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Alberta's growth subverts 'Canadian Way'

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    Alberta's growth subverts 'Canadian Way'

    Sun, September 4, 2005
    Alberta's growth subverts 'Canadian Way'

    By Ted Byfield

    Alberta must relinquish some of its current windfall billions in oil revenues, or it will risk the destruction of the Canadian federation, says Thomas Courchene of Montreal's Institute for Research on Public Policy.

    He is described as "one of Canada's leading experts on inter-provincial relations and equalization policy."

    He goes on to paint what he regards as a disastrous picture.

    If Alberta doesn't do this "relinquishing," it could eliminate provincial income tax. It could support its own lavish pension plan. Its employers would offer the highest salaries in the country. The consequence would be catastrophic. People from all over the country would swarm into Alberta.

    He takes this view in a "discussion paper," calling for a sweeping revision in fossil fuel policy.

    Albertans should heed this warning. It will prove to have been the first indication that Ottawa is about to launch a new National Energy Program.

    Make careful note of the given reason. If the constitutional basis of the Canadian confederation is not immediately revised, there will begin a massive shift of the population into the West and this will risk the "destruction" of "Canada as we know it."

    Through most of my life I have been watching a massive population movement in Canada.

    Over the last 60 years I have seen the population of Saskatchewan grow from 895,000 in 1941 to 995,000 last year -- in short, stagnation. Manitoba went from 728,000 in 1941 to 1,170,000.

    Three of the four Atlantic provinces have grown very minimally; Prince Edward Island has shrunk.

    Meanwhile, the population of Ontario over the same period rose from 3.7 million to 12.3 million.

    People "swarmed" out of the hinterland into Ontario.

    Now, so far as I know, this phenomenon was never regarded as a "risk" to the Canadian federation.

    I'm not aware that authorities such as Thomas Courchene have ever written any emergency "discussion papers" on it.

    In fact, let's face it, suppressing the hinterland for the economic benefit of the two central provinces was the whole purpose and point of the Canadian federation to begin with.

    That's the way it was supposed to work, and the problem now is that it's working wrong.

    The population flow threatens to go into reverse. We can't have that. It would not be "the Canadian Way."

    Alberta must learn to "share," Alberta having already "shared" something like $150 billion of its revenues with the rest of Canada for the last three decades.

    However, all this yowling from us "oil barons," as they will describe us, " will achieve absolutely nothing. Martin has just been handed the key to a sweeping victory in the next federal election.

    Here is what we can expect to happen.

    *As gasoline and natural gas prices rise, there will be increasing public pressure to "do something." There will be emergency "discussions," such as the one Courchene has already begun.

    Martin, reluctant as always, and after much searching of the soul --he must have one of the most searched souls in the country -- will announce a federal program designed to relieve the intolerable rise in fuel prices.

    The program will amount to a direct federal grab of resource revenues, absolutely illegal under the Canadian Constitution.

    Ralph Klein will howl.

    Ralph Klein will threaten.

    Ralph Klein will storm.

    It will all come to nothing.

    Martin, really searching his soul by now, will tell Alberta it has recourse to the courts, these being the same courts that Martin and his predecessor have spent years packing with their own people.

    These yes-men are now going to support Alberta?

    Some joke.

    Paul Martin will then call a federal election where the central issue will come down to this: Do you vote for Canada or do you vote for Alberta?

    He will sweep Ontario, make gains in Quebec, and bigger gains in the Atlantic provinces. This is precisely what P.E. Trudeau did repeatedly in the '70s and '80s.

    It's a proven formula.

    In the meantime the Conservatives will have become hopelessly fractured.

    If they support their Alberta members, they will lose Ontario. If they support Ontario, they will lose heavily in the West.

    "The West Wants In."

    That was the slogan of the old Reform party.

    In the last four general elections we have been given the answer, which is "No!"

    What can we do about this?

    #2
    I would say Ted has pretty well got it right on how this whole thing is going to be played out? Expect the rhetoric to heat up as we move closer to the day Gomery releases his report on the thieves?
    Watch carefully how eastern citizens roll over and shaft us for some cheap gasoline! Watch them vote the thieves back into office so they can get their forty pieces of silver!
    Hopefully Ralph will rise to the occasion, for once in his life, and play the seperation card? Hopefully the people of Alberta will finally wake up to the fact that Canada is designed to **** the colonies out west? That we really can never win at this game?
    And hopefully the west will finally realize we are a different people than the rest of Canada? That we have different values, different goals and different morals?
    If the east votes in those thieves, just to screw the west, what does that say about those people? Do you want to be part of a country that steals money from one area to give to a den of thieves? Vote your conscience!

    Comment


      #3
      Peronally, I wish Ralph would stay to hell at home and not go on a foray down east to tell them about our OIL RICHES. Far as I am concerned its none of their damn business !!

      Comment


        #4
        Ted wrote 15 years ago, I have the artical, "untill they think we might get out ,they will do nothing to keep us in!"

        He knows the answer to his question!

        A socalist state can only maintain if they have some region to "****", steal and plunder. And with the help of the N. (no) D.(definite) P. (policy) they are enabled.

