EDITORIAL & OPINION — BC, Alberta should form economic union — Go west!

The streets of downtown Vancouver are sporting billboards contrasting Premier Glen Clark’s economic and tax policies with those of Alberta Premier Ralph Klein. The message is clear. Alberta is enjoying a mini-boom even though oil prices are low, while British Columbia is in the throes of a near-recession. Alberta has favorable tax policies and a pro-business environment whereas B.C. has one of the highest tax rates in Canada and a government dominated by anti-business trade unionists. Alberta has a budget surplus while B.C. has a rapidly mounting deficit. Alberta has the popular promoter Klein while B.C. is straddled with the hapless bumbler Clark.

The solution, some say, will come in the next election when Clark is sent packing. But B.C.’s problems will require more than a quick political fix. The province is blessed with abundant natural resources, potential for cheap power, and a well-educated population; it’s a great place to live and enjoys proximity to Asian markets. But B.C. is suffering from an identity crisis: it has become ambivalent about its economic cornerstone, resource development, yet remains timid about making changes to attract non-traditional businesses. B.C. is plagued with unresolved native land claims and is being held hostage by a few eco-militants who hope to see the entire province become wilderness space for grizzly bears and spotted owls, people be dammed.

Business leaders recognize these problems and have put forward an agenda for change. In all fairness, Clark has tried to accommodate his party’s labor union constituency to the realities of the marketplace. But this balancing act has made many of his policies seem half-hearted at best, disastrous at worst.

B.C. would be better served by government policies aimed at creating wealth and prosperity in the long term. And what could be a more bold step than joining forces with Alberta to become a powerful economic force within Canada?

The negative Nellies of the world may scoff at the notion that the two westernmost provinces could form an economic union, on the grounds that they are too different and too competitive to ever work together to build an economic union. But if Europe can do it, why can’t the Canadian west? Indeed, why not extend this western economic zone all the way to the Manitoba border? That would force the politicians in Ottawa take notice of a part of the nation they’ve made a career of ignoring.

Western alienation would be a thing of the past if the provinces teamed to pursue common goals. An economic union could be the engine for job creation, not just in resource development but in the high-tech and environmental sectors that support it. A favorable tax environment would spur research and development into value-added industries, so that forestry products, rather than raw logs, are exported. Such an initiative would result in new technologies that could be exported around the world.

Critics may say it would be foolish, in the wake of calls for alternative energy, to develop economic policies around forestry and mineral products and fossil fuels. But there is no reason why western energy corporations cannot be world leaders in both conventional and alternative energy sources; nor is there any reason why they should not pursue technologies that will ensure greater efficiencies and environmental protection. And there is no reason why the west could not use its abundance of energy to better advantage by manufacturing and developing new products and technologies for export to the rest of the world. Environmental groups would agree if they compared the efficient and environmentally friendly coal-powered plants in Alberta with the horrific polluters operating in Kazakstan or parts of Southeast Asia.

The energy business is understood in western Canada better than in most other parts of the world because it is both a producer and end-user. An economic union accompanied by tax incentives might lead to important breakthroughs and new energy sources for the next century. All that’s required is the leadership and political will.