Alberta separatism: Two men, two views but Canada is common ground

Two Peace Country men from different walks of life find themselves on the same side of separation, rage-baiting politics, and what they believe is the Alberta government’s culpability.

James Waikle, a former town councillor in High Prairie, became better known when an organized group – including two town councillors – worked to oust three other members of the local government adter two councillors were found in conflict of the town’s bylaws.

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Meanwhile, Elliot McDavid – an active part of a convoy group that organized a protest that drove to Ottawa – became highly visible after confronting then Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland as she walked through the foyer of Grande Prairie’s city hall and into an elevator, calling her a traitor, among other things. The tirade was live-streamed and went viral across the country.

McDavid says that Canada’s current challenges and past politics don’t mean Alberta should up and leave the Dominion behind.

“You don’t leave a man behind,” he told Postmedia in a recent telephone interview.

That said, the 58-year-old does believe that Alberta’s governing party is complicit with separating the country. He also thinks there are some who are extreme in their approach and pushing out an agenda.

A lot of them are angry, he added. But it’s only something that happens by listening and doing the work.

“And they know there’s no way to vote, vote our way out of this. It’s big changes that have got to happen,” he said.

Waikle is of the same mind. It’s going to take work. But that work shouldn’t be undermined by the provincial government, he added.

When Alberta electors’ information was released and ended up in the hands of the Centurion Project, he was equal parts dumbfounded and angry. “How does something like that happen?” he asked.

When a group, led by David Parker and dedicated to lobbying Albertans to separate from Canada, gets their hands on more personal information provided by electors, it compromises Albertans in numerous ways. It’s deeply wrong, said Waikle.

“For that, I want the perpetrators to be punished. And it’s it’s so obvious what they did,” he said.

Jason Kenny, former party leader and premier, said in a press conference that he now had to hire security. That’s a real-life consequence of what Parker and the Centurion Project have done.

Albertans could easily be compromised by the Centurion Project’s actions and. There’s a very good chance it already was, Waikle added.

“The fact that all of my information is there really for the highest bidder. So is all of my information on the dark web now, there needs to be consequences. For this, the people responsible need to be punished and for me, it’s pretty straightforward who did it.”

The idea that they’re working to separate Alberta from Canada has less to do with the discord between federal and provincial policies and agendas and more to do with a political alliance with the United States, he added.

Getting a consensus out of an entire population is likely impossible. If it were so cut and dried, governments and their parties wouldn’t exist. But there are still ways to negotiate and it has to be give and take.

“Alberta as a province, has a huge blind spot when it comes to anything oil and gas. We think that it’s all got to be good, that we have to do all of it or else. Um, You know, it’s. There’s. We’re short-sighted, I think, in that, in that regard.”

It seems there’s a hyper-partisanship that drops a curtain between groups and ultimately people. Creating better communities, provinces and countries starts with listening, he added.

tkennedy@postmedia.com