Vol. XXII, Nos. 6 & 7 June & July 2004
The Western Separatist Papers has been
published (usually) monthly by W.S.P. Ltd. since 1983. Address all
correspondence to WSP, Box 101, 255 Menzies Street, Victoria, B.C. Western
Canada V8V 2G6. A one-year subscription is $15.00. Members of the Western Canada
Concept receive the WSP with their membership.
Send e-mail to kzubko@shaw.ca. Visit the WCC on the web at: www.westcan.org
Phone us at: 250-727-3438 or fax us at: 250-479-3294
Links to follow:
Websites of organizations dedicated to western independence that need your support: http://www.separationalberta.com
Following the election, we ran just a few ads about Western Canada Concept and the idea of Western independence on the Peter Warren (radio) show. From this we got a huge response – email letters, phone calls and interest from other media outlets to have Doug Christie on their shows. Here's a sample of the letters:
From email:
My wife and I have come to a decision.
After seeing first, the disgracefully way Martin and his Liberal Machine used such Negative Advertising during this Election 2004 to fear monger and manipulate the East of Canada.
Then, to see the way the Eastern Canadian Voters again choose to put their own fear engendered interests first and foremost, and in so doing ignore Western Canadians needs once again. And the possible benefit that the election of a leader from the West might bring to this country.
Unfortunately this election brings it home once again to us Westerners that in other than in taxes and in lip-service we are of no great interest or importance to Central Canada or to her citizens.
It was of interest to both my wife and I to observe during the process of this election how even the Eastern News Media view us, and our position, and the threat that our representatives hold to the east's self interests, be they of any political stripe that we hope to send to Ottawa. It appeared to both of us that they voiced the views of that smug condescending Eastern Canadian Attitude when the east views the west.
"This country is not unified, this country has already separated!
It is only that we are painfully going through the process of watching the ink dry!"
So we have come to our decision that we would like to join you at the "Western Canada Concept".
We will be sending you our membership application and donation forthwith and look forward to working for you very soon here in Victoria, British Columbia.
R. Arber
From email:
Suggest we have a number of "fringe" parties springing up that support Separation. IMO, until they all get together and "fly under the same flag", nothing will become of any of them. I'm unhappy with the conditions in the west, but cannot align myself with a fringe party at this time as there are too many.
Regards, Mac
From email:
I came upon your website after hearing about it on the radio station QR77 Calgary. I usually don't respond to radio ads but I thought I must express my views on this. I am a born and raised Southern Albertan. I understand the frustration that you highlight in many areas of your website. Many of those are my frustrations as well. Even though the election did not turn out as many had hoped, the political outlook for Western Canadians has changed somewhat in terms of the in-roads made by the new conservative party. Political change takes time. A person may never see their perfect government in their own lifetime, but if enough people want change, eventually it will be.
I was personally offended at the timing of your radio broadcast. Right after the election. I was offended at how in my opinion you (email ends here)
Gina Martin-Ivie
From email:
I agree with your sentiments. This latest election has turned my stomach too!
I live in Ontario, can I become a member?
Brenda.
From email:
I completely agree that the west has always been alienated no matter what political party is in power. I agree separation could solve a lot of the problems as far as the political idealism is concern, but something else is happening in this country and no one is paying attention to it, but we had better or it will destroy all of Canada and we will not even know it. What i am talking about is the individual<M> rights and freedoms that we are suppose to have.
As it is now, justices of the peace are being dismissed because they won't or can't find it in their conscience to perform gay marriages. I have nothing against gays but someone that can't find it in their conscience, or possibly their belief in God has had their rights and freedoms violated by legislation of a Government that says they will control your conscience. This can also be said by a person being forced to pay income taxes to a government system that's steals, lies, and even send it's people to war, to be killed or to kill. This is also a violation of a person's rights and freedoms.
These things are happening to Canadian people all the time, and if you really want to do some good for this country than we better recognize and put a stop to oppression.
