Alberta farmers go to jail to fight the CWB over freedom, private property and justice

November 18, 2002 The Report Alberta farmers go to jail to fight the Canadian Wheat Board over freedom, private property and justice

IN the living room of his spacious farm home southwest of Red Deer, Alta., Jim Chatenay stands surveying the intricately carved ivory chess set given his great-grandfather, a president of Switzerland, by the king of Siam. It is a few days before Mr. Chatenay, 59, is due to turn himself in to security officers, one of 13 Alberta farmers who chose to go to jail to protest coercion by the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB). "It's like a huge chess game," says Mr. Chatenay, one of 10 farmer-elected Wheat Board directors, and the only one in favour of giving farmers the option of either using the board to market their wheat and barley, or marketing it for themselves. "The little pawns on the Wheat Board side are the 48% of farmers who support monopoly market, while on our side are 52% of farmers who support free enterprise and a voluntary board," he explains, adding with quiet confidence, "but in Alberta there is 70% support for a voluntary system, and the numbers are growing. There will probably be a lot more manoeuvring on both sides, but it will be our side that declares 'checkmate.'"

Mr. Chatenay is joined for coffee by Ron Duffy, 50, who farms 30 miles away, his unfinished harvest buried beneath several inches of snow, the climax to a year ushered in by a late spring followed by drought so devastating that some farmers simply turned their cattle loose in the seared and shrivelled crops. The two men joke about packing for jail. "There's not a lot you can take," Mr. Chatenay says. "They'll supply me with a brand new set of coveralls, and my wife is quite excited about that. She's been trying to get me to wear them for years." He faces 62 days in jail for removing his van after taking a bushel of wheat across the border to donate to a 4-H club in 1996, a symbolic step taken by about 40 "Farmers for Justice" across the West. That humble sack lugged across the line, they say, represents far more weighty issues: freedom, private property and justice. "Every Canadian should be concerned."

"Me, I'm just plain scared to death for him," admits Mr. Chatenay's wife, Olive. "The other inmates worry me; I don't want him hurt. I haven't slept for the last two months. But I could never stop him and wouldn't. When he believes in something, no one can sway him." She ponders the absurdity of her husband landing in jail for a peaceful demonstration: "Most of the farmers in Manitoba and Saskatchewan were acquitted; these are all good people--just farmers who want freedom."

One Manitoba Farmer for Justice who spent 155 days in jail (July-December 1996), Andy McMechan, says that initially some of the inmates thought he must be an undercover agent "because they could not believe the bulls--t story I was in there for selling wheat and barley." However, over the months as the media covered the incarceration, "they realized I was like a mouse and the system was an elephant; I couldn't do anything about it. The system had guns, and I had handcuffs and leg irons [and 58 strip searches]. The inmates realized I was a freedom fighter and became extremely supportive. They realized we're not murderers or rapists, just law-abiding people trying to feed the people of the world; as the RCMP officer said, 'We don't even have him for failure to stop at a stop sign.' They had to create an offence because a law doesn't exist" (see "Farmers were convicted on policy, not law" below).

Since his release, Mr. McMechan has spent months poring over 40,000 pages of information obtained through the Access to Information Act--10,000 of them blanked out. While the Wheat Board is exempt from the Access to Information law, other governmental documents are revealing. One Canada Customs memo, for example, details the $1.5 million spent between July 1994 and April 1996 on extra personnel "to deter offenders, mainly farmers associated under the name of Farmers for Justice." The memo "seeks financial assistance ($255.4K) for the acquisition of additional equipment such as: body armour ($15.6K), secure radios ($184K), 35MM cameras ($6K), surveillance video cameras ($17.5K), portable video cameras ($16K), and other miscellaneous equipment ($16.3K)."

Other papers document the farmers' refusal to voluntarily surrender their vehicles for seizure and "the reluctance of the RCMP to get involved in such civil actions," while still others, referencing the code name Operation Wheatbar, indicate that U.S. Customs was also distinctly uncomfortable with participation, extracting assurances from its Canadian counterpart that "we should not be using U.S. source documents in any of our civil proceedings."

