Liberal Leader Mark Carney should feel right at home in Alberta: after all, he was raised there. But his trip there this week feels more like a political minefield than a homecoming. That’s largely due to his recent quip that while he’s happy to dispatch Ontario Premier Doug Ford to advocate for Canada in Washington, he wouldn’t send Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
Since Smith has openly plumped for the election of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, the line got a lot of laughs. But unsurprisingly, she didn’t think it was funny, accusing Carney of dissing a “strong Conservative woman.” While playing the feminist card is a little over the top, Smith’s underlying message — that the federal Liberals disrespect Alberta — has a longstanding history.
During the 2000 election, while campaigning in New Brunswick, Liberal Leader
that, “I like to do politics with people from the east. Joe Clark and Stockwell Day are from Alberta. They are a different type.” He quickly added, “I’m joking,” before saying, “I’m serious.” The next day, he somewhat apologized, noting that he had friends in Alberta, including cabinet minister David Kilgour, whose office received so many angry calls, he arranged a press conference to say that Chrétien was “obviously joking.”
In 2010,
a Quebec TV host that, “Canada isn’t doing well right now because it’s Albertans who control our community and socio-democratic agenda.” When asked whether Canada was “better served when there are more Quebecers in charge than Albertans,” he replied, “I’m a Liberal, so of course I think so, yes,” adding that Canada’s greatest prime ministers were all from Quebec and that, “This country, Canada, it belongs to us.”
The comments resurfaced during Trudeau’s leadership campaign in 2012, outraging westerners, including then-immigration minister Jason Kenney, who dubbed them “the worst kind of arrogance of the Liberal party,” reminiscent of the national energy program, which decimated the Alberta economy in the 1970s. After Justin Trudeau became prime minister, he imposed a national carbon tax and co-led
to end public financing of fossil-fuel projects.
Carney has long been
climate finance, which ties capital investment to climate goals to move to a net-zero economy. This is why despite dropping the consumer carbon tax, Carney maintained the industrial portion to incentivize companies to reduce their carbon footprints. This does not earn him a lot of love in oil-dependant Alberta, something he should be mindful of in the current political climate.
As the Liberal leader is quick to remind us, Canada’s biggest challenge is how to deal with the threat posed by a belligerent U.S. administration. This makes any additional internal strain highly unhealthy. At the moment, those strains are strongest in the West, where there are public figures only too eager to fan them, including Smith and former Reform party leader Preston Manning, who recently
a “threat to national unity.”
It’s easy to dismiss Manning’s take as hyperbolic click-bait, but it reflects a belief that the Liberals have long treated Alberta as an afterthought. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe also
this week that western alienation is an issue in his province.
As prime minister, Carney must contend with those sentiments, even if he doesn’t agree with them. And if he wants to keep the job, he needs to ensure that he doesn’t get twinned with Trudeau in terms of attitudes on energy and the environment, not just for political purposes, but also for economic ones.
As Canadian industries from automobiles to aluminum buckle under the weight of U.S. tariffs, our energy sector becomes more important then ever. America needs our oil, but we also need to diversify our export markets, which means building pipelines. That will require national consensus, and national leadership. That leadership starts by respecting the West, and cutting out the jokes.
Postmedia Network
Tasha Kheiriddin is Postmedia’s national politics columnist.