I am in favor of separation, but before we can do this, these injustices must be identified and stopped for these are in direct violation of the Canadian charter of rights and freedom.
You better think about this.
Lloyd Albers
From email:
Is there an actual manifesto to distribute to the population. I believe the four western provinces and Yukon need to be their own country. I also believe that this new country have a new constitution made by the people for the people without excessive lawyer made rules which would simply line their pockets. The phrase "less government is best government" comes to mind.
I would like to get to work on this project as soon as possible.
P Donovan, 100 Mile House
From email:
Separation of Western Canada should never, never happen. If you're not satisfied with the country as a whole, move to where you feel the benefits are best suited to you.
This is a beautiful country and making it smaller is not at all an opportunity to make it better. I personally do not agree with any attempt by you or those in Quebec who would have separation.
Having lived in five provinces NB, NS, PQ, ON and AB (for periods in excess of two years) I do find the west with the most to offer it's residents and only because of the wealth this province supplies. I further feel everyone should see this country from coast to coast and once done they would appreciate Canada as a nation from coast to coast instead of this near sighted group you people represent that would have this small area of a great nation become a fiefdom. Imagine Ralph Klein as President - actually any damn fool could run things as long as the oil and mineral wealth holds on. What then?
Further, instead of preaching separation, find a party and a leader (not Harper and the old PC's) and get off your complaining ass and encourage the rest of Canada to change those things that cause you to pout and complain.
I've heard your 630 CHED radio add and I think your (sic) a bunch of fools. Hope your dream never, never becomes anything else.
Find something constructive to do with your time.
George Porter
From email:
I somewhat reluctantly support your right to support separation.
Born and raised in Nova Scotia and having lived in Edmonton and area for 14 years, I am a Canadian. (Period - full stop). I am not an Albertan or a Nova Scotian any more than I am a Wolcottian (The Street where I live). At age 7, I attended Expo '67 and hope that Canada will still be around in 2067.
I don't agree with the notion that Alberta's oil and gas revenue should not be shared with other Canadians if not to some extent with the world. It seems rather uncharitable, rather unchristian like to think that this energy booty belongs somehow to the current residents (virtually all of whom are immigrants or descendants of immigrants in only the past 130 years or so) of this land, don't you think?
In Canada and in Alberta in particularly, we live in a land of staggering plenty. Just look at the huge homes going up everywhere. Look at the huge bounty we see in Superstores, Costco and Home Depot. Look at the huge line-ups of people at Costco with huge carts sagging under the bounty. Look at the vehicles on the road I give thanks for this incredible bounty.
In 1867 four colonies of Britain joined to form Canada. PEI, B.C. and NFLD joined later. I don't think there was any exit clause; it was a permanent move. If I am not mistaken, the 3 prairie provinces were given to Canada by Britain as territories of Canada. In that sense RoC was generous in granting full provincial status, including ownership of resources, to the three Prairie Provinces, don't you think?
To form a strong Country perhaps we need less power in the provinces and more in Ottawa and also more power to the Cities.
In many ways I believe the whole notion of countries is becoming a quaint anachronism. Most relevant for purposes of things like the Olympics and other sports rivalries. Increasingly the trade of the world is integrated. The culture of the world is integrating. Canada will join with the U.S. when it comes to defence. World economic forces will insure our taxation systems are competitive.
As the world integrates the notion of separation or a wall around Alberta or Western Canada seems silly to me.
So I don't agree with your movement but I have to respect you for being an independent thinker and one who works for the kind of change he would like to see. But I cannot wish you luck in this endeavour.
Shawn Allen, St. Albert, Alberta
From email:
We need Alberta to go first Make no mistake, if given the choice we are gone! Put all your efforts here and it will pay off. Once Alberta gets a Referendum how far will BC be? Then the Yukon? Then Saskatchewan and Manitoba would likely follow. But Alberta is the key we have the financial where with all to go it alone even all by ourselves. The iron is hot, time to strike!!!
