Elmer Stanley Knutson (October 30, 1914 – August 9, 2001) was a Canadian businessman, activist and fringe politician. Knutson was a strong supporter of creating an independent western Canada, in which the west would become sovereign from Canada's federal government. He has been credited with "whip[ping] Western alienation into a political movement."
Politics and activism
With the advent Canada's National Energy Program in 1980, which gave the federal government more control over oil and gas resources in western Canada, he founded the Western Canada Federation (West-Fed), a non-partisan organization to fight the federal Liberal Party. Knutson held the belief that the 1931 Statute of Westminster, which granted legislative equality with the United Kingdom to Canada, also granted sovereignty to the provinces, because the provinces had not individually signed on to confederation. This view was criticized by constitutional experts.
Many West-Fed members eventually left the organization to join the Victoria-based Western Canada Concept (WCC) party which, unlike West-Fed, fielded candidates in elections.