        I have been waiting for Belinda to walk the floor now that the Liberals have appointed a sepratist symatizer to the highest office...I think I am going to be sick....

        Comment


          #5
          Nobody really cares what we think out here in the west. We just keep plodding along in confederation just like some good old dairy cows that are used to the same routine year after year. Now that the eastern drivers are raising hell about gas prices there is going to be a COMMITTEE to investigate them ! ( Gas prices, not the eastern drivers !!) My bet is that nobody from Alberta makes it onto the committee !!!!

          Comment


            #6
            Without a doubt the feds are coming. This advisory board is the first move in the old Liberal plan of divide and conquer. In all likelyhood it will bring the lost sheep back into the fold? How do the likes of Peter MacKay defend Albertas wealth while his own constituents are told they can share in the plunder?
            I do believe Ralph played his first card when he announced the $400 thing? Notice we won't get it right away, but probably after the Liberals become more blatant in their attempt to steal our money? If you were a young family who had been promised $1600 how would you feel when it becomes impossible because an eastern government decided to steal it?
            Harper and the Conservatives are caught between a rock and a hard place. No way can they win this thing? Better if the old Reform party had never ventured east? The fact is they should have stayed in the west and not watered down their policies and values in an attempt to woo the easteners?
            There is a woman in western Canada making some noise? Maralyn Burns? Going to take a run at the Alberta Alliance leadership? She talks a tough game...put up the firewalls and move Alberta into a position of strength!
            If Ralph folds on this one we might just see a massive shift in support to a party that will stand up for Alberta and defend our resources?

            Comment


              #7
              cowman I am sure that the $400 will be paid out, and possibly Ralph's last stand will be to take on the feds over Albertas resource income.

              Comment


                #8
                emerald: I too think the $400 will be paid out. I think also Ralph might be playing a deeper game here by holding off until later in the year?
                When Gomery makes his first report in November the Canadian citizen should be rightly outraged? I believe at that time the federal Liberals will be looking for a way to divert attention away from their theft? What better way than attack the "oil Barons" in Alberta? Get the easterners in a freanzy over the greedy millionaires taking food out of their childrens mouths!
                It is at that time Martin will play the divide and conquer card? But Ralph will have an ace up his sleeve...he will be able to say to the Alberta public..."There goes your yearly prosperity check! Down to Ontario, Quebec and the maritimes"!
                How do you think that will go over here? Do you think Alberta citizens will gladly hand over their property to their masters down east? Or will they finally rise up in righteous indignation and say ENOUGH! I do believe Ralph is setting up the end of this country and I also expect he knows what he is doing? Should be fun!

                Comment


                  #9
                  I am sure there is a method to the MADNESS cowman, guess we will have to see how it plays out !!

                  Comment


                    #10
                    This attitude doesn't exist only in politics. It also exists in private industry and in non-profits, where the head office is in the east.

                    I was born Winnipeg-neutral, and have lived in Ontario and now Alberta. There is a completely different mind-set here - a sense of limitless possibilities instead of staid "United Empire Loyalist" homage to outdated processes. It is an insidious cancer, for which "amputation" (separation) may be the best recourse.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Separation is NOT the answer. You pipples are being stampeded into believing that line of BS like a flock of 'turkeys'.

                      Why would you believe what is written by some obscure writer anyway?

                      This constantly repeated conjecture of 'eastern motives' is getting really, really tiring.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Ignorance is bliss!

                        Comment


                          #13
                          wilagro: If not seperation, then what? The status quo?
                          We've tried just about everything available, from a proposed triple E senate to forming a party to better our lot in confederation? Results...ZERO!
                          As long as Ontario and Quebec can vote out any kind of reform we literally are a colony of the east and they can make whatever laws suit them? This is democracy... which in reality is mob rule!
                          The majority decide they want your oil they vote to take it and voila they have it! They decide you are going to provide your grain to the benifit of the east and they get it via the CWB! You live in the west, you are too stupid to sell your grain, but as soon as you cross the border into Ontario you get smart enough to market your own product? What is that?
                          Do you enjoy driving on cruddy roads while the Frenchmen get theirs paved...at your expense?
                          You are old enough to remember the days when most of the feeder calves went east to be fed on western barley? Now how was that possible? Well it turns out you were paying the freight on both calves and grain! Before NAFTA just about everything we produced went east and everything we bought came from the east!
                          Did you know that there were two Eatons catalogues back in the days they still operated? One for the west and one for the east, with two sets of prices? The western prices were of course higher...higher than the freight would have cost!
                          I could go on for a week but I think you get my point? You can either be a colonist or you can stand up and be a free man, the choice is totally yours.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            cowman: Not convinced that your position is valid.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Not "valid"??

                              Wilagrow...you tend to dismiss any and all suggested Western reactions to the decades of contempt the Liberals and their leaders repeatedly show towards western Canada, other than that we should just continue to take our licking.

                              I note you never offer any ideas...just take cheap shots at those of us that do. Com'on humor us .... give us some of your solutions...if you have any.

                              But before you do take note of history...at least 9 different western political initiatives since the thirties, set out, in part, to address the inequities of CON-federation.

                              But all you can do is insult those who feel there is cause for concern...not only do you need vitimum B...you need to smell the coffee!

                              Comment

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