Fuel for the fire
Ted Byfield - Monday,3 October 2005
Anyone who has driven through certain parts of Pennsylvania or Ohio during the last 10 or 15 years is struck by the bleak phenomenon known as the Rust Belt. Huge industrial plants stand abandoned; acre after acre of what were once bustling shipping yards are overgrown with quack grass; lawns and gardens once carefully tended are now dreary tracts of weeds--this is the Rust Belt.
It's what happens when changes in the national or worldwide economy take their toll. When the dirt-cheap labour of Asia came into direct competition with the heavily unionized labour of the northeastern United States, the result was the Rust Belt. In macroeconomics, nothing is permanent.
Every person I know who has visited mainland China in the last five years has come back with a warning that is of immediate and urgent significance to western Canada, particularly to Alberta. China, they say, will become the industrial giant of the 21st century. Half the big building cranes in the world are said to be at work in Shanghai. To safeguard its supply of raw materials while it develops its own sources, the Chinese government is buying heavily into North American resource industries. The clothes we wear, the home goods we use, even the computers we work with, come increasingly from Asia.
The implication is inescapable. The North American manufacturing industry will become less and less competitive. It will not be viable economically. So what will Ottawa do?
We are already being given the answer. To maintain the "balance" of Canada's economy--by which they mean to keep Ontario and Quebec on top--Alberta is going to have to learn to "share." Alberta, of course, has already "shared" something around $150 billion with the rest of the country. But that isn't nearly enough. Now we're going to have to really share. "Sharing" is what Canada is all about, except for Quebec. Being "distinct," it doesn't have to share.
We can therefore expect that within six months or sooner, federal legislation will be introduced forcing Alberta to part with its resource revenues. It will be portrayed, as it always is, as a duty to the nation. The Alberta government will try to oppose it. The bill will be passed regardless, and the next day the federal collectors will be in the offices of every oil producer. Much noise will naturally be made by the provincial government. It will fight this all the way. It will take its constitutional case to the courts, these being the same judges that the same federal government appointed. The "courts" in such a situation are a joke.
And what will Ottawa do with the money? The answer to this, too, is absolutely certain. They will use it to artificially prop up Quebec and Ontario industries that are no longer faintly viable. Soon they will close anyway, and the war chest that Alberta could have used to far better purpose will instead have been totally thrown away, wasted, squandered.
What should Alberta do with the money? There is no doubt about this, either. The one way in which we can meet the competition from China and other parts of Asia is by building, right here in western Canada, a centre for high-tech research and development that is unparalleled anywhere in the world. China may produce the goods. But they will have to look to Alberta to find the most efficient ways to do it. If we can achieve and hold that lead, we will survive the economic convulsion that is on the way. If we let the money go east, we will fail miserably.
How do we stop the federal thieves? Again, there is one way alone. As soon as Ottawa's intentions become clear--and that will be very soon--we should be ready to ignite, like a prairie fire, a separatist movement so lethal that it will make anything yet produced by Quebec look like a kindergarten exercise. We owe Quebec for this, by the way. Remember the "clarity clause"? We can now, altogether constitutionally, get out of Canada. If the Ottawa thieves see this, they will back off. Nothing less will stop them.
Ted Byfield - Monday,3 October 2005
Anyone who has driven through certain parts of Pennsylvania or Ohio during the last 10 or 15 years is struck by the bleak phenomenon known as the Rust Belt. Huge industrial plants stand abandoned; acre after acre of what were once bustling shipping yards are overgrown with quack grass; lawns and gardens once carefully tended are now dreary tracts of weeds--this is the Rust Belt.
It's what happens when changes in the national or worldwide economy take their toll. When the dirt-cheap labour of Asia came into direct competition with the heavily unionized labour of the northeastern United States, the result was the Rust Belt. In macroeconomics, nothing is permanent.
Every person I know who has visited mainland China in the last five years has come back with a warning that is of immediate and urgent significance to western Canada, particularly to Alberta. China, they say, will become the industrial giant of the 21st century. Half the big building cranes in the world are said to be at work in Shanghai. To safeguard its supply of raw materials while it develops its own sources, the Chinese government is buying heavily into North American resource industries. The clothes we wear, the home goods we use, even the computers we work with, come increasingly from Asia.
The implication is inescapable. The North American manufacturing industry will become less and less competitive. It will not be viable economically. So what will Ottawa do?
We are already being given the answer. To maintain the "balance" of Canada's economy--by which they mean to keep Ontario and Quebec on top--Alberta is going to have to learn to "share." Alberta, of course, has already "shared" something around $150 billion with the rest of the country. But that isn't nearly enough. Now we're going to have to really share. "Sharing" is what Canada is all about, except for Quebec. Being "distinct," it doesn't have to share.
We can therefore expect that within six months or sooner, federal legislation will be introduced forcing Alberta to part with its resource revenues. It will be portrayed, as it always is, as a duty to the nation. The Alberta government will try to oppose it. The bill will be passed regardless, and the next day the federal collectors will be in the offices of every oil producer. Much noise will naturally be made by the provincial government. It will fight this all the way. It will take its constitutional case to the courts, these being the same judges that the same federal government appointed. The "courts" in such a situation are a joke.
And what will Ottawa do with the money? The answer to this, too, is absolutely certain. They will use it to artificially prop up Quebec and Ontario industries that are no longer faintly viable. Soon they will close anyway, and the war chest that Alberta could have used to far better purpose will instead have been totally thrown away, wasted, squandered.
What should Alberta do with the money? There is no doubt about this, either. The one way in which we can meet the competition from China and other parts of Asia is by building, right here in western Canada, a centre for high-tech research and development that is unparalleled anywhere in the world. China may produce the goods. But they will have to look to Alberta to find the most efficient ways to do it. If we can achieve and hold that lead, we will survive the economic convulsion that is on the way. If we let the money go east, we will fail miserably.
How do we stop the federal thieves? Again, there is one way alone. As soon as Ottawa's intentions become clear--and that will be very soon--we should be ready to ignite, like a prairie fire, a separatist movement so lethal that it will make anything yet produced by Quebec look like a kindergarten exercise. We owe Quebec for this, by the way. Remember the "clarity clause"? We can now, altogether constitutionally, get out of Canada. If the Ottawa thieves see this, they will back off. Nothing less will stop them.
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