Calgary, AB – It’s great to be home to launch our campaign for a stronger Alberta within a united Canada. Speaking of home, 104 years ago, this building was home to our veterans. A clubhouse for the Great War Veterans’ Association; a place for Calgary’s heroes to gather, tell stories, support each other and mourn the brothers who did not return.
The ghosts of Canadian heroes walk these halls. Among them, young men who left rural Alberta to fight for Canada in faraway lands. Farm boys put down their spades and picked up their rifles. Their mothers kissed them goodbye at train stations in small Alberta towns like Innisfail, Hanna, Olds, High Prairie and watched through teary eyes as the locomotive pulled them away across the expansive prairie horizon, many of them never to return.
Those that did return from battlefield to farm-field would then survive the Dust Bowl, see their children fight another World War, pay off the country’s entire war debt and hand to the next generation the richest and freest nation on earth. Century Farm Plaques at the end of rural Alberta laneways still stand as monuments to the legacies they left their great-great-grandchildren, who still plow the same soil.
Those farms and this country are here today because, no matter the hardship, they never gave up on Canada and neither should we. They fought for Canada, and now we must fight for Canada.
I was blessed to grow up in the province and the country that they built. Among my earliest memories are attending the medal ceremonies at the 1988 Olympics, here in my hometown of Calgary. I remember standing downtown looking at the ceremonies – I was a nine-year-old boy watching Canadian athletes’ step onto the podium to accept their awards under the Canadian flag.
I remember Brian Orser winning the silver medal in figure skating and Elizabeth Manley delivering one of the most memorable performances in Canadian history. Like millions of Canadians, I felt overwhelming pride seeing our country celebrated around the world.
And growing up here, I felt something else: pride in Alberta; pride to be a Calgarian. Pride in the thousands of volunteers. Pride in the entrepreneurial spirit that built this city from a prairie grassland to a global energy capital. Pride in the workers, ranchers, roughnecks, farmers and small businesses who made this province the engine of Canada’s national economy.
My attachment to Alberta grew from long days playing on the outskirts of Calgary. The endless horizon, the big sky, the foothills rising into the Rockies. That drive on Highway 1 on prairie land that slowly starts to move up and down as you reach the foothills and then all of a sudden you reach the peak and the majesty of the entire Rocky Mountain range appears before your eyes like a work of art put there by God.
Living on the edge of Calgary, where city met country, I grew up with the spirit of Alberta. I love this province. What I love about it is it’s independent, hard-working, generous, unpretentious, resilient.
The Calgary Stampede captured that energy. As a kid, I worked moving trash off tables at a concession, and I saw how the Stampede symbolized the spirit of the West. Earning success – not inheriting it. Building things – not blocking them. Taking risks – not asking permission. Freedom – not freebies.
The spirit of freedom and opportunity that settled the West has, for most of Alberta’s history, thrived within a united Canada. Alberta became a province in 1905 because Confederation promised to marry autonomy over local decisions with shared strengths of pan-Canadian trade, defence, population and landmass.
The win-win of Confederation was really crystallized in the British North America Act, often called the BNA Act. The BNA is Canada’s DNA. It’s a different kind of constitution than most countries; there are no lofty ideals expressed or grand statements. It’s an org chart, it’s a who does what manual, it’s a summary of what the provinces and federal government should separately do as part of the common project of Canada.
It’s very practical; based on the principle that power should be as close to the people as possible. What an individual can do, let him do it. What he can’t, let the locality do it. What the locality can’t do, let the province do it. What the province cannot do, then – and only then – the federal government steps in.
In the British North America Act, schools, hospitals, natural resources are the responsibility of provinces. The federal government does borders, defence, criminal law, and movement of goods and services across borders. Each level of government should do only what only that government can do. That approach, for most of our history, kept government affordable and accountable and left maximum freedom for people and provinces to do what worked for them.
It also kept us out of each other’s hair. And that all made sense: you don’t need the federal government to put up a stop sign, approve a mine, build a road or a hospital that is only inside one province. You do need it to clear the way for a railroad or a pipeline that crosses many provinces and to buy fighter jets that can protect all ten provinces and three territories.
The problem lately has been that the federal government has been terrible at the things that ARE its job, whilst sticking its nose in things that are NOT its job. For example, on defence, borders, immigration, criminal law, interprovincial pipelines (just to name a few), the federal government has failed brutally – and by the way, they admit this now.
Those are all federal responsibilities, and yet they have had the audacity to impose themselves on provincial areas like taxing industrial carbon, seizing people’s hunting rifles and blocking oil and gas projects that are strictly within provincial jurisdiction. That has gotten in the way of Alberta’s and Canada’s biggest industry at massive expense to our entire country.
While these intrusions drive our country apart, a destructive ideology has tried to erase the things that used to bring us together. Downgrading and denigrating our common identity and history by cancelling our symbols, shaming our heroes, dividing us by group and promoting a post-national state leaves less holding us together and more driving us apart.
We must be prepared, my friends, to have some honest conversations over these next several months.
