Every few years, a sword over the baby

On Oct. 19, people in Alberta will answer 10 referendum questions. Nine are about things such as immigration, voter ID, judges and the Senate. The other asks if Alberta should remain in Canada or begin the legal steps toward a binding vote on leaving.

I want to share a perspective, as a patriotic Canadian, which I feel is lacking from the discourse.

Many of us who read those nine complaints can understand where Alberta is coming from. Ottawa kept control of the Prairies’ Crown lands and resources until 1930, allowing the East to grow at the West’s expense. The national energy program of the 1970s is still a sore spot west of Kenora, nearly 50 years later. Ontario and Quebec have almost 60 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons, so you can win everywhere from the Lakehead to the Pacific and still not change anything. Decisions are made about us, not with us. That frustration is real and being a Manitoban shouldn’t mean having to be Ottawa’s lawyer in this case. We are the original West, born in 1870 from Métis resistance to the same kind of treatment Alberta is protesting now.

So yes, we can understand how truly frustrated they are with the state of things in this country. But what bothers us even more is seeing someone threaten our children’s future every few years and call it leadership in their province.

We have seen this show before. In 1980. In 1995, when the country’s future was decided by a single percentage point, we watched it all unfold on TV, holding our loved ones. And again now, in 2026, with the threat coming from the West, talk of a referendum in Quebec, and American tariffs as an added bonus. For some reason, every generation, someone in this country or down south picks up a knife and calls it negotiating.

The Abrahamic holy books — the Torah, Bible, and Qur’an — describe this scene well. Two women stand before Solomon (Sulayman in Islam), both claiming the same child. He asks for a sword and suggests splitting the child. The false claimant agrees but the true mother begs to give the child away so he can live. That is the real test — the one who refuses to divide the child is the one who truly loves him. Solomon raised his sword only once and never used it again. After that, he spent his years building — the temple, the cities, and, with a neighbouring king as a treaty partner, a fleet on another sea that became a source of great riches.

The same books also tell of another strongman. Samson (Sham’un) was a man of unparalleled strength and was said to have torn a lion in half with his bare hands. He fought mightily against corrupt occupiers, but he could never master himself. Betrayed and blinded, his story ended between the pillars of his enemies’ hall, pushing, the roof coming down on everyone — his captors and himself alike. That is the honest end of the sword road. Not sovereignty. Rubble.

Eastern Canada has its own answers to the West’s complaints and they are partly true. Equalization is just a formula; Albertans pay more because they are wealthier, not because they are Albertans. Also, no separation can happen without considering First Nations, whose treaties came before the provinces.

But a country cannot stay together just by being technically correct and every dismissive eye-roll from the East only makes the West angrier.

Solomon’s way after he puts down the sword is less dramatic than a referendum, but it matters more. The Prairies have always turned their anger into building things; that is our learned wisdom. When Eastern banks and railways squeezed our grandparents, they did not leave. They built wheat pools, credit unions, and, from Saskatchewan, the health-care system the whole country copied.

Premier Wab Kinew has named Manitoba’s next big project: Churchill and the northern corridor could finally make this a “have province.” That is how the equalization fight really ends — not by changing the rules, but by every province moving forward into lasting prosperity.

Alberta will likely vote to remain. But the greater risk comes after the referendum, when leaders declare victory without enacting real change, only for the same threat to reappear a few years later.

The test Solomon gave is still the same after all these years. The true parent is not the loudest person in the room, but the one who says, let the child live, even if I lose. Manitobans have been saying this from the centre of the country since 1870. The choice now is between Samson’s ruin or Solomon’s house. Let’s all put down the sword, meet in the middle and build something truly great together.

Hersh Seth is a Winnipeg resident and community organizer.