OKOTOKS - A message to Ottawa about equalization payments has to be given sooner rather than later according to many patrons who attended a Fair Deal Panel discussion near Okotoks on Feb. 4.
Don Larson, a Foothills County resident near High River, said a referendum among Albertans concerning equalization payments should be done pronto.
“Strategically, if Jason (Kenney) is going to have discussions with Trudeau over Alberta it always makes sense to me to go into a gunfight to have a loaded gun,”’ Don Larson said in an interview after the forum. “That I (Kenney) have clear proof from the people of Alberta that they want me to proceed in a certain fashion.
“It’s better to get on with the referendum than it is to put if off until 2021.”
Approximately 25 people attended the discussion at the Crescent Point Field House near Aldersyde. Drew Barnes, Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA and a panel member, told those in attendance Alberta pays $19 to $20-billion a year and has paid $650 billion since 1961.
Other Issues included the slumping oil industry in Alberta, the potential for a provincial police force and the rolling the dice with the threat of separation.
Nathan Coffey, who is in the oil and gas industry, said everyone knows of the large amount of equalization payments that has left Alberta to go east — much of those funds generated by the energy sector.
“Now that our well sites are coming down and we have hit this down-turn, we have 5,000 plus well sitting with the Orphan Wells Association,” Coffey said. “What I would like to see with the equalization payment is some kind of money or fund put aside for this.
“This money, that is given to other provinces, we are going to need some of that to reclaim these wells that they (provinces) have all taken money from.”
One spectator suggested Alberta should look at a United Nations 1982 convention that a landlocked state has the right to import and export its product including to ocean ports.
She said Alberta could follow the lead of Quebec which came out ahead through threats of separation.
“Not than I am a proponent of (Alberta) leaving Canada,” she said. “But I think we should follow the province of Quebec, and get back what they’re are getting.”
(While the 1982 UN convention does provide the right for transport for a land-locked state for transport it further states: The terms and modalities for exercising freedom of transit shall be agreed between the land-locked States and transit States concerned through bilateral, sub regional or regional agreements).
Phil Rowland, a rancher in the Foothills, said trade barriers need to be lifted between provincial borders.
“We need to come to a way to getting cattle transported back and forth without trade barriers,” Rowland said. “We need to address the transportation situation.
“If we are going to be Canada, make Canada one country… we can’t have what we have now.”
Barnes stated Albertans have been clear in that they want a fairer deal with Ottawa.
“Consistent messages are a lot fear and despair in Alberta but there is also a lot of determination,” Barnes said in an interview. “Albertans have a history of hard work, and we know we need to make Canada aware of the fact that we need access to our resources, we need a fair deal when it comes to equalization, we need to assert our autonomy and to show the rest of Canada we need to be treated more equitable.”
He said his understanding is Trudeau is extending the equalization formula into the future to Alberta’s disadvantage.
“Albertans want an equalization referendum very soon,” Barnes said.
He added several Albertans had spoken in favour of holding a separation referendum.
Those sitting at the panel table at the Crescent Point Field House were, Barnes, Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo MLA Tany Yao, Highwood MLA RJ Sigurdson, Fair Deal panel chair Oryssia Lennie, former PC MLA Donna Kennedy-Glans, Banff-Kananaskis MLA Miranda Rosin and the master of ceremonies was Livingstone-Macleod MLA Roger Reid.
Barnes, Yao, Lennie, Kennedy-Glans and Rosin sit on the panel.
Its recommendations are expected to be presented to the government by March 31.
Bruce Campbell, OkotoksToday.ca
