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Political leaders representing a large chunk of Canada are talking about breaking off from the rest of the country in the wake of Justin Trudeau’s reelection — and this time they’re not primarily in French-speaking Quebec, long known for its independent streak.
Instead, it’s the country’s western, oil-dependent provinces fueling the breathless talk of secession amid a perception that Trudeau and eastern urban liberals are calling the shots at their expense. And it's emerging as one of Trudeau’s most complicated headaches as the prime minister moves toward the start of his second term next month.
“Is it real? Yeah. People are mad,” Randy Hoback, a Conservative Party member of Parliament in central Saskatchewan told POLITICO. “I’ve never seen it like this.”
Citizens in the western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan agitated for political change in Ottawa over the past year as attempts to build a coastal pipeline expansion continued to falter and as farmers got trounced by trade tiffs with China.
They got what they wanted in their region — Conservatives swept all but one parliamentary seat in the elections, leaving Trudeau’s Liberals with virtually no presence in Canada’s oil country. But it didn’t translate to new federal leadership, as Trudeau’s party dominated in eastern Canadian cities, including Toronto and Montreal, and still commands a strong plurality of seats in Parliament.
The result: Talk of a break with the rest of Canada — dubbed Wexit on social media — is accelerating as some in the western part of the country say enough is enough.
“Is it real? Yeah. People are mad. I’ve never seen it like this.”
- Randy Hoback, a Conservative Party member of Parliament in central Saskatchewan
A Trudeau spokesperson said the government is considering ways to incorporate western perspectives into the incoming government. Some pundits are suggesting he should take the rare step — for Canada — of appointing an unelected person to the Cabinet he'll swear in on Nov. 20 to ensure oil country’s views are heard.
The elections also breathed new life into a Québécois separatist party previously believed to have been extinguished in the east. The Bloc Québécois reinvented itself — by downplaying talk of independence, ironically — and more than tripled its seat-count from 10 to 32.
Long the two most restive regions of Canada’s federations, Alberta and Quebec have often shared similar complaints about an intrusive federal government; Quebec’s concerns, in particular, have dominated the national agenda as the province occasionally flirts with leaving Canada.
But the political dynamics in western Canada are driving the conversation in Ottawa this week. And at the heart of the west’s disillusionment is the oil industry, which is a major driver of the nation’s economy.
Politicians in Alberta and Saskatchewan say the livelihoods of many of their residents are under attack from Ottawa, given the Trudeau government’s focus on shrinking Canada’s carbon footprint to combat climate change.
“I think this is maybe a little bit more serious,” University of Calgary political scientist Barry Cooper said. “And because so much of it is symbolized in this kind of concatenation of environmentalism and basic anti-Alberta sentiments, it might actually lead to something.”
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney regularly joins in the Ottawa-bashing, including last week when he blamed the Trudeau-led economy for his own budget cuts.
Kenney has obliquely nodded at separatist sentiments since coming into power last spring, though he used the months before the federal election to call on Canadians to vote Trudeau’s party out of power rather than push for his province to go it alone.