You see, a country is a lot like a family, and every family has problems. Families fail not because they argue about those problems, but they fail when they sweep those problems under the rug and pretend they do not exist. The problems don’t go away; they get bigger.
Those who caused the problems in Canada today will tell you to pretend those problems don’t exist, and they will denounce as unpatriotic anyone who speaks honestly about them.
Doing that in this referendum would only drive people further away. If you want frustrated Albertans to vote for Canada, the absolute worst thing we can do is to dismiss their legitimate grievances and thus signal there is no hope of fixing them at all.
Here are the undeniable facts. Ten years ago, under the leadership of a great Albertan, Stephen Harper, there was no separatist movement in Alberta. When Mr. Harper left office, the Parti Québécois had been defeated, and the Bloc Québécois had been reduced to four seats – it didn’t even have party status. We thought that referendums on separation were a thing of the past.
Today, ten years later, hundreds of thousands of Albertans have signed a petition to leave, and polls put the separatist Parti Québécois in first place in Quebec, running on an explicit platform of separation.
How did we get here?
Over the last decade, federal inflationary spending and taxes have forced an affordability crisis on Albertans – and on Quebecers, for that matter. The Liberal Party carried out a publicly stated plan to phase out Alberta’s biggest industry, using anti-development laws that are all still in place today.
Big promises to reverse course on these issues are very nice. But it will take shovels moving dirt and steel pipe in the ground to show the Liberals have really changed their minds on oil and gas. Albertans can be forgiven for demanding results, not just more promises.
I can say from meeting people in my East Central rural Alberta riding of Battle River—Crowfoot, that these policies did real harm in people’s lives. Grown men in tears after they lost their jobs and homes, all due to a federal attack on their industry. Young people, who watched their parents buy homes in their early 20s, now worry they will never afford one of their own.
By the way, for those who say, “there goes Poilievre complaining about affordability again,” make no mistake, many of the political divisions we have in this country today are precisely because, as hard as they work, our people cannot afford to live anywhere in this country right now.
Beyond that, Liberal governments have intruded into provincial jurisdiction, seizing the lawful firearms of law-abiding Alberta farmers, First Nations and rural people. And the federal government has become bigger and bossier than ever before. Outside of COVID, federal spending is now a bigger share of the economy than at any time since 1996 – three decades ago.
That means too much of Alberta’s money goes to Ottawa and too little returns. The government is rich, and the people are poor. These problems echo through history.
Some of my earliest memories are of my parents losing their savings – a home and two little rental properties – had spent their 20s and 30s saving for. Interest rates and inflation, combined with a massive Liberal recession – all driven by the Pierre Trudeau government – smashed all of the things we had worked so hard to build.
Very similar to today. My folks had to scrimp and save, and with a little help from my grandfather, we got a loan for a down payment on a house further out so we could find a place to live and start all over.
Hundreds of thousands of Albertans have a very similar story. But you know what’s amazing? After all of that and after all we’ve been through over the last decade, Albertans are not even looking for an apology or compensation; they just want these things to stop happening.
They are not looking for Ottawa for a handout. They are looking for Ottawa to get out of the way and off their backs; for the province to finally have respect within confederation.
That is easy to do. We have done it before.
In the 1980s, Canadians elected a new government and over the following 30 years, we scrapped the National Energy Program, signed free trade with the United States, unblocked and unlocked the oil sands, shrunk the size of the federal government by a third and unbridled Alberta to become the richest place anywhere on earth.
We can do that again. The good news is that the problems that we need to fix are easily fixable. Listen carefully to the concerns of those who are saying that they want to leave, and you will find that they do not have a problem with their fellow Canadians or even with Canada itself. They have a problem with the federal government.
We do not need a different country in Alberta. We need different government policies in Ottawa.
Restoring affordable homes and food, unblocking resources and pipelines, respecting firearms owners, locking up criminals, relieving taxpayers, respecting provincial autonomy and personal freedom, unlocking free enterprise – we know that these are the things Albertans have been demanding.
The best news of all: It is not a zero-sum game. All of these things would make the entire country better off. All Canadians want these things. The answer, therefore, for Albertans is not to pull away from our friends in other provinces but to lock arms with them to make Canada affordable, safe, self-reliant and united here at home.
Lock arms with all Canadians for an affordable federal government that allows an affordable life for Canadians.
Lock arms with Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador to double oil production by replacing C-48 and 69 (the anti-development and anti-energy laws) with fast permits and low taxes on energy and construction.
Lock arms with steelworkers in Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie to eliminate the industrial carbon tax.
Lock arms with Toronto communities for tougher criminal justice laws to end the wave of violence and theft that has washed over both their communities and ours.
Lock arms with Indigenous hunters and rural communities across the country so that we can end the gun grab, and farmers, hunters, and sports shooters can keep their lawful property.
Lock arms with Quebec to restore the constitutional autonomy of the provinces so Albertans can make decisions for themselves on things like immigration. Both Quebecers and Albertans – and probably many others – agree that provincial governments that pay for the social services and housing of newcomers must have more control over who comes in and how many enter the country.
Locking arms with other provinces is a practical, realistic path to a Stronger Alberta within a United Canada.
