OTTAWA—Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberal government victory has watered the seeds of major unity troubles in Canada’s East and West.

And the looming challenges may prove difficult for Trudeau to contain.

Westerners may be willing to put their money where their heart is.

Multiple conservative sources in Alberta have told the Star that there are new efforts to organize the separatist sentiments taking root in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

“I don’t know how much money or how organized they are but we certainly hear from them a lot. It’s real,” said one source.

“We’ve heard from very wealthy people, billionaires or just shy of that, who are talking openly about that or at least (funding) conferences or meetings to set the conversation.”

Another Alberta source independently told the Star the same thing, that there are “people with money” who are openly discussing if it is time to start a real movement.

What that looks like — whether it’s just conferences and studies, or an actual Alberta First political vehicle — is far from clear.

Then there’s Quebec.

The Bloc Québécois, all but left for dead in the past two elections, roared back to life Monday under leader Yves-François Blanchet.

He says he wants Quebecers to have their own country, but the separatism project is on the back burner for now. His Quebec First rhetoric may well erode any goodwill in a new Parliament.

On Tuesday, Blanchet was caustic in his dismissal of a future for Canada’s oil and gas industry.

Blanchet said it is “the energy of the past” and it is “morally unacceptable” to continue to extract and burn those resources. “How can the West accept that, how can the NDP accept it? How can that work?”

On election night in Alberta, where voters were already seething about paying into a federal system that doesn’t help them out in one of the most serious economic declines the province has ever faced, the Liberals were entirely shut out.

Trudeau’s governing hand in a minority is tied to support from parties farther to the left — the NDP, Greens or Bloc — that are far more opposed to pipelines.

Trudeau attempted a conciliatory note to the West in his victory speech after Monday’s election, but it was perfunctory and largely tone-deaf.

He declared his re-election — which came with a drop of 21 seats and the loss of his majority — was proof that voters wanted a real plan to fight climate change.

Trudeau made only passing reference to his obvious failure to win support in the Prairies.

“To Canadians in Alberta and Saskatchewan, know that you are an essential part of our great country. I’ve heard your frustration and I want to be there to support you. Let us all work hard to bring our country together,” he said.

It fell flat in the West.

As the ballot counts were announced, frustrations had exploded on social media: #Wexit — a western twist on Brexit — trended on Twitter. A Facebook group called votewexit.com had grown to 158,613 members by Tuesday afternoon.

Trudeau also didn’t impress Alberta Premier Jason Kenney or Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe. Both went public on Tuesday to demand a “new deal” with Canada.

Kenney wants Trudeau to immediately launch the expansion of the stalled Trans Mountain pipeline project, to direct more federal dollars to aid Albertans suffering in the energy sector, and to give more powers to the province to manage its affairs — all in an attempt to deal with what he sees as grievances that can be addressed.

Kenney says national unity and economic prosperity “require a profound response” by Trudeau. He followed up with a news conference to press the message: “We must get pipelines built and get a fair deal in the federation.”

Saskatchewan’s premier echoed the same theme.

“The path our federal government has been on the last four years has divided our nation,” Moe said in a statement Tuesday. “Last night’s election results showed the sense of frustration and alienation in Saskatchewan is now greater than it has been at any point in my lifetime.”

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Trudeau won a grudging concession from a fellow Conservative premier, Blaine Higgs in New Brunswick, where the Green party scored its first eastern breakthrough.

Higgs said Tuesday he would look at creating a New Brunswick carbon price to replace the federally imposed one, in light of Trudeau’s mandate.

But Trudeau’s federal rival, Conservative Andrew Scheer, continued to suggest that Trudeau’s own actions are the cause of divisions.

He said Trudeau ran around the country for 40 days “demonizing premiers who disagree with him, pitting region against region, province against province, just to cling on to power.”

Asked if he was merely stoking separatist sentiment, Scheer said, “The results last night speak for themselves: a separatist movement in Quebec and two entire provinces rejecting the problems of this Liberal government.”

“Justin Trudeau now has to make a decision if he’s going to change course, have a more co-operative approach with all provinces, or if he’s going to continue down on this path,” Scheer said in Regina.

“We’re going to do everything we can to fight for a united Canada.”

Peter Donolo, a former senior communications adviser to Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien, said he fears several unity fault lines are developing in Canada: a western alienation that is stronger than it was in the 1970s during the oil price crises or the 1990s when the Reform party took hold; strong sentiment in Quebec against English Canada, the West and oil pipelines; and generational divides on energy and the environment, with millennial voters rigidly opposed to even talk of a “transition” away from fossil fuels.

“I do think we’re in a kind of slow-burn unity crisis now,” said Donolo.

He said while the Bloc of today may be more transactional and less purely ideological on separatism, its approach is “totally, unambiguously anti-Western Canada. They’re anti-Alberta, anti-oilsands.”

For Donolo, any talk of appointing a new senator from the West to bring into Trudeau’s cabinet is just that, talk.

“At the end of the day on these things there’s no substitute for leadership, and for straight-talk leadership.”

Donolo said Trudeau needs to persuasively make the case for the value of developing the oilsands for the benefit of all of Canada while “we and everybody else make the transition” to cleaner sources of energy.

New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh pushed back on the idea that Monday’s result shows a fractured country.

“The result shows not a broken Canada, (but) that people … in a lot of ways share so many values, share far more values than they have separate. But the results show a broken electoral system, and it’s certainly clear that we need to fix it.”

Speaking Sunday in Vancouver, Singh said he believes divisions seen throughout the campaign come down to feelings of economic insecurity.

“I think divisions are inflamed when people are insecure or afraid. Economic insecurity breeds division.”

With files from Bruce Campion-Smith and Alex Ballingall

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