Braid: Yves-Francois Blanchet is the worst enemy of Alberta's economy. Now he wants to govern with Trudeau

Article content

No elected MP is more hostile to Alberta’s economy than Yves-Francois Blanchet, the separatist Bloc Quebecois leader.

This guy makes New Democrat Jagmeet Singh and the Green Party’s Elizabeth May look moderate. Compared to him, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is an environmental pussycat.

Blanchet demands an immediate shutdown of oil and gas, an end to any subsidies and deinvestment by Canadian banks. His party helped kill the Energy East pipeline and every other Western energy project that pops up.

Article content

A hypocrite of sublime arrogance, he would rather see Quebec fuelled by imported oil than energy from Canada. The tankers cruise regularly down the St. Lawrence from the U.S. and overseas.

Now it’s possible that Blanchet might replace NDP leader Singh as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s senior co-pilot in government.

A deal with the Bloc would shred any credibility that still lingers around Trudeau. After losing Singh’s support, he’d be kept in office by the most hard-line Quebec separatist ever to lead the Bloc.

But Blanchet has a precious weapon — 32 votes in Parliament. That gives him even more leverage over the Liberals than the NDP, with 24 seats. Blanchet can comfortably supply the votes to keep Trudeau in power.

The wet noodle called Justin Trudeau might just ooze in that direction.

Article content

Article content

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is furious.

She got some unintended laughs with a tweet saying “Feds Have No Mandate to Bargain with Separatists.”

It did sound like a clanger, but Smith insists that her sovereignty is not separatism.

“Here’s the difference — we want Ottawa to get out of sovereign provincial jurisdictions and treat provinces equally,” she said in a statement.

“The Bloc wants to break up the country and get hold of more Alberta tax dollars while trying to shut down the very industries that provide those dollars.

“The Federal Government must not permit the Bloc to hold the rest of the country hostage so that the Prime Minister can cling to power for a few more months before facing the judgment of Canadian voters.”

She says Bloc policy on limiting Quebec resource development actually hurts Quebeckers themselves.

Suppressing resource income makes Blanchet look like an environmental hero, but also guards Quebec’s position atop the equalization ladder. The province will reap $13.3 billion this fiscal year.

Alberta, Saskatchewan and B.C. get nothing.

Article content

Alberta and Quebec have long held shared grudges against the federal government. At times, this has made for casual alliances and considerable goodwill. When PQ premier Rene Levesque once came to Alberta, he got a hero’s welcome from premier Peter Lougheed.

Blanchet wants nothing to do with national friendship. He’s happy to foster discord with the rest of Canada whenever he can. He seems to calculate that fury is more effective than harmony as a spur to separation.

When Smith alleges Blanchet would use Bloc leverage to suck even more federal money into Quebec, she’s absolutely right. He actually claims Ottawa owes the province cash (never mind the equalization cheques). If this makes other Canadians angry, that works for him, too.

Blanchet bears a singular animosity to the oil and gas industry. He wants it killed, not transformed.

“Oil is dead,” he said in 2020. “The oilsands are condemned . . . oil is never coming back. Putting any more money in that business is a very bad idea.”

In a policy statement last November, the Bloc said: “The Canadian financial system must stop feeding the beast through support for the sectors at the origin of the crisis.”

In the 2019 leader’s French debate during the election campaign, Blanchet goaded Trudeau into saying he would continue to fight against conservative leaders and the oil interests that support them (“et les petroliers qui les appuient”).

The federal government had already bought the Trans Mountain pipeline, but forget about that. Trudeau will say whatever it takes to win Quebec support.

Now he might buy 32 separatist votes with our money. It should not be allowed.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

X: @DonBraid

Article content