Not paying Fed tax and Equalization will provide boat loads of cash for the jurisdiction
Alberta, Saskatchewan the Territories and half of Manitoba may not even legally exist. It's still NWT.
How the West was Lost
However, by 1888 the Assembly was appropriating the entire budget.5
In
leading the Assembly, Haultain slowly became the de facto head of the government of
the North-West Territories.
Each lieutenant-governor came to depend on Haultain’s advice in selecting the
other committee members, and Haultain’s advice was given with an eye towards
building support for his administration. These committee members therefore owed
Haultain their loyalty. By 1897, Haultain had created and groomed a base of support for
his leadership within the Assembly. He was creating a political party in all but name. It
was a ‘court party’, an association of Members of the Legislative Assembly united
behind the lieutenant-governor and his Advisory Council.6
In leading the Assembly,
Haultain exercised real power—power Haultain used to lobby the federal government to
grant the North-West Territories true responsible government. When responsible
government was formally established in 1897, Haultain was the natural choice for the
premiership. He was the only person capable of commanding the support of a majority
in the Assembly. This was in large part due to the absence of political parties in the
Assembly.
By 1903, the Legislative Assembly of the North-West Territories had all the
important powers of a provincial legislature, save one. The Assembly did not control
Crown land; the Department of the Interior did, and the lucrative revenue that came from
its management was deposited in the federal treasury. Prior to the introduction of
provincial income tax in the twentieth century, income generated by Crown land formed
the bulk of provincial revenue. Parliament’s yearly grant-in-aid—designed to
compensate for this lack of revenue—was not growing as quickly as expenditures. A
growing number of homesteaders expected Haultain’s government to provide an array of
services such as roads and schools—services which the Assembly was finding it
increasingly difficult to fund. With Parliament's repeated failure to address the situation
directly, many assemblymen, including Haultain, slowly concluded that the only
solution was provincial autonomy.
The unity of Haultain’s supporters began to fray when he began seeking
provincial autonomy. Despite Haultain’s protestations to the contrary, there was little consensus as to what the autonomy settlement should contain. While westerners saw the
Territorial system of government as a transitional phase, many felt that the north-west
should be divided into multiple provinces. Many also were willing to accept a grant-in-
aid in lieu of control over Crown land. Many of his supporters abandoned Haultain
when it became clear that he was not willing to negotiate with Prime Minister Sir
Wilfrid Laurier. When he broke with his non-partisan stance by campaigning for Robert
Borden in the 1904 federal election, Haultain alienated most of his supporters. This
fractured the government, causing most Liberals to abandon him.
In forming the two original provincial administrations in 1905, Prime Minister
Laurier refused to consider Haultain for the premiership of either province. Laurier
privately admitted that had autonomy been granted in 1903, it would have been difficult
to deny Haultain a premiership because of the high esteem in which he was held. But by
1905, Laurier had found Haultain difficult to negotiate with because he was unwilling
compromise on his position. Haultain even declared that he would have the autonomy
acts tested before the courts if Laurier brought them into force. This infuriated the
Prime Minister. Haultain had already alienated the Territorial Liberals and their leader
George H.V. Bulyea by refusing a federal grant-in-aid and accepting the Honorary
Presidency of the Territorial Conservative Association. When Bulyea withdrew his
support, it became possible for Laurier to brush the Territorial Premier aside and call on
Walter Scott to form the first government of Saskatchewan. This was possible because
Haultain had alienated too many territorial Liberals without building a corresponding
Conservative base.
Haultain continued on after 1905 in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan,
forming the first protest party in Canadian history. The extent to which it was a true
protest party is debatable because it was closely aligned with and would ultimately be
absorbed into the Conservative Party. The Provincial Rights Party was nevertheless an
attempt to continue the “non-partisan” political tradition that Haultain had established
during the 1890s. It failed because Haultain was unable to take advantage of the Liberal
government’s weaknesses. Haultain retired from politics in 1912 and was appointed to
the bench, eventually becoming Chief Justice of Saskatchewan. It was after his
retirement and death in 1942 that Haultain gained a reputation as the elder statesman.