Canadian government says it is committed to repairing relationship with prairies

Since last month’s federal election that saw a minority Liberal government elected, there has been a growing divide between Ottawa and the prairie provinces.

The federal government has heard the talk about separation and has made steps towards bridging that gap. One way they’ve done this is by hiring former Natural Resource Minister, Jim Carr, as a special representative for the prairies.

“I don’t have to be reminded how many seats we won in Saskatchewan and Alberta. This is report card time. We look at it and we see that we did not connect. So why didn’t we? How can we connect better? And that’s why there have been these changes made with increased focus on understanding much better than we have understood,” Carr said, in an interview with John Gormley on Monday.

“We are excelling [in Saskatchewan]. We don’t say so often enough, we don’t work as cooperatively as we should, so my job is to make sure that the people of prairie Canada feel that they are fully involved, included and leading as an important region of the country and I can not wait to get going.”

Carr acknowledged the prairie’s role in Canada’s economy and said more Canadians need to start realizing how important the west is for the country.

“I think you have to take at face value this political commitment to do better. We are going to be spending a lot of time in Saskatchewan. I am hoping to be out there very soon. I have been to Saskatoon many times and every single time I have come away thinking, ‘wow, why don’t more Canadians understand the contributions this economy is making to the national and international economies,'” he said.

“We are smart enough, we’ve got the resources that we can develop in sustainable ways and I think it is time to look for ways in which we can unite and align and get over hyper partisanship. I don’t think Canadians have an appetite for that anymore, I think they want to move forward together.”

Carr said the government’s “ears are wide open” to finding more ways they can be better partners to the prairie provinces moving forward.