My Submission to the Alberta Next Panel

Dear Premier Smith et al:

Let's start with the elephant: referenda on independence.

In my opinion:

1. The referendum proposed by The Alberta Prosperity Project, seems to be attracting considerable major media support precisely because its inevitable failure will significantly weaken the western negotiating position
2. In contrast the referendum proposed Thomas Lukaszuk asks "Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?" and is being sold as pro-Canada, but may actually be fairly easy to win for the "No" side because forth rightly running against the federal record in Alberta is much easier, and far more convincing, than trying to invoke some vague feeling of patriotism and pride in the country while being continually forced to lie or deflect in defense of the actual federal record.

Since your government controls neither of these, what action can you take?

If the goal is to keep the country but reduce liberal exploitation of the producing provinces, the Alberta government, possibly in co-operation with that of Saskatchewan, could pre-empt other referenda by putting forward an immediate referendum asking for authority to explore an economic union with the United States as a fallback to be voted on if the federal government fails to fully rectify a clearly annunciated list of western grievances by some fixed date.

That could, I think, get an 80% or better positive vote in both Alberta and Saskatchewan, strengthen existing provincial leadership, and force the federal government to choose between treating the west fairly or breaking up the country.

On the other hand, while everyone is talking about referenda there are other options - many of which in one form or another the panel has already heard. The two below, however...

1. Psychology matters - have the UCP change the party name to The Alberta Republican Party. Remember, the CBC and the rest of the leftist media can't hate you more, or work harder than they already are to under-mine you - and most UCP voters would probably approve of anything that so seriously and directly winds-up the left here, in Ottawa, and in the media.

    

2. Western representation matters too. Since the time of King John and his unhappy taxpayers, parliaments in the English tradition have adhered to a one-man, one-vote strategy, and that made sense then, but it doesn't now. Pierre Polievere [the federal conservative party leader] is currently pretending to represent an Alberta riding, so have him get his caucus together behind a change in the rules on how votes are counted in the House - not one member, one vote; but one voter, one vote. So a member elected with 5,811 votes gets counted as voting 5,811 proxies while an Alberta MP who got 41,308 votes in 2025 would be counted as voting 41,308 proxies.

   I do not know of anything beyond tradition that would prevent this - and doing it moves roughly 8% of federal voting power to the west, leads to the immediate merger of the leftist parties, and greatly reduces the left's incentives for funding the Party Quebecois.

    

And then, of course, there are financial actions you could take. Two easy examples:

1. when Biden unilaterally cancelled the Keystone II expansion project various players sued for compensation but all were denied largely because the Trudeau government sided with Biden et al. The Trump administration could be asked to revive Keystone II through an executive order defining the line as a national security priority while setting permits and processes on the American side to the status quo ante and agreeing to a fair financial settlement of past claims to be paid out when and if, and only then and if, the project enters service within a short time period such as 21 months.

   Notice that this would include free movement of the people, products, and services needed to build, test, and operate the line - thus strengthening the Trump administration's position just before the new NAFTA negotiations begin, giving Ontario premier Ford and Prime Minister Carney - both of whom recently won elections by running against Trump - the metaphorical finger, and all while further ensuring American energy security and creating nearly 30,000 temporary jobs, (and another 3,000 or so permanent ones) mainly in the western states.

    

2. the Canada Pension Plan negotiations between Ottawa and Alberta are doomed to failure because fairness is not in Ottawa's interests. Alberta could retreat further from these negotiations and embark, instead, on a series of expensive infrastructure projects - but borrow all the monies (about $70 billion) needed to do this through the Toronto financial markets.

   The net result would be that Ottawa would hold CCP monies hostage for "good" behavior in Alberta, and Alberta would hold Toronto and New York monies hostage for good behavior in Ottawa.

   Project examples would include: financing the keystone expansion prior to payback; financing two new oil sands plants using waste heat from two large scale fission based generating stations - along with the low resistance underground lines needed to bring that power to Edmonton and Calgary; and/or financing new rail infrastructure running north-south to route Alberta and Saskatchewan exports through the United States instead of Ontario and British Columbia.

And, finally: Please give up the nonsense constitutional challenges. Canada doesn't have a constitution; we have a "constitution act" the government of the day can ignore, or change, as it wishes - and, as you must know you don't get justice if the other guy appoints the judges. I know these kinds of challenges can be politically useful and serve to both deflect and delay issues, but in the end, you can only win if the outcome doesn't matter. So call a spade a spade: if you stop doing it and tell the people why it will be one more pressure point pushing the self-proclaiming Laurentian elites toward positive change.