Alberta and Saskatchewan joined Confederation in 1905 but not as equal partners. The maritime provinces, Ontario, and Quebec were given control over their natural resources upon joining. Not Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba or British Columbia. The western provinces had to lobby, complain and cajole for decades before they received the same control over their natural resources via the Natural Resources Transfer Acts of 1930, later to be enshrined in the Canadian Constitution. It’s not surprising then, that Albertans looked skeptically when the federal government recently proposed a nature strategy that would apply to Alberta and our lands, but that didn’t have the consent and co-operation of the Alberta government.
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