Trump’s ’51st state’ jab sparks memories of 1980s Sask. politician

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President-elect Donald Trump’s quip that Canada could avoid punitive trade tariffs by simply becoming the 51st American state has been largely dismissed as reckless bravado. It was a tasteless joke at the dinner table meant to put his Canadian guests off-balance.

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Yet, a similar course of action was proposed by a politician north of the border 44 years ago.

In March 1980, former provincial Progressive Conservative leader Dick Collver rose in the Saskatchewan legislature to announce he was leaving the party to launch a new movement to seek union with the United States.

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As members sat in stunned silence, Collver calmly explained that the return of Pierre Trudeau and the Liberals in the February 1980 general election sentenced Saskatchewan to a dead-end future. The federal government would only continue to interfere in the oil and potash industries to the detriment of the province, he said.

Saskatchewan had three choices: stand by Confederation, seek western independence, or join the United States. That last option, Collver maintained, was the best for the prairie province: hence the name of his new movement, Unionest, a contraction of ‘best union.’

Collver justified his cause by claiming that Saskatchewan people had more in common with the people of the western United States. Central Canada (Ontario and Quebec) might as well be a foreign country. Nor did Collver believe that he was an outlier. He claimed that people on both sides of the border shared his sentiment.

“I have decided,” he vowed in the Legislature, “to promote and speak out in favour of a union that works, rather than a union that does not.”

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Richard Lee Collver might have been tilting at windmills, but there was no denying his formidable political skills.

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In 1973, the 37-year-old, a Saskatoon accountant and investment adviser, became leader of the then-moribund Progressive Conservative party. Collver’s task was monumental.

The party had elected only one candidate for a single term since 1929 and had secured only two percent of the popular vote in the 1971 provincial election. Provincial PC leaders who had fallen by the wayside during that period included former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, who had served a brief, ignominious stint in the 1930s.

The plain-spoken, at times gruff, Collver worked tirelessly to rebuild the PC party, while fashioning himself as a populist leader intent on restoring power to the people. This simple message, however vague, resonated with voters who were seeking an alternative to the New Democrats and Liberals.

Collver transformed the Conservatives into the latest provincial protest party — and it paid immediate dividends.

Even though Allan Blakeney’s NDP was returned to office in the 1975 provincial election, the PCs were big winners, with a remarkable seven seats and 28 percent of the popular vote.

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Indeed, the NDP grew increasingly worried about Collver’s political momentum and appeal. After all, he convinced Colin Thatcher, the son of former Liberal premier Ross Thatcher, to cross the floor in 1977 to sit as a Conservative.

In 1978, with Collver mired in damaging lawsuits from his business days, the NDP called an early election and made trust in the PC leader a key campaign issue. Blakeney was returned to office, but the PCs now formed the official Opposition with 17 seats.

Questions about Collver’s integrity, though, had left him politically wounded, and he stepped down in late 1979. The night of his resignation, he fired a magnum handgun into the air from his Regina apartment balcony.

Many expected Collver to step away from politics. But he was coy about his future, hinting that he might not be ready to retreat to his prized ranch in Wickenburg, Arizona. He relished being a maverick.

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On Wednesday, March 12, 1980, the day after Collver called for Saskatchewan to join the United States, Eiling Kramer, the NDP minister of highways and transportation and one of the more affable but combative members of the legislature, marched into the chamber and draped a Canadian flag over his desk. He then engaged in a staring contest with Collver.

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The tension was ratcheted up the following Monday, when Dennis Ham, the Conservative member for Swift Current, left his party to sit with Collver.

The former car dealer said that the Unionest movement meant that “We in western Canada do not remain colonies of what we know as Canada.” (Ham was the brother of Lynda Haverstock, the future provincial Liberal party leader and lieutenant governor.)

