Now that the West is In

On April 4, the same day a chagrined Ralph Klein agreed to step down early, Jim Dinning cancelled a speaking engagement in Toronto. The former Alberta treasurer had agreed to join a panel to discuss: “The West Is In: Now What?” But as the front-runner to succeed Klein, Dinning realized that “Now what?” had turned from a rhetorical question into a pressing personal issue.

By Rick Spence

Knowing a snub when they see it, half those who had registered for the panel session, organized by the Canadian Journalism Foundation, found other things to do. Still, 40 stalwarts turned up (there was, after all, an open bar). And many were cultural heavyweights: Geoff Stevens, former managing editor of the Globe and Mail, former Toronto Star publisher John Honderich, NDP strategist Robin Sears and crusading magazine editor Sally Armstrong. Jim Dinning or no, these eastern media mavens evidently sensed that Something Is Up out west – and that this was a rare opportunity for Canada’s opinion leaders to listen.

Those who rarely venture west of Windsor got a solid course in Alberta 101. Honderich, a self-described “unambiguous Easterner,” opened the show as panel moderator by summing up recent events that had propelled the West “in.” You know them: Harper’s election win; the rise of Western-focused issues such as Senate reform and revisiting gay marriage and the gun registry; Alberta’s growing oil wealth; and of course the sudden fall of King Ralph.

These issues may be old hat in Alberta, but they are not normal topics of discourse in Toronto. When panelist David Taras, a University of Calgary political scientist, warned that economic clout is moving west (“Jobs can be outsourced; resources can’t”), he was broaching a subject many Ontarians haven’t faced up to. Then he posed this scenario: What if oil prices rise above $100 a barrel, and stay there? What if high energy costs make manufacturing less and less competitive? What if, to paraphrase the old bumper sticker, the East really is left freezing in the dark? “What will you say to us,” asked Taras, “and what will we say to you?”

Don Martin, Ottawa columnist for the Calgary Herald, pointed out that the West includes four provinces with four different agendas, though only one was represented in the panel. And in case there’s any doubt, Martin said, “Alberta basically doesn’t want to be in. They just want to be left alone. They don’t want the federal government to ride to the rescue and do anything for Alberta.”

Filling in for the absent Mr. Dinning was Darrell Bricker, president of polling firm Ipsos-Reid’s public relations arm. He reported that “Western alienation is real – and it can’t be fixed by institutional reforms,” such as an elected senate. “Westerners don’t see a relationship between what is happening in Ottawa and what’s happening in their day-to-day lives.”

The cultural elite couldn’t be elite if they weren’t self-absorbed, so many of their questions related to Toronto’s role in Stephen Harper’s Canada. Bricker spoiled the mood when he said Harper doesn’t expect to win votes in Toronto, and won’t even need Hogtown if he can woo Quebec. “They call Toronto the Dead Zone,” added Taras.

Don Martin finally noticed the irony. “It’s the strangest thing,” he said. “We were invited here to talk about ‘the West wants in’ – and you’re telling us that Toronto wants in.”

The mood changed when news writer Bill Doskoch, an Albertan by birth, asked about the prospect of oil sinking back to $20 a barrel and the implications of recent studies suggesting that the Prairie water resources are diminishing – and perhaps unable to serve millions of newcomers and all the new oilsands projects.

Taras shrugged off suggestions of $20 oil. Nobody talked about water. But after these two questions, the locals felt a little better. They may not have oil, but they’ve got that big lake.

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