The death of Centrism in Western Canada? Or merely a party's expression thereof?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/why-did-all-the-wests-big-centrist-parties-go-down-the-drain/article2030538/


I read this article with incredulity.  Then I took a step back and said to myself I suppose the question should be allowed to be asked.  After all, there are the very young who haven't lived for 40 or 50 years or more... and then there are those who's perception of Canada ends at some Eastern boundary.

In a nutshell, the major parties executed tyrannies against the west for generations epitomized in the Trudeau era, but reverberating there after.  We were tag-alongs to confederation, the Johny-come-latelies:  Too small and too far away to be much of a concern to the center of power in Ottawa.  A region that could be ignored with little ramification to any general election.

But if that wasn't bad enough, when the west, against all odds, was able to begin to discover wealth, it was immediately exploited by the feds for its lucrative contribution to equalization, taxation and royalties.  All this while receiving miserly recognition, seats, or infrastructure benefits.  It was as though to build the west was to go up hill.  An example of this was rail freight: always much more expensive moving west instead of east.  The west could hardly agree that Trudeau and the "natural governing party" was a benign dictatorship.  Instead we were the lackeys of the east, the "hewer of wood" and "drawer of water" for our eastern masters.  From the perspective of the victims, it was a sort of indentured servitude.  That was what a "Centrist" government gave us.

Revolutions in the history of man have employed the politics of both the left and right, but few have been as non-violent as the western revolution.  Sure it has been painted as being right wing.  But if it really is right wing, it is a compassionate right wing--one that is concerned enough to care for universal health, the plight of the poor, of victims, and a healthy society (inherently a socialist ideal).

To close, let me paint this picture:  Imagine a child's teeter-totter, (if they exist any more):  Two wings balanced by a fulcrum.  Some people think balance, is found by moving from the outer extremes to the center.  Others are centrist by embracing both "extremes" thereby discovering a center that is a far bigger place.