It is one thing for the Liberals to have won the election. It is another thing to confront the onslaught of misinformation that is being fed to Albertans regularly by their own government.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 14, 2025.

The French have it right: Les absents ont toujours tort. The absent are always wrong.

If Prime Minister Mark Carney needs proof, just review the recent messaging coming out of the Calgary Stampede.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was given a hero’s welcome, with massive coverage of his pro-Alberta Stampede event speech.

In contrast, the prime minister was filmed flubbing a pancake flip. And that flub circulated through social media in case anyone missed the missed pancake toss. Apparently being able to flip a flapjack is a sine qua non for being an Alberta member of Parliament.

Carney can expect more of that one-sided coverage whenever he visits Alberta.

So, if his government intends to legitimately tackle Alberta’s alienation, it needs to be present and active in the province on a daily basis.

That means a resourced federal cabinet communications committee focused on telling the Canadian story to Alberta.

After Canada almost lost the last Quebec referendum in 1995, much was invested in figuring out what went wrong.

Surveys showed that almost 70 per cent of francophone Quebecers who knew an anglophone voted to stay in Canada. The conclusion is that the most alienated are often also the most isolated.

In Alberta, support for separation is higher in rural than in urban areas. Obviously, many farmers and ranchers have little idea of the benefits of belonging to Canada.

Again, that disillusionment is definitely present in other rural areas across the country. But the national government, secure in its power structure and identity, has never spent political or financial capital in selling the benefits of Canada to anyone with the exception of doing so after the near-death Quebec experience.

That job is left to the politicians. They fly in, host a press conference, drop a cheque, and then move on. That strategy does not work when you have a whole provincial government devoted to proving the federation is broken.

The Alberta government’s public relations department, with 288 employees, was moved into the premier’s office earlier this year.

In an April 29 order-in-council, the responsibility for communications and public engagement (CPE) was moved from the treasury board and finance departments into the premier’s office.

With an annual budget of $38-million, the CPE is supposed to promote “non-partisan” government advertising. Some recent examples include a campaign to “Tell the Feds,” and another to promote an Alberta pension fund to replace the Canada Pension Plan.

Not political? Hardly.

The province is spending millions of dollars, and the feds expect ministers alone to manage the onslaught of negativity coming daily from Alberta.

It is not enough for the prime minister to fly in and flip a pancake. The federal government needs a massive communications and strategic presence in Alberta to treat the separation question as the existential threat that it is.

Forty years ago, the federal budget to fight disinformation by the Quebec separatists was $25-million annually.

With the modern fragmentation of media, that number should be quadrupled. It should also fight the general malaise in other rural and remote parts of Canada.

To be fair, the vast majority of Albertans are Conservative, so it is not surprising that the Tory leader gets the most applause at any public event.

But it is one thing to win an election. It is another thing to confront the onslaught of misinformation that is being fed to Albertans regularly by their own government.

If the Canadian government does not fight back, it will see further fragmentation of the country caused by disinformation and misinformation.

While Carney’s Alberta provenance—the prime minister grew up in Edmonton—certainly helped him in the election, he could soon be faced with an Alberta-based Opposition leader in Poilievre.

Poilievre is expected to be buoyed by a significant win in the most Conservative riding in the country.

Meanwhile, the country will be dealing with a wave of Alberta separatism fanned by the premier, whose own political future depends on her support from separatists.

Canada has experienced decades of complaints about Western alienation. In reality, it is not Western alienation: it is Alberta alienation with a dose of Saskatchewan disillusionment.

Two other Western provinces—Manitoba and British Columbia—have a completely different perspective.

But Canadian politicians have never pushed back against the notion of western alienation and, as a result, the country is now facing the possibility of Alberta playing the separatist card.

It is about time the national government got into the game.

Otherwise, Alberta’s one-sided vision of Canada will continue.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Fiscal conservatism may be a Tory badge of honour, but Erin O’Toole’s challenge is to reach Canadians in the moderate middle.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 7, 2020.

OTTAWA—You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Erin O’Toole should have remembered that last week.

O’Toole has won the Conservative leadership. It is now his job to win the country. The decision to attack the Canada Emergency Response Benefit was downright dumb. It cast O’Toole in the image of a born-again tight Tory.

“Tory times are tough times” is a refrain that has haunted the party since forever. Fiscal conservatism may be a Tory badge of honour, but the O’Toole challenge is to reach beyond those members.

Most Canadians find themselves in the moderate middle. The current government has seen its popularity grow because of a robust financial response to an unprecedented pandemic. But in his first post-convention interview, O’Toole attacked the CERB, saying it undermined the employer wage subsidy program set up at the same time.

The amount of money paid out to unemployed Canadians was only $500 a week, but O’Toole felt it undermined employers who might have otherwise wanted to keep their employees on.

That interview reinforced the impression that the Conservative leader will be there for the money guys but not for ordinary citizens. How could he possibly attack a $500 a week payment that literally kept food on the table in millions of Canadian households during an unprecedented world pandemic?

The program was not perfect. But it was delivered in a timely fashion to a desperate nation.

The government is now considering a Guaranteed Annual Income to replace the panoply of support programs that currently litter the national and provincial landscapes. The conversation on a guaranteed income has been circulating in social policy circles for decades, but it took a real-life crisis to thrust the government into a temporary guaranteed income.

And It worked. With millions of Canadians applying for the benefit, computers did not crash, and benefits were distributed broadly and quickly. Why O’Toole would choose to attack that program in his first media interview demonstrates a clear lack of political antennae.

Much was written about his surprising victory against veteran Peter MacKay and many ascribed his win to political acumen. He certainly had the acumen to attract social Conservatives in his party, but that does not necessarily translate into a capacity to resonate with the general public.

His second move last week was the appointment of social conservative Candice Bergen as deputy leader. The photogenic Manitoba member was specifically tasked with tackling the issue of western alienation.

Bergen also happens to hail from the part of the party that he has to distance himself from if he has any intention of becoming prime minister. According to Campaign Life Coalition “Candice has a perfect voting record in the House of Commons on life & family issues.” That is code for the fact that every time she has had a chance to vote on abortion and gay rights issues, she has turned them down.

Notwithstanding her voting record, Bergen has spoken positively about LGBTQ rights, suggesting that she celebrates homosexuality, pansexuality and transgenderism. So, her viewpoint has been muddied by realpolitik. But the next Tory convention will undoubtedly face a push to approve the re-criminalization of abortion. And where will Bergen be on that issue?

Bergen’s appointment was also introduced as a way to reach out on the issue of Western alienation. With a former Tory Member of Parliament now running the Wexit Canada party, the Conservatives must guard their right flank. But the only way they can become government is by broadening their reach across the country.

O’Toole may have won the majority of Quebec votes in the leadership but his main opponent, Peter MacKay, had the support of most of the Members of Parliament.

That was because the social conservatism wave that rode O’Toole to victory is a non-starter in la belle province. O’Toole was smart enough to downplay his right-wing roots during the French debate. That was obviously enough to assuage his Quebec supporters. But an opening week focused on Western alienation and opposition to emergency COVID assistance is hardly a compelling appeal to Quebecers.

O’Toole’s mistakes were hardly fatal, but they do impart a flavour of just what kind of advice he must be getting. A Conservative spokesperson said he had incorporated some players from the MacKay team amongst his senior advisors. But he may not have been open to their advice. The “stinking albatross” comment may have cost MacKay his party’s leadership.

But the albatross in the O’Toole room is not going away any time soon.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.