RICK PETERSON: Maybe it will take a ‘new nation’ in the West to get things done. It works well for Quebec, doesn’t it?
Last week, when I sat in the Senate Committee meeting in Calgary with Brad Schell, I began thinking about prairie fires. As I listened, and as Brad and I spoke on Bill C-69 on behalf of Suits and Boots , I thought about the upcoming Alberta election being held tomorrow and how it just might prove to be the spark the sets off a prairie fire. I could imagine the fire – a smoking wall of western Canadian frustration. It would sweep from Manitoba through Saskatchewan and Alberta, across to British Columbia, sparing only the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island. Fantasy as it may be, that’s been the thought crossing my mind in the past few weeks as I’ve watched the Bill C-69 Committee hearings unfold. There is a clear, palpable and strong undercurrent of deep discontent across the resource-producing sector of Western Canada. You know it – everyone at Suits and Boots does. It’s one of frustration, and increasingly, lost hope that things will e...