A Left Wing Perspective on Western Alientation
The origins of Western Alienation, embraced today by the Conservative Right in Alberta, was in the Northwest Rebellion.

And it was the Conservative government of MacDonald that imposed its colonial--read Ontario--domination over Western Canada to avoid the creation of an autonomous government: in short, to stop the creation of a Quebec in the prairies.

Ironic isn't it. The loudest voices crying out that West Wants In are the heirs of the Ontario Imperialists of the Conservative party of MacDonald.

Those who supported an autonomous West were the Quebecois. Not out of spite over the loss of independence after the battle of the plains of Abraham, but out of a belief that Canada was a federation of peoples.

The Quebecois viewed Quebec as one region, Ontario as another, and that the West was itself an autonomous region that should determine for itself its role in Confederation. That was not to be as the Ontario mercantilists, with their support from the British Crown and its monopoly corporations like the Hudson's Bay Company declared the West theirs, and used the North West Mounted Police and colonialist property owner militas to exert its rule.

The result was the Riel Rebellion, the great North West Rebellion where the West declared itself an autonmous region with its own government of the peoples by the peoples, including Metis and Natives, as well as settlers.

READ the whole article here