Ironically, when the Canadian Wheat Board was created in 1935, it was a voluntary organization. Farmers had the option of delivering to the Wheat Board and pooling their return, or selling on the open market. It became a monopoly only in September 1943 as a War Measures Act policy to hold down prices. Just how temporary that monopoly was considered to be is illustrated by the fact that it came up for review in Parliament every five years until the late 1960s, when it was turned into a permanent policy. "The political left views the Wheat Board with great affection as an instrument of economic equality, but actually it's an impediment that operates in total secrecy," states Kevin Avram, founding president of the Prairie Centre Policy Institute. "The CWB has done more to discourage initiative than any other organization or policy in the West. It is a major factor of western alienation; you become a servant of whoever controls you." Members of the Prairie Institute have tried in vain for years, he says, to obtain basic information such as what amount of money farmers are compelled to spend on items including demurrage and staff. "Secrecy builds arrogance," states Mr. Avram; "you have no capacity to evaluate performance." Moreover, he says, "property is the basis of moral independence; societies that do not have property rights become the most immoral. Under the scenario that exists today, legislation implies the Canadian government owns the product. The only way farmers own it is if it's got bugs or disease."

Alliance Agriculture critic David Anderson is researching another intriguing secret. If Ontario and Quebec farmers apply for export licences, the legislation requires that the federal government pay for licensing costs. "Up until now, we believe that money has been taken out of western farmers' accounts," Mr. Anderson marvels. That would include salaries for the licensing staff. However, he cannot even determine how many licences are granted or how many staff are involved.

Farmer Ike Lanier, 72, of Lethbridge, now in jail, had an even more fundamental question for the CWB: "Please, Ottawa, tell us whose grain it is! And when does it become the property of someone else--when we seed it or when it sprouts or when we harvest it?" Mr. Lanier continued: "They think that in Ontario, the grain belongs to the people, but not when it's in Alberta. It's a fundamental issue of freedom and personal liberty. If a law is that repressive, why is it not the same in all areas?"

Some Wheat Board critics, on the other hand, have been won over. Two years ago, Regina-area farmer Rod Flaman tried to launch a statement of claim alleging financial damages. "The Wheat Board has misrepresented the Wheat Board Act and used it to arbitrarily deny western farmers the right to obtain export licences,'' stated Mr. Flaman, who to this day faces a $3,500 fine in Manitoba for trucking grain across the border as a member of Farmers for Justice.

In November 2000, he was elected a director of the Wheat Board, and today he is a staunch supporter of single-desk selling. "The Wheat Board was a bad thing until I started running it," he quips before explaining that he felt horrible during his first year in office as he came to see the benefits of single-desk selling. "My guts were turning inside out because I felt I was deserting my principles of freedom and private property, but I came to realize I could stand on principle and potentially wreck lives. Farmers are going broke; we have to look at this rationally. I've studied the pricing information; I believe the board gets the most money possible. The Wheat Board is a good marketer that commands premiums. I wish I could convince everyone of that."

Mr. Flaman feels the monopoly--and secrecy on pricing--are necessary to sustain a marketing advantage, "or we could let 85,000 producers sell for themselves and clobber themselves over the head until there are no premiums left for anyone." A dual marketing system such as Ontario's, he believes, would spell the end of the Wheat Board. "In Ontario the industry is in disarray, and they are now voting to get rid of the board entirely. In a year or two it will wind down completely, and they will have a wide-open market." The real problem for wheat growers, he believes, is the heavy subsidization in the U.S. and Europe, combined with oversupply. He would like to see price signals to producers reflective of variations in sales, indicating that "the more wheat they produce, the less they are going to get, and let them decide."