Over the next few days, there was a chorus of calls for Collver and Ham — the so-called Yankee Doodle Dandies — to resign their seats. Kramer went one step further, reminding the legislature how traitors were treated in the past. As a backdrop to his remarks, he had placed little Canadian flags on the desks of his NDP caucus members.

Collver fought back. He hijacked the budget debate on March 19 to deliver a blistering indictment of Confederation. He railed against central Canada’s colonial treatment of the West, claiming that the country had been a failure.

To him, independence was not the answer. A separate West would never survive on its own. The best and only option for Saskatchewan, Collver insisted, was union with the United States. The existing cultural and economic ties would facilitate the transition.

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Premier Blakeney, a Nova Scotia-born Rhodes scholar, responded on behalf of Canada. He readily admitted that Saskatchewan had longstanding and legitimate grievances that remained unresolved, conceding, “I share that impatience.”

But Blakeney would never give up on Canada.

“To us the unity of Canada is non-negotiable,” he solemnly affirmed. “The history of Canada is a direct rebuttal to union with the United States.”

For the next few weeks, the legislature convulsed over whether the Unionest movement was truly a third party in the house, and more importantly, whether it qualified for public funding. Collver mounted an exhaustive filibuster, but a bill denying the Unionest Party legislative status was eventually passed and upheld on judicial appeal.

Collver decried the move and promised to challenge the decision on democratic grounds. But he was increasingly absent from the legislature and the province, prompting one journalist to dub him the “phantom leader of the fictitious Unionests.”

Collver was named Saskatchewan newsmaker of the year for 1980, probably because of the theatrical fodder he provided the press. It marked the high water mark for his Unionest Party. A full-page newspaper appeal for more members in December 1980 did not elicit much support. An attempt to extend the movement into Alberta also failed to gain any new disciples.

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Thereafter, Collver was like a rare migratory bird who created a buzz whenever he was spotted in Regina.

In September 1981, he was back in the Queen City, wearing a smart black suit. He said he was now a funeral director in Sun City, Arizona; the large senior population promised steady business.

It’s not known if he caught the irony. One of Collver’s first funerals should have been for his Unionest Party.

It wasn’t until December 1981, with a spring provincial election in the offing, that Collver publicly admitted the Unionest cause was dead and that he would probably not be contesting his Nipawin seat in the legislature. But in turning his back on Saskatchewan, he blamed the public for not having the good sense to follow his lead.

“People didn’t exercise their option,” Collver lamented.

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Even though Collver’s Unionest movement was almost half a century ago, it still has resonance. In fact, the commonalities are quite striking.

There’s another unpopular Trudeau in office. The utter dislike, bordering on hatred, for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals is visceral in Saskatchewan. Then, there’s the bitter dust-up over federal environmental policies, especially the proposed cap on oil and gas industry carbon emissions. Even western separatism is back in the discussion, but like then, it’s a non-starter … for now.

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In calling for union with the United States in 1980, Collver said Canada had become “unworkable.” Ham, the other member of the Unionest party, also used “unworkable” when he embraced Collver and his movement.

That word certainly applies to the relationship between Saskatchewan and Canada.

Premier Scott Moe’s Sask. Party government has been flexing its muscles to defend provincial interests, especially when it comes to resource wealth. What happens when Saskatchewan (or Alberta for that matter) decides that the situation is beyond unworkable?

In looking back on the Unionest idea, Collver mused, “I honestly believe 10 to 15 years from now people will look back and say ‘Collver was right.’ ” It’s an exaggerated claim — as far-fetched as the Unionest movement itself.

Still, these are anxious times for Confederation. There’s a growing questioning today of the idea of Canada. What are the options for a provincial populace that’s been fed a steady anti-Ottawa diet? Can the national fabric be repaired, even with a new prime minister?

Just be glad Dick Collver is not at the negotiating table with Donald Trump.

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(Bill Waiser has been writing about Saskatchewan history for over four decades. He is a member of the Order of Canada and the Saskatchewan Order of Merit.)

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