'Overheated rhetoric': Nenshi says Buffalo Declaration will scare off investors
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Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi made it clear Friday that he’s no fan of the Buffalo Declaration, a document signed by four Alberta Conservative MPs that stoked further discussion of a potential western separatist movement.
He invoked pop star Taylor Swift in his response to the Buffalo Declaration, telling its signatories, including Calgary Nose Hill MP Michelle Rempel Garner, “You need to calm down.”
“This sort of overheated rhetoric doesn’t create a single job. In fact, it does the opposite. It scares investors away because there’s political uncertainty going forward,” Nenshi said. “I am 100 per cent focused with every breath I’ve got on rebuilding the economy in Alberta and building up quality of life for Calgarians, and I wish that other politicians would focus on that.”
The mayor also insinuated that the declaration shows that Rempel Garner, who hasn’t yet ruled out a run for federal Conservative leader, isn’t serious about leadership.
The declaration was released Thursday and included the names of Rempel Garner, Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner MP Glen Motz, Banff-Airdrie MP Blake Richards and Peace River-Westlock MP Arnold Viersen.
Provincial affairs commentators say it throws gas on an already fiery political climate.
“The anger is real. The dangers are real. This is highly combustible for the country and for the West,” said Mount Royal University professor David Taras. “It’s a dangerous issue for governments … I think there’s a lot of live ammunition on the table, and when you’re dealing with live ammunition, you don’t know when it’s going to go off and in what direction.”
The lengthy document says that “immediate action” must be taken to correct inequities experienced by Alberta and Saskatchewan and that people in the provinces “will be equal or they will seek independence.”
The document makes a number of demands, including that changes are made to equalization, that Parliament is balanced to ensure Alberta’s interests are protected and that the “devastation” caused by former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s National Energy Program is acknowledged in the House of Commons.
Some of the demands, such as the one to recognize Alberta as a culturally distinct region, could undermine the declaration’s goals, says Lori Williams, a political scientist at MRU.
“I think they risk undercutting their core message, the central demands, by making sub demands that either don’t make sense or won’t be possible to fulfil,” Williams said.
Taras pointed out that Alberta had direct federal representation with Stephen Harper, the former Calgary MP who became Conservative prime minister, for more than a decade and that discontent on topics like pipelines and equalization also existed during his time in office. These anxieties aren’t new, he said, and approaching them now could cause significant political instability and hits to the province’s economy.
When asked for his take on the declaration Friday, Premier Jason Kenney pointed to his own government’s Fair Deal Panel as the approach to alleviating feelings of western alienation.
“I think what that letter underscores, because I have not read it in detail, is the depth of frustration,” Kenney said.
“We’ve made it as clear as day to the prime minister and his government that Albertans not only expect but demand respect and fairness in this federation and we are prepared to act if we end up with federal policies that further injure our economy, for example, if the Teck mine should not be approved.”
Kenney has previously dismissed the idea of Alberta separating.
Opposition Leader Rachel Notley also weighed in Friday, saying in a statement that the Buffalo Declaration is historically and factually inaccurate and calling it a “cynical, partisan appropriation of Alberta values to further a self-interested political agenda.”
Williams said she believes the declaration puts Kenney in a difficult spot, with competing factions of his party rooting for independence and others hoping to stay the course.
“My guess is that (Kenney) knows that Alberta would not reap net benefits from separation, so he wants to make use of the frustration and the sentiments to make advances, in terms of Alberta’s economic and other interests,” she said. “The problem is that if he doesn’t respond effectively, that anger could certainly turn against him for not going far enough.
“We’ve already got a splinter federal party on the federal side dealing with federation (Wexit Canada). It easily could happen within the province as well.”
— With files from Sammy Hudes and Madeline Smith
Twitter: @jasonfherring
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