As for the price undercutting apparently discovered by farmers in southern Saskatchewan (see "Across-the-Board duplicity" below), he says, "Something like that might have happened. At that time, the board had three commissioners not accountable to producers; they have been replaced with 10 elected directors. I don't think it would be productive for me to dig into historical issues, but I'm open to suggestion."

Certainly the CWB's enforcement apparatus seems blatantly unjust and draconian. "Historically and in contemporary terms, the power base of control at the CWB has been the threat of punishment and consequence," Mr. Avram explains. "When you get a whole group of farmers who decide they are prepared to take the punishment, they have no sabre-rattling left. What happens to the CWB when they say, 'Okay, take your best shot. We value freedom more than submitting to threats of intimidation?'"

For the farmers, this is the time of testing: can lofty ideals stare down grim reality? Mr. Chatenay notes that whenever he gets depressed about being imprisoned, he thinks of his wife's uncle, Archie Anderson, who spent 21-2 years in a German prisoner-of-war camp. For his part, Mr. Anderson, 81, of Big Valley, believes the farmers are fighting for the same thing he did: freedom. "They should have the freedom to sell their own grain, and I think they're doing a real good job of standing up for what they believe to be true," he says. The veteran was 21 when his tank was struck by a shell while attempting to land at Dieppe. His troop officer was blinded by the blast, so Mr. Anderson took him by the shoulders and directed him toward the landing craft. "He stumbled, and as I said, 'Stop and get your balance,' I saw a stream of machine-gun fire with the little red sparks of tracer bullets going by in front of us. I could have put my hand out and the bullets would have gone through it. When I said, 'Go!' we moved forward, and bullets hit the spot where we had been just like a hailstorm. By being nice and casual about it, we just happened to walk through the bullets like walking through a gate."

The decorated war veteran calls the modern freedom fighters heroes: "In the early days, when farmers had difficulty getting a good price for their grain, they formed a co-operative, but it was voluntary. Today it is compulsory in the West, like conscription, which is a strange thing since Ontario has the Ontario Wheat Board and freedom to market their own grain. We're being held as a territory rather than equal to other parts of the country. These farmers are going to jail rather than capitulate to an autocratic system."

As for the effect on federal policy of the farmers' trip to jail, Mr. Avram, who organized the October 31 farmers' rally on behalf of The Report, says much depends on what happens after they are released. "It's my belief that after prison, the focus of the growers will shift to the Alberta government," he says. "The premier and cabinet have made it clear that they understand the role of trade and access to the market; look what they were prepared to do to protect the financial viability of the oil patch. Surely there is reason to expect they will do the same for the agricultural sector. The onus is on the premier and cabinet to do something."

HERE are the names of the 13 farmers jailed for defying the Canadian Wheat Board, and details of their offences (some sentences will be served concurrently, so will be shorter):

Gary Brandt, 33, who farms near Viking, faces 62 days in jail. He took a bag of wheat across the border, forgot about it and ended up carrying it back to Canada.

Jim Chatenay, 59, of Red Deer: 62 days. He took a bushel of wheat to the U.S. and donated it to a 4-H club.

Ron Duffy, 50, of Lacombe faced a $6,500 fine and as of October 30 had not been formally notified of the length of sentence in lieu of payment. He took one bag across the border, and after the law was changed, took a commercial quantity of wheat across the line to challenge it."

Martin Hall, 42, of Vulcan, 131 days. He took a semi-trailer full of wheat across the border and sold it.

Rod Hanger, 32, of Three Hills, 75 days. Took a commercial load of wheat across the border and sold it.

Noel Hyslip, 42, of Vulcan, 180 days. Carried a bag of wheat across the border and later sold a truckload.

Bill More, 63, Red Deer, 131 days. Donated a bag of wheat to a 4-H Club, then took a truck of wheat across the border.

Jim Ness, 58, New Brigden, 25 days. Drove 100 pounds of barley across the border.

Mark Peterson, 42, Cereal, 124 days. Hauled a truckload of wheat across the border.

