News

It's been one year since we launched Project Confederation and what a year it has been.

We launched our campaign prior to the 2019 federal election, where we predicted Western alienation would come to the fore, and I think it's fair to say we were clearly proven correct.

2020 kicked off to more headlines about the economic malaise that has dominated our mindsets for the past five years, and then we received even more bad news that the Teck Frontier Project had been shelved because the federal government kept moving the goalposts.

Next, not just Alberta, but the entire world was shut down by a pandemic.

Finally, as we entered into a period of already unprecedented uncertainty, oil prices collapsed again, devastating many of our already bleeding energy companies.

Through it all, Project Confederation has not wavered in our fight.

“The only time in the Speech from the Throne that Saskatchewan was essentially mentioned was in the phase out of our energy industry workers.”  

That was Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe’s response to the massive shift in direction signaled by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the Throne Speech on Wednesday. His words rang true across the West and the fight for the heart of the energy industry has ramped up yet again.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney described the Throne Speech as a “full-frontal attack” on the constitution.

When Western Canada’s economy weakens while the federal government turns a deaf ear, history books show Western Canada’s discontent will bubble and Westerners begin looking for a strong political voice that Ottawa can’t ignore.

The upcoming session will be a defining one for the Trudeau administration. His Liberal Party is still reeling from the fallout from the WE scandal and looks towards the upcoming fall session to make a dramatic shift in policy – one designed to win voter-heavy Ontario and Quebec while leaving the West gasping for air.

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

Yesterday, we received a response from Alberta Premier, Jason Kenney.

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:

Last month the Alberta Government released the eagerly-anticipated Fair Deal Panel report and the government's responses to the report's recommendations.

Here is our analysis of the Panel's recommendations and the government's responses.

The Alberta Government has just released the eagerly-anticipated Fair Deal Panel report.

During and since last year’s federal election, we have been among a large number of Albertans have been discussing the future of our province.

Alberta is in the middle of an economic crisis – the likes of which we have never seen before – caused by a perfect storm of bad public policy, an overbearing federal government, rail blockades, major project cancellations, low oil prices, and a pandemic.

Alberta’s economy has been struggling for years, hundreds of thousands of Albertans are out of work or underemployed, businesses are closing, and capital is fleeing at an astonishing pace.

Instead of helping Alberta address these challenges, Ottawa has taken the opportunity to aggravate the situation and only made things worse.

Barry Cooper is a Senior Fellow with Frontier Centre for Public Policy. In this report, which can be found on the Frontier Centre for Public Policy website, was developed from remarks delivered on November 15, 2019 in Red Deer, Alberta at the 7th Essentials of Freedom Conference hosted by the Economic Education Association.

We have included some excerpts below: