Much of the West's sense of isolation from the East was self-imposed, because so many settlers and migrants sought refuge from the ravages of industry: overcrowding in cities; unhealthy work conditions in factories; and dissolution of traditional religious and family values. Moving West was for many a way to reconnect with land, people, and God and thus the Western migration was from the very start a reform movement.

             Geographical distance prevented the maintenance of social ties between regions even if goods and services could be readily transported and traded on the rail network. Citizens in Western provinces felt cut off continually from Ottawa; their concerns did not reflect those of urban industrialists back East nor those of the already established mining and agricultural communities in central and eastern Canada. The bread basket invited exploitation by big business, as did the fruitful mines of Western Canada.

             Thus, an existential angst about Western identity and the place of the West within the general framework of federal politics brewed during the middle and later decades of the nineteenth century and came to a boil around the First World War. The reform movement was based on the characteristic features of Western ways of life and worldviews.

             By the end of the war, the reform movement assumed political legitimacy, even in Ottawa. A relatively successful Progressive Party managed to create a meaningful alternative to the Liberals and Conservatives by appealing to the specific needs of Western farmers and laborers. Existential alienation was therefore somewhat relieved by the creation of a new regional identity structured mainly around regional economic needs and left-of-center political ideals. In some cases, religious idealism and ethnic cohesion also came into play in alleviating the existential angst that promoted the Reform movement in Western Canada.

             For example, a series of communal utopias sprouted up in the West, communities that were as much characterized by their religious ideology as by their ethnic flavor.