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A View from Western Canada

by David Kilgour

What exactly are 7.3 million Western Canadians all about?  Why are so many of us so determined to achieve reforms in many of our national institutions, public and private?  On the basis of having lived in three of the four western provinces, my answer would be as follows:

First, we are a region in which people of myriad origins rejoice in each other's differences and traditions.  This permissive differentiation means that most of us share a vision of Canada as a truly international nation.  The 1986 national census indicated that in all three Prairie provinces less than forty percent of the residents are of single British or single French origin.  Approximately forty percent in each of the three have neither English nor French Canadian background at all.  In most major western cities, there are people from literally Afghanistan to Zaire.  For Canada as a whole, only 25 percent of our residents reported part or sole origin other than British or French.  What happens anywhere in the world therefore is probably more quickly felt in the west than in any other region of Canada.

Second, the Canadian west has a highly-developed sense of both community and regional pride.  People still tend, for example, to say good morning to strangers even in major cities.  Possibly it's because many of us are less removed than people in older parts of Canada from a pioneer life in which a family's well-being often depended on a neighbour's generosity or assistance during a crisis.  This community cohesion and cooperation was well demonstrated in the Calgary Olympics and earlier at separate Commonwealth Games in Edmonton and Vancouver and during the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg.

Third, many westerners believe that we are still not equal partners in a number of national institutions.  The evidence in support of this view both historically and today is persuasive.  To take but two current examples, Telefilm Canada, Ottawa's film production agency, last year spent about 1.6 percent of its administrative budget in Western Canada and financed none of its 22 completed films in our region.  Canadian National Railway, which admits that fully two‑thirds of its freight business now either originates or ends or both in the West has only 37 percent of its active rail employees living in the west.  Westerners want to "nationalize" national government institutions and then to go after the delinquent private ones to be responsible nationally as well.  How well I recall two representatives of a large Canadian company, who came several months ago in effect to tell me how much they were doing in Western Canada, conceding that only about 600 of their 12,000 employees live in Western Canada.

Western Canadians believe that our region has something very important to offer our country, including better representative democracy, equality of status for all citizens, pride, cultural heterogenity, and optimism.  Canadians from Kenora to Nanaimo to Yellowknife are seeking only fair play for every citizen from our national government and all public and private institutions.  We need full recognition of our region's contribution and potential by decision makers in Ottawa.  We ask nothing for our region, our children or ourselves that we don't seek for Canadians in every corner of the land.  Essentially, we seek a New National Policy in which regional fairness is a key component.  The Old National Policy of prime ministers John A. Macdonald and Wilfrid Laurier created diversified, stable and strong communities in Central Canada; a New National Policy should now do the same thing for the rest of the country.  Western Canadians have achieved much for Canada and we can, if given a fair chance, help make it a place where every young person from sea to sea will believe that their opportunities in life are equal regardless of where they happen to be born.

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