How has Western Canada been alienated from Eastern Canada?

Answer 1

Good question. From an easterner's point of view;Canada;s power and population base leans toward the east.Notoriously more so towards Quebec ,it's federal power base and eastern Canad's give em everything they want attitude to pacify the separatist movement in that province.As long as Quebec remains in Canada the West is nothing more than money and resources destined to find it's way to the back pockets of butt kissing politicians and Quebecers hell bent on keeping Canada together,for all the wrong reasons,no matter how much is taken from the West or for that matter no matter how much is distributed among the elite in Quebec all in the name of national unity.Hence the justified feelings of alienation of Westerner Canadians. **** Here is another, historical, take on it. Going back to the earlier times at the turn of the 20th century when the prairies (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta) were young provinces, just growing, there was a federal government policy to support Canadian industry by substantial tariffs. These hurt the farmers who received world prices for their produce, but had to pay higher than world prices for what they bought to support the less efficient Canadian manufacturers. These were inefficient as it was not so possible to reap the benefits of mass production in Canada as our neighbour to the south. Likewise, the major "controlling" institutions of the era, federal government, banks, railways, insurance companies, mostly had their head offices in Montreal, Ottawa or Toronto. Thus, the westerners came to feel like they were a colony of Canada, not sharing in all aspects of the progress. They ended up with the "grunt" work, but most of the managerial work was done in the east, and that was where decisions were made too. The railways, both of them headquartered in Montreal, were especially detested. Over time, as resources came to be more important, the federal government came to see these as a total Candian inheritance, and began to use energy in particular as a part of their strategy to help Canadian industry (still centered in the east) by lowering Canadian prices in the infamous "National Energy Policy" in the early 1980's. Though since rescinded, the hard feelings carried on. The perception of the western provinces is that they have been called upon to share their largesse with the rest of the country, but its always a one way street. A nasty nickname for Toronto is "hogtown" as it seems for many years to have increased in wealth so much at the expense of the rest of the country. I don't see the mood as bad as it once was. I have seen many elements of good will across the country in the past ten years of sharing, In one direction, after the horrible floods in Manitoba's Red River district in 1977, the country rallied to help them, from east to west, and likewise when Quebec suffered the ice storm of 1978 there was a national volunteering of resources to replace so much of the electric grid there. The mood is also better as Alberta, and Saskatchewan of late, have enjoyed great prosperity. In Alberta's case it is doubtful they could even absorb much more in the way of money flow than they are experiencing today.