Mr. Manning's Separatist Fearmongering Is Not New.

HeTalkedAboutUnbucklingThatOldBibleBelt
AndLightedOutForSomeDesertTownVille


By now you may have heard about, or perhaps even read, Preston Manning's screed that was published in the Globe (and no longer Empire) Mail earlier this month about how a vote for Mark Carney in the upcoming federal election will be a vote for separatism.

Here's just a wee bit:

...(L)arge numbers of Westerners simply will not stand for another four years of Liberal government, no matter who leads it. The support for Western secession is therefore growing, unabated and even fuelled by Liberal promises to reverse many of their previous positions. Such promises of expediency simply don’t ring true in the West. Who, except the most politically naive, would believe Mark Carney’s promises to reverse the Liberal positions on everything from east-west pipelines to identity politics and climate change, when standing behind him is a cabinet of 23 MPs who, just a month ago, were advocating for the very opposite and have done so for years?

The bottom-up support for Western secession – another one of those populist movements that central Canada has never anticipated or understood – is currently centred on Alberta and Saskatchewan. But it has the potential to spread to most of B.C., Manitoba and the adjacent territories depending on how it is organized and led...

The thing is, this is not the first time that the West's original 'Grievance Angel'* has used this tactic.

Case in point, here are the sage words of the good Mr. Manning in the run-up to the 2019 federal election:

The founder of what was the Reform Party of Canada is concerned that a pervasive level of alienation could leave the country more divided after next month's federal election.

Preston Manning, who channelled western alienation into the creation of the Reform party in 1987, told the Canadian Club of Calgary that there is a lot of anger across the country.

"Western alienation, fuelled by the downturn in the energy sector and political resistance to the free movement of petroleum across provincial boundaries to tidewater and world markets, is reviving western separatism, particularly in Saskatchewan and Alberta," Manning, 77, said Wednesday (September 25th, 2019).

"Separatist sentiment is also reviving in Quebec. The Bloc Quebecois is doing better this election than last time. And if the federal courts declare Bill 21 to be unconstitutional, then they're going to have another uprising in Quebec on that basis."...

Surprised?


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* With apologies to Emmylou Harris and the late Gram Parsons...
Speaking of Harris and Parsons, the cosmic ear worm in the subheader and the word play used to generate the mockumentous moniker for  malevolent Mr. Manning is...This!
As for the image at the top of the post.. The billboard  popped up at the side of Alberta's busiest North/South highway back in February...Here's an explainer that also contains info about the very fine group of separatist proponents that paid for it .

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