La solution pour les Albertains, ce n’est pas de couper les liens avec leurs compatriotes à travers le Canada.
La vraie solution : c’est de faire des alliances avec d’autres provinces et de s’unir pour rendre le Canada plus abordable, plus sécuritaire, plus autonome et plus uni.
On doit s’unir pour réduire le coût du gouvernement et réduire le coût de la vie. Un gouvernement abordable signifierait une vie abordable pour les Canadiens.
On doit s’unir avec le Québec pour rétablir l’autonomie des provinces, y compris sur l’immigration, parce que les provinces qui doivent payer la facture pour les logements et les programmes sociaux devraient contrôler qui est permis d’entrer sur leur territoire.
By locking arms with all of those people and building these alliances, we can achieve the things that Albertans and Canadians want to have together. We have to ensure that Albertans are able – just like Quebecers – to be masters in their own houses.
I have a message for everyone participating in this debate, a message on how we treat each other. I want to speak to Canadians across this country: as we debate and fight for a united Canada, we must remember that those who are choosing separation from Canada are not our enemies.
They are our fellow citizens. Family members. Loved ones. Business partners. Neighbours. Friends. Demonizing people who have lost hope in Canada is no way to restore it. Name-calling, fear-mongering and ostracizing will only worsen and broaden the divide.
A better way is to listen, understand, persuade and address the easily-solvable problems that they are asking us to fix. Nor will threats work. We should not just tell Albertans how bad it would be to have separation. Let’s instead talk about how great it can be if our country is truly united and respectful of Alberta.
Just as I speak to Bloc Québécois MPs every day on Parliament Hill, I will be speaking to Albertans on both sides of this referendum to hear their thoughts and to make the respectful case for Canada.
The goal should not be to “beat” one another in this referendum. It should be to unite us all when it is over; to show our fellow citizens – all of them – that they belong in Canada, that they are a treasured part of our national family.
We need a project hope, not a project fear.
Hope that this province, within this country, can be the richest, safest and most affordable place in the world; that its young can have the greatest opportunities in the world; and that making Alberta stronger within a united Canada should be a big part of our national project.
Now if I could speak to fellow Canadians from other provinces: I encourage you now more than ever to reach out to Albertans, tell them how much you appreciate and love them, really listen to them and support their ambitions because our destinies are intertwined. One for all, all for one. The whole of Canada should wrap its arms around Alberta and its people.
At the same time, we should reignite our patriotism. No more tearing down statues, libelling our heroes or cancelling our history. We will bind this country together with the love of our common history, our common achievements, our common heroes and our common belief that this is the best country anywhere on earth.
We must be a country that sings its songs, tells its stories and waves its flag. Alberta is at the heart of those stories, those songs and that flag.
And now a message to my fellow Albertans. Let me speak directly with you. In the midst of our legitimate complaints, let us not forget what we have here and what we have built together. Sometimes in life, we forget what we have; we sometimes take for granted the things that have always been around. But look around the world: where else would you really rather live?
Canada is a VERY special country, and a very rare one.
It took 800 years of evolution from the time of the Magna Carta to the present to develop our democracy. The Magna Carta being the first ever law designed to restrain the government rather than to restrain the people.
Did you know Canada is actually the 4th-oldest democracy on Earth? We have solid foundations. There is a reason that millions of people from all around the world leave behind their ancestral homes, families, jobs and countries to flock here. There is a reason why millions more would if they could.
That reason is that there is no better country anywhere on planet Earth than Canada. Sure, we can and should complain about our government. But Canada is more than a government.
It is: A land. A flag. A common defence. Laws. Borders. Folklore. Stories of heroes and hardship. A promise passed down from those who came before, upheld by those here now and handed to those who come next. A promise is what this country offers all of us.
It is a promise of a government that is servant and not master. A promise of free people, free speech and free markets. A promise of meritocracy, not aristocracy. A promise that anyone from anywhere can achieve anything.
A promise for which the soldiers, sailors and airmen of Canada sacrificed. A promise that is precious and rare.
Making Canada was hard. Before we risk it, let us remember the Albertans who sacrificed to provide this inheritance. The people who, through hardship and heroism, never gave up on Canada.
The brilliant engineers and roughnecks who extracted the miracle molecules out of muddy bitumen to power our lives. They never gave up, so we should never give up.
The traders who followed winding rivers across the unmapped prairies to build the lonely forts which became our future cities. They never gave up, and neither should we.
The pioneers whose calloused hands plucked the weeds and moved the rocks to turn raw dirt into fields of golden grains. They never gave up, and we should never give up.
The mothers who fought starvation so their babies would survive the Great Depression and the prairie Dust Bowl. They never gave up, so we should never give up.
The Cree code-talkers from Alberta who saved countless Canadian lives during the Second World War by relaying battle plans in their language to outsmart Nazi interception. They never gave up, so we should never give up.
The Veterans at the Wainwright Legion who told me that I should do as they have done, which is to fight for Canada, and never give up.
The warriors who built this legion and haunt its halls, and the brothers who did not return. They never gave up, and neither should we.
The Canada for which they died is the Canada for which we must live.