Wildrose Independence Party holds meeting in county

By Sean Feagan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Members of a newly formed political party met in Wheatland County to discuss plans for the province to gain more independence from the federal government.

Paul Hinman, the interim leader of the new Wildrose Independence Party (WIP) spoke at a town hall event at the Cairnhill Community Hall on the evening of July 28. The event, hosted by Danny Hozack, former Wildrose candidate and talk show host, was attended by just under 30 people, including local residents.

Hinman’s political career includes being the former leader of the Wildrose Alliance Party and serving two stints in the provincial legislature (elected MLA Cardston-Taber-Warner, from 2004 to 2008; elected MLA Calgary-Glenmore in a byelection, from 2009 to 2012). The WIP was formed on June 29 from the merger of the Freedom Conservative Party and Wexit Alberta.

At the event, Hinman described a plan of Albertans “putting its house in order” by mobilizing politically to pressure Premier Jason Kenney to adopt changes to gain more political independence from Ottawa. These moves are necessary because “we signed onto a faulty Constitution,” he said.

The province should establish its own police force, he said. “We can’t have Ottawa telling our police what to do – and in rural Alberta, it’s a bigger problem. We need a provincial police force with civilian oversight.”

Hinman also proposed the abandonment of the Canada Pension Plan. 

“We need to have our own pension plan that’s not going to just collapse when the economy collapses because all the money can be there,” he said.

The plan also targets immigration reform. “We need our own immigration policy, southern Alberta especially, (with) all the vegetable growers and things down there – they need foreign labourers to come in (because) Canadians won’t do that,” he said. “So we need our own immigration policy that Ottawa fails to meet year after year, and they struggle down there.”

Unemployment insurance also needs an overhaul, he said. 

“We’re hard working people here, and why do we work long hours and hard hours only to subsidize other areas in the country that have to work a third of what we do to qualify,” said Hinman. “It’s just wrong.

“All of those areas are constitutionally available for us to run those programs,” he added. “We need to do (them) in house.”

Also proposed is tax reform, by establishing an Alberta revenue agency to collect taxes within the province. “By doing that, we (would) actually have leverage to bargain with Ottawa,” said Hinman.

The province of Alberta should also stop signing equalization agreements with the federal government, said Hinman. 

“I’ve asked every finance minister since Pat Black in 2000 not to sign the agreement,” he said. “It’s a political slush fund to buy votes in the east.”

Some of these proposals were found in the so-called “firewall letter” which refers to a letter composed in 2001 by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, then president of the National Citizens Coalition, that was signed by six others and sent to Premier Ralph Klein to urge the province to take steps to insulate itself from Ottawa.

Hinman’s plan is “straight up,” said resident Ernie Rawlyck. Alberta “has the money in the bank, so everybody’s going to pay attention. You can talk all you want, but if you don’t have the money in the bank, nothing is going to happen.”

The showing at the event was a positive sign for the future of the province, said Roger Walker, who was a candidate for the Alberta Independence Party in the riding of Chestermere-Strathmore. “There was a multitude of people asserting that there is a need for us to move quickly to save what’s left of Alberta and our natural resources,” he said.

But Walker wasn’t surprised with the turnout and the matters discussed. “This is exactly what I expect to see from rural Albertans who will take that message to the major cities,” he said.

Resident Donna Scott said she was in favour of Hinman’s proposals. “I think we’re finally on the right track and I think we’re going to succeed,” she said.

But Scott voiced concern, both during the question and answer period and during a subsequent interview, that if the province were to adopt the changes, Premier Kenney would gain more support. “He wouldn’t be doing it from his heart, he would be doing it because we backed him into a corner,” she said.

Scott does not support the current provincial government because “all they care is about how much money they can get from you, and what they can do to get your vote,” she said.

According to Ken Finlayson, the plan does not go far enough and a more hardline approach should be taken. “I like everything he (Hinman) said, but I think his strategy is flawed,” said Finlayson. “We’ve had a bad deal since day one. We’ve been kittenish to the firewall letter for around 20 years. How much good did that do?

“Since this place was Rupert’s Land we’ve had zero input,” added Finlayson. “It’s all a charade, and it’s been a charade since day one.”