Historic economic tensions not unlike those that long separated the rural South from the urban North in the U.S. continue to trouble Canada, dividing its industrial East from the agricultural and mineral-rich West. The energy crisis has catalyzed these problems, threatening a constitutional conflict.
The British North America Act, Canada's constitution, allows provinces to retain control of their natural resources. People in Alberta and Saskatchewan commonly believe that they, not the federal government, should choose the markets and collect the taxes on oil pumped from the vast reserves within their borders. Easterners and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's government maintain that...
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