What if the biggest danger to Canada isn’t a foreign enemy or even U.S. President Donald Trump? Rather, poor policy decisions and decades of deferred leadership that have created deep regional resentments – including here in Alberta – that threaten to tear the country apart. And what if the greatest threat to Canadian unity now comes from the west?

John Ibbitson, veteran political journalist, and Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Global Public Affairs, join West of Centre host Kathleen Petty to discuss their third book together, Breaking Point: The New Big Shifts Putting Canada at Risk.

The book is an urgent, necessary sequel to The Big Shift, where the political realignment the authors predicted – the movement of power away from the Laurentian Elite toward the West and suburban immigrant voters. Only now, the country is at a critical juncture where national stability is at stake – and Alberta is at the centre. 

They argue the horizontal threat is the refusal to face the fact that Canada is fundamentally a resource-based economy that has created deep regional resentments that threaten to pull the country apart. 

But, Ibbitson and Bricker say, the growing cracks in the country’s foundation can be fixed, in part by radical federal decentralization, forcing the federal government to finally govern the country it claims to represent. 

• Host: Kathleen Petty

• Guests: Darrell Bricker, John Ibbitson

• Producer and editor: Diane Yanko