[grainfedprairieboy]

Why Alberta is not Ontario

Mark Milke
Calgary Herald
Sunday, April 6, 2008

If you're one of the many new immigrants to Alberta over the last decade, I'll take a wild guess (especially for those arrived from Ontario) that some might query why so many Albertans disdain central Canadian priorities: think political party preferences, the CBC or a Toronto-centric definition of what constitutes a "good" Canadian.

As a public service, I'll explain. To start, Ontario's history includes American revolutionaries chasing United Empire Loyalists over the border into the wilderness. Northrop Frye theorized that historical experience created a "garrison" culture where few question the group and everyone must get along -- or else. Margaret Atwood called it survivalism and argued it produced a chronic fear of American absorption; for the record, it was not always an unreasonable response.

Alberta's early influences were different. European settlement came mostly later with a different mix of immigrants especially early in 20th century, so few migrants to Alberta had any ancestral fear of Americans.

Instead, in Alberta's case, the "other" to be wary of, including in pre-Confederation days, was Central Canada -- or "the east," as Albertans label such distant lands east of the Manitoba-Ontario border.

As to why, consider an early example from historian Aritha van Herk on the effects of Ottawa's protectionism in the late 19th and early 20th century: "The West buckled under Central [Canadian] tariffs; meat, timber, and coal were all subject to tariffs -- and to double the insult, they had to buy tariff-laden equipment from Central Canada in order to be able to work their land."

The pattern long continued. In the mid-20th century, compared to Alberta's prices, Ontario and Quebec could obtain crude at a lower cost offshore. That's fine; it was a market response. But it was unlike the earlier Ottawa-imposed double-standard, when westerners wanted to buy farm and other equipment cheaper south of the border but were prevented from doing so by the Dominion government.

Or the later double-standard: when oil prices skyrocketed in 1973 because of the Arab oil embargo, Ottawa decreed that sources of Alberta oil developed before 1973 could be sold to the rest of Canada only at 75 per cent of the international market price. The federal government also imposed export taxes on crude. Seven years later, the Pierre Trudeau government repeated the experiment on Alberta in what is known in these parts by many names, but officially as the National Energy Program. To Albertans, and other economically literate peoples, it was properly seen as an economically daft, counterproductive body blow.

It's why every oilman, haberdasher and clerk present in Alberta back then yet curses when the NEP is mentioned: Because it was only the latest in a century-plus of Ottawa-Toronto-Montreal actions that harmed Alberta.

Has it ended? The harsher market interference was killed off in the 1980s with the arrival of free trade, a long-sought western priority. But there are other issues that should properly rankle any Albertan, natural-born or recently arrived: think of constitutionally entrenched over-protection for Quebec seats in Parliament, or equalization and transfer payments that punish success and reward provincial failures.

Arguably, even nature played a role in forming a distinct Alberta culture which is frontier-like and optimistic, not survivalist and paranoid. Read early accounts and what jumps out, despite settler hardships, is an almost uniformly positive psychological response to the wilderness.

Unlike the thick forests of the Canadian Shield and the fear it might produce about what's behind the next tree (an American revolutionary with a musket or a bear) dangers on the open prairie are obvious from a mile away; that's psychologically easier to deal with and it produces a natural optimism, unlike the mental state formed inside a garrison.

The late rancher and cowboy Andy Russell, once described on these pages as the "ultimate Albertan," writes of the intersection of the prairie sky and Rocky Mountains in this manner:

"It is a marriage of light and life... the mountains light up at first sun in deep rose, swiftly changing to gold, and all shot through with deep purples shadow, it is as though the whole universe pauses for a long, heart-stretching moment, locked in a spell of deep wonder."

Simply put, Russell's exultation in our endless western skies and magnificent Rockies is as far from the fearful Loyalist-garrison-survival narrative and mindset as you can possibly get.

Immigration patterns, legitimate enmity for historic federal policy, and even the response to the western landscape; all that, in a nutshell, is what created Alberta's political ethos and yet animates it.

[uwish]

well said

[lostalex]

interesting read. t4p.

[Toro]

Great article.

I lived in Toronto and London ON for nearly four years in total. Being from Saskatchewan, I never felt at home. I felt more at home in Washington state or Arizona than I did in Southern Ontario.

[grainfedprairieboy]

I now have a slightly more sympathetic understanding of the Eastern Canadian hostility to the US.

[Arrow]

Toro wrote:

Great article.

I lived in Toronto and London ON for nearly four years in total. Being from Saskatchewan, I never felt at home. I felt more at home in Washington state or Arizona than I did in Southern Ontario.

