I have heard this line several times before, but this time it came up in a conversation at a meeting with a disgruntled conservative. He was vocal about the large number of people jumping on the Pierre Poilievre band wagon and how they will be the same old Government of Canada run by Quebec and Ontario.
I had to agree with him, and his view of Canadian politics in general. The discussion turned to the Bloc Quebecois and his deep distrust of them and their counterpart, the Parti Quebecois. I had to ask him why he distrust them so much. There was the usual discussion on how they only lookout for Quebec and vote accordingly and they are always present in the House of Commons.
I asked him to take a step back in his thoughts, and posed a question to him. “Why can’t we do that in Western Canada?” He looked a bit puzzled and then he smiled. Now, making a connection with an individual is rare these days, with woke culture and all, but this was more than the light turning on like in the old Ford Motor company commercials,…. his was more like a nuclear power station coming on line. I said all the conservatives are just eager to jump on the Pierre Poilievre band wagon, to which he replied, ”Only a dead fish goes with the flow,” and we had a good laugh.
More to the point of our conversation, both the Parti Quebecois and the Bloc Quebecois work hand in hand at the federal and provincial levels of government to put the interests of Quebec first and foremost. We have made a start in Western Canada with Alberta and Saskatchewan taking small steps to assert their constitution rights and stop Federal Government over reach into provincial issues. The biggest thing lacking is a Federal counterpart that needs to be in place in Ottawa to bring more attention and focus to the areas of Western Canada. Even in a conservative majority government, the majority of the seats will come from East of the Manitoba border and at that point the West is like the dead fish, just going with the flow trying to keep the East happy.
If we as Western Canadians are going to start looking after ourselves, we have to take off the smile and start getting vocal. This is going to take peoples time and money, both of which are in short supply, to get the message out there and yell it loud from the roof tops that there is a better way of doing politics in Western Canada that will put the East on notice that we are not a dead fish going with the flow.
Bevan Kelbert
Bevan is Maverick’s Manitoba Director and runs the policy committee for Maverick. Interested in setting Maverick’s policy, head over to the volunteer page to let us know you want to help with policy. Feature images was generated using Bing Image Creator.