Rick Strankman, 49, 180 days. Took 756 bushels of wheat across the line and sold them for $1.50 per bushel higher than the Canadian price.

John Turcato, 42, Taber, 131 days. Drove 900 bushels of barley across the border.

All the farmers had the opportunity to pay fines, but chose--on principle--not to.

THERE were few dry eyes in front of the Lethbridge courthouse Halloween afternoon as 13 upstanding citizens hugged their loved ones and marched resolutely off to prison. "I lived my childhood in the dirty thirties, but no one had to go to jail for trying to make a living," said Vivian Hapke, who noted through her tears that she did not even know any of the farmers. "It's a sad day, but good. We were brought up not to rock the boat, but the upcoming generation will not be so accommodating; there will be change." The wives and children were still composing themselves in the courthouse after the wrenching experience of watching their men disappear behind a huge, clanging metal door, when the first offer of financial support came in. An Ontario miller who had watched the rally on television phoned to say he had not realized what western farmers go through, and offered $5,000 toward the total of $66,000 fines the farmers face. "I don't even know if that's what the farmers want to do [pay the fines]," marvelled Farmers for Justice spokeswoman Colleen Bianchi. "They went in on principle." She planned to post their future decisions on the group's Web site, www.farmersforjustice.com.

Premier Ralph Klein told the crowd of 600 to give the farmers a cheering, clapping send-off. "When decent, hard-working Alberta farmers are willing to take the extreme measure of going to jail for the sake of fundamental freedoms, there's something wrong with the laws of the land," said Mr. Klein. "It's a system that has to be changed."

"FARMERS in western Canada who have been sent to jail for selling their own grain broke no law, and the transcripts of many trials confirm this. In fact one judge in Manitoba declared that nowhere is it explicitly written that a farmer must have an export licence to export grain. However, he went on to say that one must construe the intent of Parliament [policy] so as to create harmony between the two acts [the Canadian Wheat Board Act and the Customs Act]. In other words, the judge's view was that if there was no law, then one must rely on policy, and it was then that the policy resulted in the conviction. The often-repeated policy enunciated by the federal government was that 'the integrity of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly must be maintained' and 'the law must be upheld'--even though there was no law. This is what the convictions were based on and what the judges bought into.

"When judges extrapolated policy into law and convicted, it created a situation where the crown prosecutors were able to boastfully declare that they 'now have jurisprudence where it did not previously exist.' It is policy turned into jurisprudence that convicted the Alberta farmers.

"There needs to be a complete review...with the purpose of determining to what extent the Canadian Wheat Board and Revenue Canada manipulated the judicial system. Relying on policy to convict farmers when there was no law must have been approved at the highest level of this Liberal government and likely included people in the Privy Council."

Across-the-Board duplicity While farmers are imprisoned for cross-border trade, a federal agency is accused of dumping wheat

WHEN an early frost hit the southwest corner of Saskatchewan in August 1992, 75% of the wheat crop was downgraded to Canada Feed grade overnight. This would have netted farmers through the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) about $2.50 per bushel, although it cost $3 per bushel to grow. Determined to do better, a group of farmers took samples of their wheat to the Montana Grain Lab and were delighted to find that both the grading and pricing were dramatically higher than in Canada. "The elevator agent at Havre, Montana, said, 'As soon as I looked at your wheat, I knew I could make a lot of cookies,'" reports Arland Nelson, now of Medicine Hat, who was then farming near Frontier, Sask. "It wasn't just feed grade; the protein content was 14.8%." In January 1993, General Mills graded it at #3 Dark Northern Spring and gave Mr. Nelson a signed contract worth C$4.83 per bushel. "We were going to go through a buyback [the difference, which the Wheat Board requires farmers to pay, between the initial payment for board grain, and the price the board could obtain] on 100,000 bushels, so we notified the Wheat Board of our buyer," Mr. Nelson explains. "A few days later, I stopped at the elevator in Montana to make sure we could deliver it next week. The agent said, 'Hold on, you've got to phone head office right now!' When we called, they said, 'We can't buy your wheat; we can buy all we need for a lot less than through you.' For it to happen that quick, the CWB must have hung up from talking to us about export permits and immediately phoned and undercut us." (Other area farmers, such as Conrad Johnson, believe the CWB had made the huge undercutting sale previously, but that General Mills became aware of it only after signing with Mr. Nelson.)

