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3 Wisemen | Trudeaumania
| October Crisis |
Bilingualism |
Petro Canada |
72 Super Series |
Wage & Price
Controls | 1976 Olympics
| PQ come to Power |
Interlude |
Western Alienation
| 1980 Referendum |
The Constitution |
Changing of the
Guard
Western alienation has had its roots causes in the
Western Canada's disappointment at not having more
control over the Federal Government. To many in the
west, Ottawa is viewed as pre-occupied with the Quebec
Ontario axis and makes most of its decisions based
upon how they will effect central Canada. During the
1950's and 1960's Alberta's oil industry grew
substantially and the Social Credit government in
Edmonton was happy to leave oil development to big
business and just collect the provincial tax revenues
and royalties.
As the 1970's began the Social Credit were ousted in
Alberta and replaced by a Conservative government under
Peter Lougheed. His government took a much more activist
role in the oil industry, believing that not only could
more revenue be generated for the province but the oil
industry could help develop other industries in the
province and diversify its economy.
In 1973 the Yom Kipper
war in the middle east had resulted in a saved Israeli
victory and the Arab OPEC nations decided to increase
oil prices by up to 100%. The windfall profits that
resulted from the oil production were quickly absorbed
by Alberta's provincial government which resulted in the
building up to over $14 billion of what was called the
Heritage fund. The flip side of the coin was that he
rest of Canada were subjected to gas prices that rose by
over 350% in a year and threatened economic stability.
The Trudeau government moved to try and relieve the oil
price stress by disallowing resource companies from
deducting provincial royalty charges before they
calculated federal taxes owning, freezing oil prices,
and imposing an oil export tax.
These actions led to a
confrontation between Trudeau ad Lougheed over oil
policies. May in the west felt that the oil boom was
their opportunity to use the profits to diversify their
economies while the Federal government wanted to
alleviate the economic pressures on the rest of the
country. Lougheed accused Trudeau of selling out the
west for Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes and when
asked what was the east suppose to do he replied "Let
them freeze in the dark".
This dissatisfaction in the west over energy policy led many
to desert the Liberals in he belief that they were a party of Ontario and Quebec
interests. This dispute was further aggravated by the introduction of additional
energy polices by the Federal government and by the end of the 70's
support in the west for the Liberals had dropped to such a low level that they
only managed to elect one MP, Art Phillips in Vancouver Centre, west of
Manitoba.
After the 1980 election when the Liberals were returned to
power they held no seats west of Manitoba. Trudeau proceeded to introduce the
National Energy Policy or NEP which allowed the Federal government to build a
window to see into the oil industry an determine what was really going on. They
did this independently of the provincial governments which alienated the west
even more.
By 1981 almost half of Albertans were
in favour of separation from Canada. Their feeling that
the Canadian government was controlled by Ontario and
Quebec interested was relatively correct in the vast
majority of the population of the country lived in those
two provinces and they had therefore had the majority of
the seats in Parliament. The isolation of the west was
briefly alleviated in 1981 when Lougheed and the Fed's
came to an agreement over revenue sharing but when oil
prices collapse in 1982 Alberta was faced with difficult
times and many blamed the Federal government for the bad
times.
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