An Urgent Request For Action

We were very pleased, today, to join with other citizen groups and high-profile individuals to call for urgent action on Canada's constitution.

You can read our open letter here, which was published in a large number of Canadian newspapers here:

Seven citizen groups and over 60 high profile individuals from Alberta and Saskatchewan have joined together to write an open letter calling for action to ensure fairness on five key issues:

1) National Transfers

No longer being subject to confusing, unfair and unresponsive transfer programs like equalization and fiscal stabilization. We will no longer disproportionally support the rest of Canada. Instead, we will reinvest more of our own dollars in our provinces for better health care, education, green technology, social supports and economic diversification.

2) An Alberta Pension Plan

Modelled after the Quebec Pension Plan, an Alberta plan to keep payroll taxes low, since our workers are younger than the rest of Canada. Lower payroll taxes will help us attract more businesses and jobs here as well. Saskatchewan should also consider joining to create a shared ‘Buffalo Pension Plan’.

3) Provincial Tax Collection Plans

Creating high-paying jobs that otherwise would be in Ottawa while starting to assert control over the distribution of taxes generated in our provinces.

4) Trade and Immigration Policies

To attract new people and investment to our borders, we need to determine how Alberta and Saskatchewan could unilaterally negotiate our own international trade deals and immigration policies apart from Ottawa’s control.

5) The Buffalo Corridor

Create unobstructed port access for landlocked Alberta and Saskatchewan with fiber optics, transmission lines, roads and pipelines. Hostile government policy has restricted our constitutional right to tidewater markets and threatened our way of life.

You can read the full letter, and see all the signatories here: