The Buffalo Declaration: Falsehoods and Nation-Building
The Wexit issue got new fuel added to it recently when a group of four Conservative MPs released The Buffalo Declaration. It is, to say the least, a bizarre document. This manifesto dives in to the supposed causes of Western Alienation as well as proposed solutions, all backed up by the threat that if things do not change then Alberta will have to secede from Canada. The whole document is fundamentally rooted in the Canadian Conservative Party as well, made clear by its praise for former PM Harper’s policies, support for Premier Kenney’s political initiatives, and heavy criticism of the Liberals in general and current PM Trudeau in particular. The result is an odd narrative that seeks to argue for a unique Albertan character rooted in conservatism while also demanding greater economic freedom for the province. As I said, it is a weird document.
Political and Historical Fictions
The document is full of what you would expect from a political manifesto drawn up by Conservative politicians: a good deal of back patting regarding the many positive traits supposedly intrinsic to Albertans, references to the vague and undefined Eastern Power elites/Laurentian Power class, criticism of the Equalization Payment system in Canada without fully explaining how it works or why, and railing against the fact that Canadian elections are largely decided by the voting preference of Ontario and Quebec (which, it should be noted, together represent around 60% of the Canadian population). All of this is expected, but what is jarring are the outright falsehoods that riddle the historical narrative presented by the document. Time and time again grand claims are made with no evidence to support them whatsoever, claims which a quick Google search can rather easily disprove. Many are small and not overly significant (such as the bizarre claim that “at a time when the East attracted bankers, lawyers and other capitalists into established industries, Alberta was drawing families who survived harsh climates and had an ability to live off the land”; the message here seems to be that Eastern Canada is full of fat cats looking to exploit the honest and hard working West), but there are some much larger fabrications which underpin the entire document. These sorts of fabrications and falsehoods, such as the lie that Haultain’s proposition for a province of Buffalo which would include the territory of modern Alberta and Saskatchewan was shot down by an Ottawa fearful has a powerful west (in truth it was vetoed in large part due to the political class of Edmonton and Calgary not wanting to fall under the control of Buffalo’s proposed capital of Regina), are both dangerous in their ability to build resentment while also being so fragile that they fall apart with only the slightest amount of scrutiny. To illustrate this, I want to briefly take a look at the claim related to political representation.
Probably the most egregious falsehood in the entire document is the claim that “on a per capita basis, Alberta is the most underrepresented province in both the Senate and House of Commons.” In regard to the House, this is objectively not true and perhaps that is why the author never clarifies or expands on this point. After all, the evidence easily disproves the authors point. Starting with Alberta, a look at the figures tells us that it receives 10% of the seats in the house and represents 11.6% of the population of Canada, meaning Alberta is underrepresented by a margin of 1.6%. This would actually make Alberta the second most underrepresented province in Canada. It is ahead of British Columbia, which is underrepresented by a margin of 1.1%, and behind Ontario, which is underrepresented by a of 3%. That is right, Ontario is actually the most underrepresented province in Canada and by a margin of around twice that of Alberta, as it has 38.8% of the population of Canada and receives 35.8% of the seats in the house. So who is benefiting from this disparity in seats if not Ontario? Well Quebec is overrepresented, but only by a margin of 0.6%, putting it right in between Manitoba, which is over represented by a margin of 0.5%, and Nova Scotia, which is overrepresented by a margin of 0.7%. Ahead of these three come New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and PEI, which all are overrepresented by a margin of 0.8%. The largest gainer from the distribution of seats is actually Saskatchewan, which is overrepresented by a margin of 1%. Therefore, with all this in mind, we can say with certainty that Alberta is not the most underrepresented province, moreover, that the largest benefactors from the current seat allotment are to be found within the Maritimes and the Prairies, and not amongst the provinces which house the demonized “Laurentian elite”.
That is just the house however, and The Buffalo Declaration spends far more time arguing for senate reform. After all, the author is correct when they say that Alberta receives only a mere 6 seats compared to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick’s 10 seats each, despite Alberta having far more than both of these provinces combined. What is telling, however, is what the author leaves out: that, much like the America senate, the Canadian senate is built to represent the regions of Canada equally and without regard to population. As such, the Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes, and the West all receive a total of 24 seats each, with Newfoundland receiving 6 and each territory receiving 1. This means that though Alberta only receives 6, the West, which we should remember is the political unit that was advocated for by Wexit, has equal representation to both Ontario and Quebec. Indeed, by far the biggest loser of this system is Ontario, as it receives a mere 22.8% of the seats in the senate despite representing 38.8 percent of the population of Canada, meaning it is underrepresented by a margin of 16%, far greater than Alberta which is underrepresented by a margin of 5.9%. This means, somewhat paradoxically, that the author’s proposal of making the senate more representative would actually strengthen Ontario’s position far more than any other province, arguably leaving Alberta in a much weaker position in the senate. So not only is this argument extremely misleading, it is also counter-productive to what The Buffalo Declaration seeks to achieve.
New Narratives
Perhaps, however, focusing on how truthful or false the historical narrative and the supposed problems presented in The Buffalo Declaration is to miss the point. A while back I wrote a piece on Wexit in which I asserted that Wexit was doomed to fail as long as it was a purely economic endeavour. To succeed, I argued, it would require the West to have a sense of national identity separate from that of Canada. I still believe today that this is not the case, that the provinces of the West have no strong collective identity between them, however this document represents a strong step in the direction of creating such an identity. Whether the information in it is false or not does not matter, what is important here is the construction of a national narrative and this is evident within the document., Though the author fails to be consistent in their construction of the nation (at times referring to only Alberta, at times referring to all of the West), the fact remains that time and time again the author focuses in on Alberta and the West’s cultural distinctiveness. This includes a fictionalized national history (most national histories are fabrications, filled with falsehoods, mischaracterizations, and selective omissions) and a mythologized past of unity as represented in the proposed province of Buffalo (a blue print for a future Western state?). Indeed, despite the fabrications, this narrative is strong and potent. Though it should be kept in mind that this is merely a single document and not the political voice of all Albertans or Western Canadians, it nonetheless illustrates that the threat of secession which the author alludes to may be more real than ever before.
The West may not be a nation yet, but the narrative contained within The Buffalo Declaration is one of the most complete attempts at a national narrative for Western Canada that I have come across. This attempt at nation-building may simply whither away with time, and this is indeed the most likely outcome, but there remains the chance that it comes to bear fruit and produces a Western national identity in time — and then secession would be a wholly probable reality. Those who champion Canada ought to take notice.