Regards, Larry Reich
From email:
Have Mr Harper make a motion to recognize Quebec as a nation.
Have all 99 Conservatives agree, all 54 Bloc will agree, because this is what they want. And you just have to get a few Liberals to agree to it and you have a majority.
Have a couple of buses waiting outside the House of Commons load up all the Bloc MPS and any Liberal from Quebec, because they don't represent Canada anymore; they are from another country.
As they board the bus hand them a bill for 25% of Canada's debt to be paid in full in 90 days, and send them all back to their new country.
Mike Maxwell, New Brunswick
(formerly of Alberta)
From email:
Yes, I am 100% behind separation for the western provinces. It is obvious they cannot and will not look after the entire country. One of our provinces is the size of one European county. That is why the people can march and protest; it only takes them an hour or two to get to their parliament!
Our problems are: - who will lead? - Who will vote for a "democracy" party if it does not job guarantee & kiss the unions? - How can we organize communities to "govern" and "decision make" for themselves?
It is so difficult to get the word out to us "little people". We have become so dependent on the government for everything. They force us to pay taxes, and we spend the rest of the time trying to figure out how to get it back. We have become totally reliant on the government as our peers, parents, welfare, health, etc. How on earth can you make Canadians responsible for themselves???
Canada has become socialists, not a democracy. I still cannot believe people are so gullible that they vote a "crook & thief" back into parliament-??!!! What does that tell you??!!
I look forward to hearing more about separating.
Regards, D. Begg
What do you think about the views expressed by these people? How would you answer their contentions against Western Independence? The Western Separatist Papers welcomes your letters to the editor, including your questions for Doug Christie. Please send them to kzubko@shaw.ca, or WSP, Box 101, 255 Menzies Street, Victoria, B.C. V8V 2G6, or fax them to 250-479-3294.
“It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen."
Claude M. Bristol, 1891-1951, Author of "The Magic of Believing"
"The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections."
Justice Robert H. Jackson, (1892-1954), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, West Virginia Board of Education vs. Barnette, 1943
Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
Henry David Thoreau, American essayist, poet and philosopher, 1817-1862
"My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories."
Bjorn Borg, Professional Tennis Player
"When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more."
John Adams, (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President, 1818, letter to Thomas Jefferson
By Doug Christie
Election Commentary
Western Canadians are constantly made to feel like the ugly ducklings of Canada. We are referred to as kooks, weirdoes, fools or hicks in "Upper Canada." We are given a perpetual identity crisis. For instance, we are told we elected a minority government. We didn't elect a minority government. We elected the following:
In BC, 22 Conservatives; in Alberta, we elected 26 Conservatives; in Saskatchewan we elected 13 Conservatives (out of 14 seats); and in Manitoba we elected 7 Conservatives. This totals 68 Conservatives in Western Canada. We elected 14 Liberals in the West. We elected 16 NDP. We elected an overwhelming number of Conservatives. The official opposition would be a small NDP contingent. So we were not undecided, ambiguous or vague. The numbers speak for themselves. No same sex marriage. No gun registry. Freedom, and traditional values. This was the "Western Block."
Ontario was just the reverse: 75 Liberals (corruption and all), 24 Conservatives (only in rural areas, never in Toronto) and 7 NDP. Nothing about the election results in Ontario bears any resemblance to those of Western Canada. The West is politically, ideologically, morally and economically a different country. Toronto alone has 22 seats of Liberals and 1 Jack Layton.
Quebec of course is unique, where a sly separatist party plays well the extortion game. The Maritimes, well, what can you say? It's a welfare state and the Liberals are the willing paymasters. Naturally they can be bought by the Liberals. They will never vote for a western individualist, or self-reliance type. They couldn't trust him to keep the welfare cheques coming. Newfoundland of all places should be separatist. The feds didn't protect their cod fishery and stole their oil, but still they beg for handouts. Disgraceful. They could be a prosperous, free nation, if they controlled their own resources. Instead, they vote Liberal.
