The More Things Change

To suggest that by holding the balance of power in Ottawa we might persuade Hamilton and Toronto MPs to give up the status quo and help us become full partners is, with all due respect, foolish and is raising false hopes in a lot of good people. One need not study much history to come to the conclusion that power has never, ever, been known to give itself up! It can only be wrestled away.

Wayne Ratzlaff, in 1987: Shun The Three Headed Monster1 (pdf)

17 Replies to “The More Things Change”

  1. Would very much like to read it but it is showing as a Word Document

    Not gonna do it

      1. I appreciate the sarcasm. Got hacked about a couple months ago. Cost me a lot of misery. Forgive my reticence in opening a word document from a web site (even though a trusted one) Conversion to a PDF is not such a hard thing

    1. It is a word document, hosted on our server after being sent to me by the author. I think it’s safe. But I’ll upload it again as a pdf.

      1. Kate, you are truly awesome. Thank you for everything you do! (Including putting up with us paranoids)

  2. Ratzlaff was prescient in that article. He foresaw the evolution of Reform back to a federal party and then back to the Eastern establishment’s Red Tory party. The Canadian experiment may have prevented the US from acquiring more turf but it enslaved the west to the power centers of Ontario and Quebec.

  3. Not sure what the answer is, but I suspect keeping an Independence mindset at the forefront is likely the best tactic.

    Canada is going clown world so quickly that certainly some kind of real world consequences will result.

    When they do…we might have a chance.

  4. I believe western separatism is dead. Not that I don’t support the concept, it’s that I believe it is now an impossibility…. unless it is a by-product of the break-up of the entire country.

    I was there for the reform movement, and if I understood then what I understand now about Canadian politics, I wouldn’t have put in the effort. “The West Wants In!” Eastern elites must have been rolling on the floor laughing their asses off at our gullibility on that one.

    And now the west, including the prairies, is so infected with leftarded ideologies that separating will not eradicate that infection. I have long said that all a successful separation would really accomplish is that you would be sending your money to Liberal thieves in some place like Edmonton, instead of the Liberal thieves in Ottawa. And if you think the ‘woke brigade’ is just going to up and disappear while you try and craft your new conservative utopia, think again.

    Another reality is that if say AB/Sask were able to leave on their own, they would be a land-locked ‘conservative oasis’ surrounded by hostile globalist leftist governments a good portion of it’s existence. A modern Democrat government would rather help the Libs starve you out that help you get any of your filthy racist oil to market.

  5. CO I don’t necessarily disagree with your take on our political culture today. However this attitude is what prevents us from stepping out and trying.
    “There’s a monument that stands at the Alamo, it’s there not because they won…but because they fought.”

    Canada is a country that is really 3000 miles long and 500 miles wide. With the regions having little in common.
    Where did I read it recently…the 10 most successful countries in the world have less than 10 million people.
    Me thinks in those countries people perhaps do not feel so alienated??
    Like we do in Western Canada.

    1. We seem to be mostly on the same page, ivbinconned, I just don’t think there are anywhere near enough sincerely conservative western Canadians now to make it a reality. I admire your commitment to success and if I could see a tangible path to true freedom for westerners I would be standing right there beside you.

      It would help my confidence if more people recognized and admitted these real difficulties and others existed, let alone offer tangible solutions to solving them. Instead, some act like they are LARPing and have attacked me for daring raise negatives about separating. If someone hasn’t put the effort into pondering these problems, then they aren’t truly serious about separation.

      Agree completely about smaller countries, same goes for smaller cities, IMO.

  6. It can only be wrestled away.

    Which is why western Canada will only get its freedom by shooting its way out—or, more likely, when a patriotic American government decides that the Chinese satellite state next door has become more trouble than it’s worth.

    Western independence? Get back to me when Alberta gets the bomb. The Israelis only got taken seriously by threatening to nuke Moscow. Jason Kenney won’t be nuking Ottawa any time soon.

  7. Dec 15, 1915: the Canadian Milk Cow cartoon was published?
    — Has anything changed?

    1987, the Reform Party official slogan was “The West wants in”.
    — Has anything changed?

    1935, the CWB: Ontario and Quebec get to use the free market.
    — Has anything changed.

    Pipelines, natural resources, everything: do you think anything will ever change?

    One reason I have no confidence in the Maverick Party; they talk about “fixing confederation”. This means they are most likely just another bunch of pension first grifters. LIke the Sask Party, like the UCP, like all the other parties you ever test drove.

  8. Western separation is completely doomed unless you have an eventual vision of a BC takeover. Alberta/Sask are a bit limited. I might consider a move, if it were not so cold! The vision of western separation is attractive, so it might be a start. On this site, people recommend maybe just accepting Northeastern BC. If you want a real western separation, it has to include all 4 western provinces with western and northern ports.

    Everyone on this site hates the lower mainland, where I live, for very, very good reasons, as I often do too (the local/provincial politics etc.). Approximately 30% of lower mainlanders are core conservatives in many ridings. That has grown at times, so is doable again.

    Kenny and Moe must first follow Quebec’s lead and take back ALL provincial powers. BC might follow, as might Manitoba.

    I hope we soon have a HUGE bun fight on equalization. Harper should have done this in 2014.

  9. There are many issues with total independence, including land locked borders, port access, currency and military protection to name some. I wonder if our best option is to become a USA Territory or Protectorate as it use to be called. We would have our own independent Legislature and our own independent Courts. We would be able to vote for President but would not vote for a Congressional Representative or Senator. We would be deemed USA Citizens with U.S. Passports, use the U.S.$ and have the protection of the U.S Military against a hostile Russia and China. For the USA they would have secure access to our oil and uranium and have a land bridge connecting to Alaska.
    Unsure if Biden would accept us as he is a globalist and a comrade of Trudeau’s. Trump would have done it in a moment, if nothing else to stick it to Trudeau who insulted him at the G-8.
    As a U.S. Territory, we would have the option eventually of voting to becoming our own country (like the Philippines), to become a State (like Hawaii) or to simply remain as a territory indefinitely (like PortaRico).

  10. First the divorce …then debate the path forward.
    Land locked? There many countries sea locked. I don’t hear them complaining about that fact. You just deal with the challenges.
    “Equalization”, that feature is entrenched in our constitution!
    Thanks to the western leadership of the day.

Navigation