Western Canada Independence Party
The Western Canada Party (WCP) is a Canadian political party that advocates the separation from Canada of the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba as well as the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut to form a new country.
The party was founded at a meeting in Strathmore, AB, in May, 2005, electing Party Leader Tyron Blakney, and President Glen Dundas. At the founding, Mr. Blakney said "Western alienation and the desire for fundamental political change are long-simmering grievances and now that most people see that the system is completely corrupt, we hope the movement will quickly grow and that candidates will come forward to run in every western constituency."
The Western Canada Party hopes to give western voters an alternative to the "status-quo" parties. The Party hopes to achieve separation by democratic means but will work within the Canadian system initially to defend western values and interests.
The party ties to the "Western Independence Party", originally founded by a group of 150 people from across the western provinces in 1987. It was formed because the group had grown dissatisfied with the direction of another western separatist party, the federal Western Block Party (WBP), led by Lawyer Douglas Christie of Victoria, B.C.
At the WIP founding convention in October 1987 in Edmonton, Dr, Fred Marshall was elected interim leader. Marshall had previously run unsuccessfully for the leadership of the provincial WCC in 1984, losing to future Reform Party M.P. Jack Ramsay of Camrose, Alberta. Also at the founding convention, the party adopted "The West Canada Flag" which was designed by Mr. Dexter Dombro and was chosen from a field of eight other entries. See: http://www.albertarepublicans.org/flag.htm
The WIP ran 14 candidates across western Canada in the federal election of 1988. All the candidates were soundly defeated with none garnering even 1% of the popular vote in any riding.
The party also has or had provincial branches in each of the four provinces. The federal wing of the Western Independence Party has been dormant since 1988. The party was resurrected shortly after the founding of the Western Canada Block Party.
Read more about Western Canada Independence Party: WIP of British Columbia, WIP of Alberta, WIP of Saskatchewan, Party Program, WIP of Saskatchewan's Vision of An Independent Western Canada, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words western, canada, independence and/or party:
“It’s a queer sensation, this secret belief that one stands on the brink of the world’s greatest catastrophe. For it means the fall of Western Europe, as it fell in the fourth century. It recurs to me every November, and culminates every December. I have to get over it as I can, and hide, for fear of being sent to an asylum.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Traditionally in American society, men have been trained for both competition and teamwork through sports, while women have been reared to merge their welfare with that of the family, with fewer opportunities for either independence or other team identifications, and fewer challenges to direct competition. In effect, women have been circumscribed within that unit where the benefit of one is most easily believed to be the benefit of all.”
—Mary Catherine Bateson (b. 1939)
“There was an old party of Lyme
Who married three wives at one time.”
—Edward Lear (1812–1888)