Prairie View: Alberta needs a new direction
By Herman Schwenk
Coronation, AB
In the last column that I wrote I indicated that my next column would be a follow up to the last one. We have a very serious problem in Alberta right now and it is only going to get worse. Our problems were serious before the pandemic and that has only acerbated the problems. Alberta is in serious financial difficulty due to political mismanagement of our resources and the pandemic as well we have the highest unemployment rate in the country. Much of the blame is due to the Trudeau governments misguided emphasis on climate change and their reckless use of borrowed capital to alleviate the large loss of jobs due to the pandemic. Yes, any government would have had to provide relief for these people, but Trudeau has wasted billions of dollars on programs that were not properly targeted. He didn’t seem to care; the objective was to make himself look good for the next election. However, Alberta’s problems are far more complicated than just blaming our incompetent Prime Minister.
Premier Jason Kenney must share much of the blame for the mess that Alberta is in today. To me his leadership is wishy washy. As soon as he was elected as premier, he should have started implementation of the “Firewall” principals that I wrote about in my last column. What he has done instead is appoint a committee to study the possibility of implementing a police force or starting our own pension plan. That is not decisive leadership. That is kicking the can down the road and will not get the attention of the Federal Government. He also did not demonstrate leadership when he found out some of his caucus and senior bureaucrats left Alberta for a winter holiday when the rest of us were told to stay home. He dithered for three days before taking decisive action.
His indecision started right after the UCP founding convention when he allowed party officials to start purging Wildrose influence from the party and effectively putting the old PC progressives in control of what was supposed to be a united party. Many of us from the former Wildrose Party thought that Kenney would be a dynamic leader. What a let down when we seen what was really happening. So, we are back where we started when we formed the Wildrose Party. I am optimistic that many of the old grassroots Wildrose supporters are still there. In addition, I think there are many additional Alberta citizens that have had it up to here with the way Alberta has been disrespected by the Trudeau and his cohorts that they are willing to try something different to bring about real change.
I think we are one step ahead of where we were last time. On June 29/20 a founding convention was held that formed the “Wildrose Independence Party of Albert”. This party is building on the old Wildrose Party with one major change. Their document that I copied from their web site states that their purpose is Sovereignty. This new party is already getting some traction but if they campaign on sovereignty instead of Independence they likely will not garner enough support to form government. If they want to form government, they will have to attract at least 40% of the voters in an election. As well hi-light how Alberta would be independent without separation by implementing the “firewall” principles like Quebec has done.
The party in its mission statements lists 14 principles that would guide the party. To me the most important would be what I think were what I have referred to as the “firewall” principles and they are [1] Establish an Alberta Police Force, [2] Establish the Alberta Revenue Agency, [3] Establish our own Pension Plan, [4] Establish our own Employment Insurance Plan, [5] Establish our own Immigration policy and [6] Be governed by our own Environment Act. This would make Alberta independent without separation.