of Canada’s national economy.”
He argued that a big part of the issue is that the federal Liberal government has failed in its duties under part of Canada’s constitution, the British North American Act, while encroaching on other areas that were meant to remain within the provinces’ jurisdiction.
Poilievre said the Constitution assigns responsibility for schools, hospitals and natural resources to the provinces, while granting the federal government authority over borders, national defence, criminal law and the movement of goods and services across provincial and international boundaries.
“Each level of government should do only what that level can do,” Poilievre said. “That approach, for most of our history, kept government affordable and accountable, and left maximum freedom for people and provinces to do what worked for them. It also kept us out of each other’s hair, and that all made sense.”
He said the feds are not required to put up stop signs, approve mines, build roads or hospitals within a province, but are needed to make cross-country railroads or pipelines, or to buy fighter jets to protect Canada.
“The problem lately has been that the federal government has been terrible at the things that are its job, while sticking its nose in things that are not its job,” he said, calling federal management over defence, borders, immigration, law and others a “brutal failure.”
“They admit this now, those are all federal responsibilities, and yet they have had the audacity to impose themselves on provincial areas like taxing industrial carbon, seizing people’s hunting rifles, and blocking oil and gas projects that are strictly within provincial jurisdiction, which has got in the way of Alberta’s and Canada’s biggest industry at massive expense to our entire country.”
He also called out the “destructive ideology” of the Liberal government, which he says has “downgraded and denigrated” Canada’s “common identity” by cancelling Canada’s symbols, shaming its heroes, and promoting a “post-national state” which he says drives Canadians further apart.
“If you want frustrated Albertans to vote for Canada. The absolute worst thing we can do is dismiss their legitimate grievances and thus signal there’s no hope of fixing them at all,” Poilievre said.
He noted that under Conservative Prime Minister Steven Harper, the separatist movement in Alberta was non-existent and the Quebec separatists were defeated, with the Bloc Québécois holding only one seat.
“We thought referendums on separation were a thing of the past. Today, 10 years later, hundreds of 1000s of Albertans have signed a petition to leave, and polls put the separatist party Quebecois in first place in Quebec, running on an explicit platform of separation,” he said.
He said the Liberals’ anti-business tax hikes, inflationary spending and anti-energy policies have fueled separatist sentiments as the federal government continues to expand into provincial jurisdictions laid out in Canada’s founding documents.
“Albertans are not even looking for an apology or compensation, they just want these things to stop happening. They want they are not actually looking to Ottawa for a handout; they’re looking for Ottawa to get out of their way and off their backs for the province to finally have respect within Confederation.”
He urged Canadians who still believe Canada should remain united to “listen carefully” to the concerns of Canada’s independence movements rather than demonize them for wanting to separate.
“They do not have a problem with their fellow Canadians or even with Canada itself. They have a problem with the federal government. We don’t need a different country in Alberta, we need different government policies in Ottawa,” he said.
“Demonizing people who have lost hope in Canada is no way to restore it. Name-calling, fear mongering, and ostracizing will only worsen and broaden the divide,” he said. “A better way is to listen, understand, persuade, and address the easily solvable problems they are asking us to fix.”
He said that instead of telling Albertans how bad it would be to separate, Canadian patriots should talk about how great a unified Canada would be once Alberta is respected by the country it has fought to uphold.