A new national survey who asked people if they wanted their provinces to do more to develop an identity separate from Canada’s found that Saskatchewan’s most common preference was to keep things as they are.
The results of a Confederate poll for tomorrow, released Thursday, show that 40 percent of Saskatchewan residents agree, while 24 said the province needs to do more to stand out from Canada, and 20 percent say that he should do less. Another 15% said they could not say.
The survey surveyed a total of 5,461 adults in all 13 provinces and territories online and by phone, including 422 Saskatchewan residents, in January and February.
Nationally, about one in five Canadians agrees that their province needs to do more to develop a distinct identity from the rest of the country. But almost as many say their province should do the opposite.
Nearly a quarter of Saskatchewan residents want their province to do more to develop a separate identity from the rest of Canada, according to a new Confederate study for tomorrow. (Environics Institute for Survey Research)
Saskatchewan recorded the highest growth rate among provinces in the desire for more effort to have a separate identity, twice as high today as when residents last asked the same question in 1991, according to the Institute for Environmental Research.
Meanwhile, half as many Quebec respondents believe that more emphasis should be placed on developing a separate identity than about 30 years ago.
“nation within nation”
The report is based on Prime Minister Scott Mo’s comments “Nation to Nation” in the fall, said Environics Institute Executive Director Andrew Parkin.
In November, Moe said he wanted the province to be a “nation within a nation” by increasing autonomy.
Moe “means Saskatchewan, which is taking more control of its own economic sovereignty, especially when threatened by federal government actions and policies,” Moe’s spokesman wrote in an email to CBC News on Wednesday.
“Prime Minister Mo continues to hear strong support for this goal among the people of Saskatchewan.”
At the time, Moe also said he was “not talking about separation, but about ‘being Saskatchewan’s cultural identity within the nation of Canada.’
Saskatchewan’s Prime Minister Scott Moe said in the fall that he wanted the province to be a “nation within a nation” by increasing its autonomy in several areas, including police, taxation and immigration. (Matt Duguid / CBC News)
Two prairie-based political parties that advocated Western independence backed Moe’s message, including the Maverick Party, a former Wexit Canada.
“The idea that Saskatchewan’s identity should become clearer or more distinct or go in a different direction from the rest of the country was something that caught our attention,” Parkin told CBC News on Wednesday.
Lack of inertia
Few respondents in the Saskatchewan survey (17%) strongly agree that their province has a different culture, which is often misunderstood by people living in the rest of Canada.
Saskatchewan residents, along with residents of seven other provinces, are more likely to identify as only Canadians or first than only their province or first, the study said. According to the study, provincial identity prevails only in Quebec and in Newfoundland and Labrador.
“I don’t think the point here is really to get a result or to say whether the prime minister was right or not, but to see where the winds are blowing,” Parkin said.
“I do not think you can see much momentum around this. I don’t think you can see how the country is really falling apart more on this issue of identity. “
Ken Coates, a professor of public policy at the University of Saskatchewan, agreed.
“The reality is that the people of Saskatchewan are proud Canadians. “They may be frustrated Canadians, they may even be angry Canadians, but they are still Canadians,” Coates said.
University of Saskatchewan professor Ken Coates said Saskatchewan residents still identify as Canadians, despite complaints to the federal government. (Jason Warrick / CBC)
The Environics Institute for Survey Research collaborates with the Canadian Federation’s Center of Excellence, the Western Canada Foundation, the Constitution et Fédéralisme and the Brian Mulroney Government Institute for Research.
There is no margin of error for the results, as most of the survey was conducted with an online panel. Respondents were weighted by province and territory, age, gender, education, immigration background, language and indigenous identity.
High support for the transfer of federal powers to Sask. government
Many respondents in the Saskatchewan poll supported the transfer of federal powers to the provinces, with 39 percent saying they prefer their government to “take responsibility for many of the things the federal government is doing right now.”
Coates said this underlined that the federal government did not represent Saskatchewan’s interests, noting that there were no Saskatchewan MPs in the Liberal Party.
However, Coates questioned what specific federal responsibilities the provincial government would be able to assume.
Sixteen percent of Saskatchewan respondents said they supported a change in the other direction – the federal government to take responsibility for provincial portfolios – while 23 percent of respondents supported leaving things as they are, and 22 percent could not say.
There was also strong support for the transfer of federal powers to the provinces of Alberta (44 percent) and Quebec (37 percent).
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