In the following weeks, the farmers watched as semi-trailers rumbled into their region, lining up 15 to 20 deep at elevators, and trucking out millions of bushels of their wheat. Mr. Nelson and friends were suspicious that the Wheat Board might be fulfilling what should have been his sale. "We asked the elevator agents where the trucks were going, and were told they were going north," Mr. Nelson says. "But people followed those trucks, and saw them heading for the border." The farmers obtained samples from that wheat as it crossed the line and took it to the grain lab for analysis; they were identical to samples of their own wheat. "Finally, when the local elevator agents tried again to deny that the wheat was going to the States, Con got angry and said 'Don't bulls--t us!' and they admitted it. Why they had been lying is hard to figure out, but it indicates the mysterious secrecy of the whole organization."

Outraged, the farmers held countless meetings with various government and political officials, including one in Saskatoon at which, they say, then CWB chief commissioner Lorne Hehn admitted in effect: "You guys caught us this time. We left money on the table; I hope it won't happen again."

Neither the CWB nor the Sask Wheat Pool (SWP) would admit to making the initial sale to Columbia Grain in the U.S.; each of them said it was the other.

Both of them emphasized the importance of moving volume; price was not the first consideration.

Neither the CWB nor the SWP bothered to investigate the grading difference between Canada and the U.S.

The losers: farmers who could have accessed the U.S. market and received a premium price for their "feed wheat."

Nor was it only Canadian farmers who were fuming. Reports Mr. Johnson, "The CWB or its exporters flooded the market and drove the price down so badly, [American] elevator agents had to meet with us clandestinely because local farmers were so upset; they said, 'Get the hell out of here.'" Jake Hoeppner, then a Reform MP from Morden, Man., received a leaked, internal transcript of proceedings of the U.S. International Trade Commission dated April 8, 1994, at Shelby, Montana. It indicates that Montana farmers were upset that between 1992 and 1994 the CWB was dumping Canadian feed wheat into American milling markets at below-market value; U.S. Undersecretary for Agriculture Gene Moos testified as to the difficulty of obtaining pricing information before producing the only two elevator receipts he could obtain, explaining: "These photocopies of the actual warehouse receipts cost more than $1,200 and a promise. The promise is that I will not reveal the names of the local elevator companies who bought the grain." The receipts indicate that 86,000 bushels of Canadian spring wheat were delivered to a single Montana terminal during the five-week period from December 1993 to January 10, 1994, and that the [CWB's accredited exporter], Alberta Wheat Pool, was paid between US$.98 and US$2.18 per bushel for Canadian feed wheat, while Montana farmers were selling comparable wheat at $3.47 to $6.63.

He also explained that the elevator companies had graded the Canadian feed wheat, indicating that they were not going to resell it as animal feed. "By the United States system, over 8,000 bushels [10%] of this Canadian feed wheat actually graded number one. And nearly 42,000 bushels, almost half of the total amount delivered, graded U.S. number two spring wheat. Number two grade is what is purchased every week by Japan, Montana's number-one customer and high-quality buyer." Mr. Moos concluded that since Canada had sold the wheat at a maximum of $2.18 per bushel, and the price paid to American farmers was three times that amount--up to $6.63 for 15 protein--"someone made a pile of money on this deal."