I lived in Regina for two years and never felt at home. Home is where you grew up. Home will ever be the personal benchmark. Does that mean there was anything wrong with Regina? No. Just meant I was applying a mindset against it that wasn't realistic.

[bootlegga]

What this article leaves out is that evil eastern corporations spent huge sums of money buidling factories and railroads to produce goods and transport them for CANADIAN consumption, not Ontario, Quebec or Alberta, but Canadian consumption. So why should those companies not lobby government to have higher tariffs on cheaper foreign made goods? Don't people here complain about cheap Chinese goods all the time? Why are cheap American goods okay, but cheap Chinese goods aren't? After all, the USA was the world's sweatshop in the late 19th century, so the parallel to me seems hypocritical.

What many people also do not realize is that the Canadian government's sole form of taxation prior to WW1 was tariffs and duties on foreign made goods. There was no national sales tax and income was only instituted in 1916 to pay for the war. So if they don't tax cheap American goods, then how does the Canadian government pay its bills?

This article also glosses over the fact that in the 1920s-30s, almost 50% of West's immigrants came from the US. That's a big reason for so-called the 'lack of anti-Americanism' in the West. After all, how many of them would come out and say they hate Aunt Ethel and Uncle Henry (even if they are boorish drunks)? Many of them came north looking to make a fortune and settled here, bringing with them their attitudes on guns, crime, personal rights et al.

[mtbr]

bootlegga wrote:

What this article leaves out is that evil eastern corporations spent huge sums of money buidling factories and railroads to produce goods and transport them for CANADIAN consumption, not Ontario, Quebec or Alberta, but Canadian consumption. So why should those companies not lobby government to have higher tariffs on cheaper foreign made goods? Don't people here complain about cheap Chinese goods all the time? Why are cheap American goods okay, but cheap Chinese goods aren't? After all, the USA was the world's sweatshop in the late 19th century, so the parallel to me seems hypocritical.

What many people also do not realize is that the Canadian government's sole form of taxation prior to WW1 was tariffs and duties on foreign made goods. There was no national sales tax and income was only instituted in 1916 to pay for the war. So if they don't tax cheap American goods, then how does the Canadian government pay its bills?

This article also glosses over the fact that in the 1920s-30s, almost 50% of West's immigrants came from the US. That's a big reason for so-called the 'lack of anti-Americanism' in the West. After all, how many of them would come out and say they hate Aunt Ethel and Uncle Henry (even if they are boorish drunks)? Many of them came north looking to make a fortune and settled here, bringing with them their attitudes on guns, crime, personal rights et al.

They came north to a land of opportunity just like the ones from the east or the rest of the world. No need for the anti-american stereotype.

[uwish]

and that attitude on guns, crime and personal rights are bad? I think not.

Maybe that is why the 'west' is the largest supporter of property rights, etc etc. Or do you like the fact the government can come and take YOUR legally owned property from you WITHOUT compensation?

If you do, then there is a MAJOR difference in west and 'non west' and I for one, will never yield from the western perspective.

[herbie]

(conveniently ignoring that the prairie provinces were creations of Canada, the Whiskey traders, the forts, the CPR)
(conveniently forgetting "Social Credit" gov't until the 70s)

[Bacardi4206]

I like how all these kind of stories always play Toronto as the evil bad guy .

America: Blame Canada!
Canada: Blame Toronto!

[commanderkai]

Bacardi4206 wrote:

I like how all these kind of stories always play Toronto as the evil bad guy .

America: Blame Canada!
Canada: Blame Toronto!

Doesn't Toronto blame somebody?

[Tman1]

Arrow wrote:

Toro wrote:

Great article.

I lived in Toronto and London ON for nearly four years in total. Being from Saskatchewan, I never felt at home. I felt more at home in Washington state or Arizona than I did in Southern Ontario.

I lived in Regina for two years and never felt at home. Home is where you grew up. Home will ever be the personal benchmark. Does that mean there was anything wrong with Regina? No. Just meant I was applying a mindset against it that wasn't realistic.

I have lived in Saskatoon 3 years and never felt at home. You are correct. Home is where you grew up and I grew up in Lethbridge Alberta. Of course, you find your hometown boring but....when you move to another place.... Hoped to have a new start in Saskatoon. Boy was I ever wrong. Hard to relate to people who were born here, grew up here, made friends here....wtf am I supposed to do?

[Brenda]

I grew up in Holland and never felt at home. Now what?

[ShepherdsDog]

I grew up in Manitoba and in BC and have good friends living in both places, as I have here, which is half a planet away. Common experiences is what helps to build and strengthen freindships, and those take time, a lot of time.