Fletcher Baragar, an economics professor at the University of Manitoba, says Canada should join forces with other nations facing Trump tariff threats — like Mexico, China and potentially the European Union — in order to strengthen economic ties over the next four years. (Karen Pauls/CBC)

The Free Press: Western alienation deeply rooted

July 4, 2025 —

“A lot of this probably extends back a long way, right to 1870, the Riel rebellion — how Manitoba was integrated into this new Dominion of Canada, without really much representation from the people living in Manitoba,” says Fletcher Baragar, an associate professor of economics at the University of Manitoba.

“And (then) you had this system designed to use the (West’s) resources to build up the wealth and continuity of the country as a whole — designed not by people in the West, but in the East.”

Baragar is referring to prime minister John A. Macdonald’s National Policy of 1879.

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department of economics, Faculty of Arts