Similarly, 53,645 bushels of feed barley were bought by a single terminal from Alberta Wheat Pool at an average price of $1.66 per bushel, while the local price for American barley was $2.01 per bushel--"but, once again, no one was buying locally, in the cash market. It is difficult to calculate local prices when the profits are so huge in buying Canadian wheat and barley," Mr. Moos testified. "The grain companies save all the space they can for the Canadians... I have been told that certain grain companies have bragged of profits being commonly made of $1 to $1.50 per bushel, on purchases of Canadian grain. It comes as no surprise that those grain companies would rather trade Canadian than make a few pennies on the American."

Mr. Hoeppner included this leaked document in a sworn affidavit he has presented to the last two solicitors general in an effort "to hold the Canadian Wheat Board accountable for losses sustained by grain producers as a result of CWB marketing practices." The only result, he says, was a few letters stating that the solicitor general could not comment on a matter before the courts. In 1996, however, Montana farmers asked Mr. Hoeppner to discuss his information with their congressman, Rick Hill, and senator, Conrad Burns. "Both farmers and politicians were furious when they heard it," Mr. Hoeppner reports. "They said that if the Republicans ever got in power, they would clean up the CWB so it wouldn't dump grain. I hope they shut the border down to the Wheat Board but not to the farmers. Canadian and American farmers are not afraid to compete with each other. They can trade freely with off-board crops like canola and beans; it's the Wheat Board that causes the problems."

In late 2001, the North Dakota Wheat Commission requested an investigation into Canadian wheat sales in the U.S. with the allegation that the wheat was being dumped within the meaning of trade law. In February 2002, the U.S. trade representative's office concluded that, although there was certainly the potential for trade-law abuse by the board, there was no evidence to prove it.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Commerce says it will investigate whether tariffs should be imposed, as early as next summer, on imports of Canadian wheat. CWB director Rod Flaman sounds a warning that while nine earlier challenges were unsuccessful, this one is in a different format. "I believe we could see 30% to 40% interim tariffs while they proceed with the investigation. Tariffs could come off in a year when the investigation finds they are wrong, and I think they will have to refund the money."

"If the [CWB] books were ever opened, we'd have one of biggest fraud cases ever seen," declares Mr. Hoeppner, who gave the export licences of 12 Manitoba farmers to the auditor general to investigate. They paid the Wheat Board $467,000 more for their 104 licences than the accredited exporters paid for the same grain. "It looks suspiciously like the board was charging farmers a different price than the accredited exporters." His answer to all these questions? "If the Wheat Board is innocent, then for gosh sakes open the books and prove it."

I don't understand the whole CWB issue enough to comment on it one way or another, but I should point out to my fellow U.S. Freepers that Alberta farmers are the type of people who make Jesse Helms seem like a gay communist.

I noticed that a couple of those guys are from the Viking area. The spirit of the Sutter brothers lives on!

Free Dominion is storming the Bastille in Ottawa on November 18th. If you live close to the border, why not come join Connie and Mark "on the Hill".

Calgary Herald Article
http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7693

The Storming the Bastille Thread
http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7597&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

For more information on the Canadian Wheat Board's imprisonment of Canadian farmers for selling wheat FD's exclusive coverage of Lethbridge rally
http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7552

Time for these western provinces to secede and apply for statehood to the U.S. We could use 10 more freedom-loving senators. :^)

Elected Senators, what a concept! Only something western Canada has wanted...forever!

Why don't the House of Commons representatives from your provinces don't have the power to control the abuses of the federal government?

Here is the FR thread on the new Calgary Herald article regarding Free Dominion storming the Ottawa Bastille, November 18th.

Glad to see you're getting support from the eastern farmers.

Our Parliamentary system is set up totally first past the post. Purely on population, we have no electoral college to protect less populated regions from over populated regions. Because it is a Parliamentary system there are almost NO FREE votes. No one in the Liberal party can vote against the Prime Minister. If the PM feels a vote of non-confidence coming (like one that happened last week) then he makes it a FREE vote (he couldn't get away with this on the budget though - at least we don't think so, of course that's been rescheduled for next year).

