Team Canada vs Team Alberta: A unity crisis or united more than ever?
Trumps tariffs have pushed every Canadian news outlet and most politicians into chaos. It’s understandable. Seeing a national leader take steps to look after his own people is a foreign concept in Canada. In fact, the shortcomings of our federal political leadership have become so pronounced, Trudeau doubled down on his default position. ‘Everything is all your fault, not mine… especially you, Alberta!’
Our Premier has been working for months building relationships with politicians and policy makers in the US, making many friends and allies there. Ottawa doesn’t like that and accusations have come barreling our way as a result. The reason these tariffs are disproportionately going to affect Albertans, they scold, is because we screwed ourselves. We didn’t diversify our customer base and instead chose to do business predominantly with the US.
Seriously??? WE TRIED!!! Northern Gateway, Energy East, Bill 48, Bill 69. The rest of Canada declared loud and proud they did not want our ‘dirty oil’. In fact, other than that one small blip when Quebec ran out of propane, it was ‘socially unacceptable’ to buy from us. Shut in and landlocked by our own people, east and west, we went south. And it isn’t just oil we’re held back on, either.
After making the significant mistake of go-green-or-go-home, Germans are paying a heavy price. The list of countries they could turn to for help was small. Chancelor Merkel paid our PM a visit begging him to sell them some natural gas so her people wouldn’t freeze to death. That’s no exaggeration. Remember Trudeau’s reply? Nah, he said, “there isn’t a business case for it.” He’s such a jerk.
In response to Trumps tariffs, the PM and every other Premier signed on to a ‘Team Canada’ joint statement. It specifically sacrificed oil and gas and our Premier refused to sign. Rightly so, and the backlash was insufferable. Putting province before country, how un-Canadian! After all, the PM said, to ensure ‘Canadian energy’ could get to tide water and out to market (not to be confused with ‘Alberta’s dirty oil’ though it’s exactly the same product), Canadians bought Alberta a pipeline, the Trans Mountain pipeline. How ungrateful!
The PM’s rewriting of history, tall tales, and trash talking Albertans is getting old. What I can’t figure out is why Albertans are blamed for every national unity crisis when it’s eastern politicians and all their buddies who create it. Alberta alienation is so real that when President Elect Trump mused about Canada becoming the 51st State, the interest that peaked among us was much, much larger than expected. With President Trump promising 25% tariffs and Trudeau promising retaliatory tariffs, the needle is rising still. Poilievre agrees with those retaliatory tariffs, by the way, though we don’t know to what capacity.
What President Trump is actually going to do is anyone’s guess, but it’s safe to say there are two possible outcomes. The first is tariffs on all fronts, applied on both sides of the border. If that happens, the already high cost of everyday items will skyrocket and unemployment is likely to reach levels not seen since the 80’s. The second possibility, with Keystone XL going ahead again, may be an Alberta resource carveout, by the US. If a carveout happens, pop some popcorn, grab a seat, and watch the rest of Canada lose their ever-loving minds.
The show would actually be pretty awesome if the level of self-control required of us wasn’t so high. The level of wrath headed our way would be like nothing we’ve ever experienced. Alberta alienation on steroids. Retaliatory taxes of some sort, imposed on us by our own federal government no matter who is in government, are most probable. I don’t know exactly what it would look like, but there’s no doubt the other provinces would be in lockstep. In fact, the lengths to shut us down would be so severe, Trump’s tariffs would be a drop in the barrel. And no Albertan should find this hard to believe. Just look at the recent history I outlined earlier.
Regardless how this tariff war shakes out, things will get worse. Much worse. Albertans are going to be punished severely and my heart hurts for those who are going to lose their jobs and/or find their cupboards emptier than they already are. However, being backed into this corner may be where we find a door of opportunity.
What if our local levels of government encourage our local oil and gas companies to build more refineries here in Alberta? With the work already done to reduce red tape, this could be accomplished fairly quickly. Jobs will be saved, we’ll have more of what we need, and energy security. The best part is the federal government can’t do anything to stop it, and it doesn’t stop there.
Supporting our own by shopping local could explode. This is good because other opportunities will present as well. What if local entrepreneurs take on building and operating year-round greenhouses? We have more than enough land to grow the food we eat in winter rather than import it. The added benefits of job creation and food security are huge. And I would even take this one step further. Our provincial prisons could do the same; prisoners could eat what they’ve grown and harvested while saving taxpayers money on feeding them. The health benefits and life skills gained along the way will do wonders for everyone.
The national unity crisis is real and is uniting Albertans more than ever. More are seeing we never have been, nor ever will be, part of ‘Team Canada’. Our only hope for a vibrant, prosperous, and freedom filled future is to get serious about putting province before country. We already have everything we need and anything we want we can build or make. Don’t think for one minute I’m suggesting it will be easy. It won’t. But we must acknowledge there is no down side to being self-sufficient and self-sustaining. The possibilities of all we can accomplish by flying the Team Alberta flag are only limited to our own imagination and chutzpa.
Let’s git-r-done!