All this proves Canada doesn't work. Ontario rules. The West pays, as we all know. So we had better separate before we end up like Newfoundland.
Maybe what we need is a federal party called the "Western Block" just like the PQ has the Bloc Quebecois.
Until then, you can:
Join our movement
Print, sign and circulate our petition asking the Premier in each Western province for a referendum on Independence
Donate, organize and support a meeting in your area.
More Election Commentary
Canada is a nation built on fraud and deception. The latest deception is the federal election of June 28th. The Liberals, Conservatives and NDP all agree: Ontario is what counts. Bilingualism is sacred. Unlimited immigration is good. Quebec must stay in Canada, and the West will be persuaded to give more and get less if it has a few cabinet ministers and more flags are flown.
These strange fallacies are the heart of the last election campaign and resulted in Ontario making the decision once again for us all. They have 106 seats out of 306, so we make sure the polls close at closer to the same time so the results are not known before those 88 seats in Western Canada finish voting. Not that they make any difference just so long as they don't know it makes no difference!
There are of course more seats and greater political power in greater Toronto than all of British Columbia combined. To keep this fact obscured from the children, we delay the knowledge of the election results. Deception, agreed upon. That is Canada.
Health care is collapsing and cannot be fixed. Solve it with privatization? Yes, later, but lie about it during the election as if you have no intention of doing so. Then do it later under pretext of no funds. Deception agreed upon. Get power then do what you want. Liberals always win. Ontario gets well paid for their support with more power, tax dollars and federal spending in Toronto. The NDP agenda is the hidden agenda of the Liberals. Conservatives stay too nice to say so. They prefer to lose after a clean fight.
On the bright side, Western Canada has once again voted against the rest of the country, as we did on Meech Lake, as we did against Trudeau in 1980. Always the West acts like a separate country in an election. The Liberals never really make it in the West. But what difference did that make? Ontario and Quebec between them controlled two-thirds of the power.
So now after this latest demonstration, a corrupt Liberal party, led by the Liberal from Montreal, the senior minister from Quebec during the patronage process has been re-elected to formally make deals with the NDP. Will the West now realize it cannot win in Canada? Will the West now realize it cannot live with Canada? Let Westerners now really demand better – better to get out of a corrupt system you cannot change, than to compromise with it and become corrupt yourself. Free the West! Referendum Now!
Minority with Bloc Support
A further and more insidious situation has also emerged with Quebec. Either through the Liberal cabinet or through the Bloc Quebecois, the province of Quebec always runs the parliament. Ontario provides the willing accomplices and Quebec dictates the terms, or else. That is how it has worked. But now with a minority government, be it Liberal or Conservative, the BQ will have the balance of power. The separatist BQ can demand submission to its wishes as a condition of making either party the government.
The country will be held to ransom by the separatists in parliament who dictate the terms of Canada's surrender. A fitting end to a despicable compromise, Canada collapses not by the rational choice of the West, but rather the emotional demands of race and ethnicity determine what becomes of this long, narrow, divided state.
Western Canadians tried Reform. It failed to change anything, from the Senate to Ontario voter loyalty. We tried renaming it the Alliance. Nothing new. We tried a partnership with the Conservatives. The same power has eluded us. How much longer will we compromise?
The answer is up to you. If we had 10% of the money spent on the federal Conservative party, we could free the west in six months and build the best, most prosperous nation on earth. Will you support us, or wander around in a fog of self-denial? Join today, build the better way and free the West.
The following is an ad that we intend to have translated into French and published in Quebec:
Our message for the people of Quebec: Congratulations to the Bloc Quebecois on your great victory. We have the best wishes for the Independence of Quebec. We agree with your aspirations to achieve the status of a sovereign nation. Unless you do, you will eventually be assimilated and bilingualism is only a temporary fraud, which gives a few sell-outs a chance to be bought off with jobs in the federal civil service. It was a means to bribe the weakest Quebecers to give up their identity for a federally subsidized job to which they would be promoted, and by which they would be controlled.
