Western Canada Concept

But certainly the NEP lingers very, very large as a bad thing that he did as far as Westerners are concerned, as far as Albertans are concerned.

And during the NEP years, you have a political party that starts up as an explicitly Alberta separatist party, the Western Canada concept.

And in 1982, it runs a candidate, Gordon Kessler, in a by-election.

And Kessler wins.

And then in 1982, there's a general election.

This is the height of the National Energy Programme.

And the Western Canada concept gets about 12% of the popular vote.

Kessler loses his seat, but you can see that there's clearly some appetite during the NEP for separatist parties and separatist sentiment.

Uh, what do you think it is?

Yeah, I mean, there's certainly some OG separatists have, that have been interested in separatism for a very long time, from the time of the Western Canada Concept and forward.

But the bulk of this movement really was born during COVID, and you see that through the leadership.

Mitch Silvester lost his, you know, his sporting goods, uh, store.

Nicolaides references a book by Bramley-Moore called Canada and Her Colonies or Home Rule for Alberta.

This book seems to be a darling of certain sovereignty types, particularly the Western Canada Concept Party of the 70s and 80s, but more recently being cited by Derek Fildebrandt or praised in articles in the Western Standard as the defining text of Alberta's first sovereigntist.

sovereigntist.Quick note about the Western Standard.

As much as it is a fringe independent outlet written by cranks, the UCB government has a contract with them to provide content and subscriptions to members.

But that still left a very bad taste in the mouth of many Albertans.

It resulted in the rise of separatism and parties like the Western Canada Concept and which elected one MLA in a provincial election in the early 80s here in Alberta.

And it really soured people on the viability of the Liberal Party as a vehicle for Alberta's interests.

And really, that does continue to today.

It's, it's something completely new.

And, you know, our team at Common Ground has poured through survey data, focus group data, gone back, looked at the historical record, and we're more convinced that this is a far-right populist movement that has more in common with MAGA and the Brexit movement than it does with Western Canada Concept or earlier renditions of, of separatist parties and, and organizations in the province.

And it's important to keep that in mind because in that context, the grievances that today's separatists have are not confined to arcane fiscal federalism formulas and equalization or even pipelines.

They also include just a general anxiety and fear and animosity towards a changing world, right? Towards globalization, towards the disappearance of jobs, whether it's through automation and technological innovation or the sending of, of employment overseas.