Our Senate is a lame duck issue. A lot of people want to end the Senate completely.

The western approach via the Reform and now Alliance party has been to advance the idea of an elected Senate similar to the States. Tripple E, equal, elected and effective. But thanks to our lame duck Parliamentary system, it is almost impossible to get anywhere with this most basic need, if Canada is to stay together as a country.

We elect Senators in Alberta, and wait and wait and wait for PM Chretien to appoint them. But of course he doesn't, not even when current Senator(s) die or retire. Of course, he appoints his friends.

We had one of our elected Albertan Senators appointed by the last conservative government, but that was a very, very long time ago.

Our only opposition to the Federal Government is our provincial governments. Alberta's Ralph Klein has been taking a strong stand on this issue as well as Kyoto. However, if it comes to a constitutional challenge, we already know it will be a 5-4 decision against anything Alberta would put forward.

Yes, Canada is a country in constitutional crisis. It is so long term, however, that the apathy is almost unapproachable.

Yet we fight on! Storm the Bastille!

But thanks to our lame duck Parliamentary system, it is almost impossible to get anywhere with this most basic need, if Canada is to stay together as a country.

What do the people of the western provinces want to do in the event that Canada splits into two countries as a result of your continuing constitutional crisis?

The CWB is very simple. The government 'lets' the farmers grow wheat, barley, and one other grain I forget right now. Then the government tells the farmer when, where, at what price, and under what conditions the farmer can sell, store, or give away his grain. This is oversimplified, to be sure, but it is the net-net of the old Wheat Act and its successor legislation. Administrative conviction for 'offenses' not specified in law.

Boiled down to its essense, the motto of CWB is:

All your wheat are now belong to us.

--signed--
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Wheat Trader

while i agree with your comment that Alberta should separate from the rest of Canada, i can't agree that we should apply for statehood, as much as i admire your country.

liberty should be earned, not 'granted' by achieving American statehood. until that day comes when my fellow Albertans are ready to earn their liberty, we deserve to be slaves to the political elitists in eastern Canuckistan and the soviet styled CWB.

should we secede, i would very much like to see an Albertan Constitution based upon the American Constitution, as it has always been a model for the world to emulate.

NO TO KYOTO AND NO TO THE CWB.

FREE ALBERTA !

while i agree with your comment that Alberta should separate from the rest of Canada, i can't agree that we should apply for statehood, as much as i admire your country.

Not knowing what the western Canadians are wanting to do in the case of a split, I was half-joking.

liberty should be earned, not 'granted' by achieving American statehood. until that day comes when my fellow Albertans are ready to earn their liberty, we deserve to be slaves to the political elitists in eastern Canuckistan and the soviet styled CWB. should we secede, i would very much like to see an Albertan Constitution based upon the American Constitution, as it has always been a model for the world to emulate. NO TO KYOTO AND NO TO THE CWB. FREE ALBERTA !

Sounds good!

You make an excellent point.

"What do the people of the western provinces want to do in the event that Canada splits into two countries as a result of your continuing constitutional crisis?"

Western Canadians are not natural seperatists. We still want into confederation rather then out, there is a sentimental attachment. I don't believe we've thought it through as to what we do after we seperate.

Seperation is going to be discussed as potential provincial PC policy next provincial Convention as per Premier Klein, your question needs to be examined by all who want seperation.

Seperation has gone from wacko right wing status to main stream Albertan conservatism. 1 in 4 Albertans wants to seperate. I beleive once Albertans start to focus on "What do the people of the western provinces want to do in the event that Canada splits" then seperation will be closer to reality then we realise. Quebec has had many referendums on teh issue, however, I believe before it comes to a vote Albertans will have all their ducks in a row as to the next stage - what do we want after we seperate - and then Albertans, unlike Quebecois, will likely seperate - rather then just threaten.

That is the nature of Alberta. We like strong leaders to protect us from Ottawa and when we say something, we do it. No messing around.

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