The only result was to create jealousy and envy from many Western Canadians. They play us against each other. We wish however to be your true friends and support your rights to self-determination, the same noble cause we seek for ourselves. We will be better friends when you are masters in your house and we are masters in ours. As it stands the Liberals manipulate, bribe and extort from both of us and create tensions, which they then pretend to solve.
If there is anything we can do to support your cause of separation, please let us know. Please talk to us rather than have others talk about us. Please send your speakers here, as we would like to speak to you publicly about our cause. Although poor in the French language, we are rich in goodwill toward you, optimistic about your success, eager to help you and aware of our common adversary in Ottawa.
Long live small nations! Long live the people of Quebec! Free the West!
Contact Douglas Christie
Western Canada Concept
Box 101, 255 Menzies Street, Victoria, B.C. V8V 2G6
Tel: 250-727-3438 or Fax: 250-479-3294
Diane Francis Writes.....
The following appeared in a post-election column by Diane Francis in the Financial Post of July 6, 2004 (page FP3):
“There's no reason to blame Ontario voters for denying the Conservatives a shot at governing A comparison of the popular vote between this election and the last one – when both Reform and the Progressive Conservatives existed – shows that Conservatives defeated themselves. The slippage was nearly one in five voters and was mostly out west, not Ontario. This election, some 849,245 fewer people voted Conservative, a drop of 17% from the turnout in 2000.
“By far, the biggest percentage collapse was in British Columbia. This election, 625,071 voted Conservative, compared with 917,132 last time, or a loss of 292,061, which is nearly one-third.
“Alberta. The Conservative bastion did not deliver the goods either. This time 783,379 voted Conservative, compared with 908,607 who voted Reform or PC in 2000, representing a net loss of 125,228.
“Quebec. In 2000, 405,027 voted Reform or Tory but this year only 300,499 did, for a decline of 104,528.
“Ontario registered lower losses than Quebec. Unfairly blamed for the Tories' inability to form a government, Ontario Tory votes dropped from 1,693,647 to 1,592,724, or only 100,923 votes.
“(By the way, it's obvious now that Mr. Harper has to boot out those elements who don't realize that Canadians – out west and everywhere – simply don't want to discuss, or have debated, issues like same-sex marriage or abortion.) [end of quotes]
We comment:
Why should the Conservatives be able to count on the West as a private and captive market? The West gets nothing, even if they elect a Conservative government dominated from Ontario.
The West needs a Western Block, like the Bloc Quebecois to vote against all eastern parties in any federal election. It needs to be clearly separatist. Separatists and social conservatives need a party to vote for and a voice which the Conservative party, moving as it will to capture Ontario voters, will deny to them.
If this is true, then perhaps we should incorporate a new Western Block as a federal party, as soon as possible. What do you think?
The Need for a “Western Block”
The recent election demonstrated how futile it is to create a federal party that tries to budge the gap between Ontario and the West. To do so, Stephen Harper campaigned largely in Ontario and took the West for granted. He now proposes to move the party more “to the centre” and away from Western values.
Why should the Conservatives be able to take the West for granted? What difference does it make if we split the Conservative vote; no Conservative worthy of the name will ever succeed in Toronto where it counts, anyway. So why not create a federal party the West can really vote for with separation as a real federal option?
If you subscribe to the idea of creating a federal party known as the Western Block Party, on the back page of this newsletter is a form entitled “Application to Register a Political Party” which I ask you to fill in with your name, address and signature and date.
As well, send a cheque in the amount of $10.00 made out to the “Western Block Party.” If we receive this form signed by 250 registered electors, we will be well on our way to registration. Send the completed form and your cheque to: Western Block, Box 101, 255 Menzies Street, Victoria, B.C. V8V 2G6.