The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Before becoming Alberta's premier in 1935, William Aberhart had a radio program in which he asked listeners to think about how Alberta would seem to a man from Mars. This mental exercise is as interesting today as it was 70 years ago. What would an outsider's impressions be of western Canadians? More specifically, what would a man (or woman) from Mars think are the most important issues facing western Canada? From the outside, it certainly appears that western Canadians are obsessed with health care. If our Martian looked at media coverage, government spending, and political debate, he would naturally conclude that health care is the top policy issue Ñ if not the only policy issue Ñ facing western Canada. This conclusion, however, is incomplete. The truth is that western Canadians see a lot of issues as being important to the future of their provinces: while health care is certainly a high priority, it is not the only critical issue. The Canada West Foundation's Looking West 2004 survey, as well as the one we performed in 2003, bolsters this assertion. Both surveys asked respondents Ñ 3,200 total across western Canada Ñ to identify the importance of individual policy areas to their province's future prosperity and quality of life. The 2004 policy priorities data were released this week. It certainly is no surprise that health care emerges at the top of the pile, with almost three-quarters of western Canadians stating that improving the health care system is a high priority. However, it takes very little digging to get to the next highly-ranked priorities. Seventy-one percent of western Canadians rank ensuring that their provinces have sufficient skilled labour supply as a high priority. That's only three percentage points behind health care. The close ranking tells us that, while western Canadians want health care addressed, they want it addressed in conjunction with other issues, rather than addressed at the expense of other issues. See 'Health' P.# Con't from P.# So what besides health care and skilled labour do western Canadians want to see addressed? While skilled labour is a high priority, there is less support for some of the steps that might be taken to address labour supply. Western Canadians see retaining young people as a top strategy, but there is less support for improving the post-secondary education system, and very few western Canadians see attracting more immigrants as a high priority. Our man from Mars might be puzzled by the disconnection between the identification of a problem (skilled labour supply) and support for its potential solutions. Western Canadians also want to see poverty reduced; just under 70 percent of westerners rate it as a high priority. In fact, reducing poverty nudged out protecting the environment, at 66 percent, to fill out the top three. But because western Canadians express a concern about poverty does not mean they agree on the solution. The Looking West 2003 survey found that less than one-third of western Canadians felt that increasing funding for social services was a high priority. While it is difficult to draw a proper comparison across the two surveys, it does suggest that while western Canadians wish to see poverty reduced, they may not necessarily see increased social service funding as the primary solution. While Westerners are concerned about poverty, about which there have been only modest levels of public debate, only four in ten western Canadians rate lowering taxes as high priority for the future prosperity and quality of life of their provinces. Yet, if our man from Mars spent any time here, he would definitely have the impression that western Canadians feel strongly that taxes are too high. Clearly, our man from Mars would be well advised to dig a little deeper than media coverage and political rhetoric to understand the policy priorities of western Canadians. Although Westerners care deeply about health care, they also see skilled labour, poverty, the environment, education and other policy areas as critical priorities.
