The Line- Western alienation is real and cannot be dismissed
The Liberals’ energy policies are bad economics and even worse politics, and the threat they represent for national unity can’t be ignored as unhelpful whining.
The Line- Western alienation is real and cannot be dismissed
The Liberals’ energy policies are bad economics and even worse politics, and the threat they represent for national unity can’t be ignored as unhelpful whining.
when Canadian patriotism has been so aroused by threats from the United States
I stopped reading right there. The “patriotism” is little more than the same blatant anti-Americanism that PET invented and gleefully encouraged more than 50 years ago. The timing of its sudden revival was designed to help the Liberals by diverting the attention of the electorate from nearly a decade of that party’s failed and corrupt policies and focus instead on a conjured boogeyman.
Ragan understates the case.
“but Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government did little or nothing to address the sense of western alienation over the past nine years”
On the contrary, the LPC has been pursuing a strongly anti-Alberta agenda for four decades. It started before the NEP in 1980. It started because Alberta controls most of what is Canada’s principal export: oil and gas. Since money equals power, this has been a four-decade struggle over Canada’s principal export commodity.
“the federal government bought the pipeline only because its own policy environment was so unfriendly to the project that it had to intervene.”
This is much, much worse. The LPC government created a regulatory environment so hostile to pipelines and energy infrastructure that it forced the sale of TMX. In so doing, when completed a major portion of Canada’s oil export infrastructure would fall under direct federal ownership.
“While I don’t accept Mr. Manning’s claim that a Liberal victory means support for western secession,”
That’s exactly what it means. It’s unclear to me why Ragan avoids the obvious and inevitable conclusion of his own analysis.
This Ragan fellow has been gone from Alberta a long time,if what he says is true.
That ” Centre of the Universe” attitude from McGill University.
Our Progressive Comrades will continue to lecture us ,as to why we cannot leave,yet not one of them has yet explained why they believe we should stay..
They will still be prattling away long after we leave.
What benefit does the West derive from Confederated Canada?
What do we gain from our association with these grifters from the East?
Has anyone found a convincing “Case for Canada”???
I think it is highly likely that Marx Carney will hold onto power and most certainly set Canada on a journey to net zero no matter what anyone has to say . At the end of the day eastern Canada will care less about western concerns . If anybody needs proof they gave Trudope and his cabal of misfits nine years to sow the seeds of western discontent .
In western Canada, we have a right to manage our economy and not have unsympathetic outsiders do so for their own priorities and in view of their biases, one of which (it is well known) is a sense of superiority (unwarranted by any evidence).
Canada has weak dynamics when analyzed by a westerner. Its only apparent asset is a national symbol clearly aligned with a region and a political party — a clear message, this is a two-tier nation and we’re the lower tier. In fact, we’re the small dead animals left behind after the circus leaves town.
In 1840, Canada was Ontario and Quebec (upper and lower) and really nothing has changed. Oh, it got a bit warmer. And that’s a “crisis.” Yeah right, just another eastern bogus belief that wastes a lot of time and money, an example of nonsense that they impose on us. Quebec is the worst — let them go, they can leave at the same time we leave.
Who will feed Doug Ford? — frankly, he could stand to lose a bit of weight.
Then go already.
With joy in our hearts.
When the dollar collapses and the canadian economy is crushed, perhaps Quebec dairy farmers will make up the loss of GDP
Promises promises. You’re just like the frogs.
No. We are not parasites. We are producers. We work. We do not look for hand outs. We have contributed immeasurably to canaduh, only to be slandered and attacked. Just as you are doing now. Written off as farmers and cowboys by the Laurentian Elite. Racists! Ignorant! Greedy! (by those that demand to have more put in their pockets)
Oh! But what about Team Canada? Come on? Let’s all pull together for Team Canada? Right? Alberta should give up 300 million a day so Quebec dairy farmers can continue to screw everyone right?
Quebec leaves, the fiscal situation of the ROC brightens immensely.
We leave? Hope you have lots of canned goods in the basement.
Chris, he’s right, and wrong. You are nobler than the Frogs, who prattle about separation to gain special status but have no interest in actually leaving. You prattle about separation not for a better deal, but because you should, but as Canadians, you lack the courage to do so, making you easy marks for central Canada.
I agree that you’re not parasites. Sure. Important distinction but tangential. The reality is that you’re nowhere near separation and probably not gonna get to it. Potato has settled enough of his imports into Redmonton and Nenshitown to make sure of that. And more will come under Carnage, and they will vote too. You can’t side step it. You might have had a chance a decade ago. I doubt that you have it now and the longer you wait the worse the odds.
I would prefer to recue Canada and turn the country around. But if that turns out not be an option, then I’d rather see it fracture and take our chance in Republic of Ontario no matter ho bumpy ride it will be, than to live under Librano tyranny in perpetuity. So by all means break it down, I am fine with that. But you’re not gonna do it. So we will end up with the worst of all outcomes.
Either that, or we can begin the hard work of rescuing the country after the election. But the prospects for it look increasingly bleak.
We will and you can FOAD if you want to come into a prosperous, free and low tax Alberta.
You can only pay the bills for so long until you want a better seat at the table.. Rather than allow that Ontario and Quebec figured they would go zero carbon.. Money and power.. And oh yaa, pretending to save the world..
Does AB or SK have its own, independent financial sector?
Quebec does.
What about provincial police forces?
Quebec does.
The west has much work to do before they can even think of separating.
Yes, and we are starting to do that work
Good. I think all Canadian provinces should do the same.
The feds need to be taken down quite a few pegs if Canada is to continue to exist.
The fact that the feds are actively destroying the AB economy, while at the same time pillaging the place to hand the loot to cronies in vote-rich ON and QC is obscene.
Some of the work may not be that readily apparent. For example, the establishment of a provincial police force is happening by evolution, not revolution. The Alberta Government has been steadily increasing the funding of the Sheriff Force along with expanding its areas of enforcement. The RCMP (as the liarberal party gestapo is known) has not fulfilled its contract obligations. In fact, even the RCMP has suggested that they will get out of domestic police work as of the recruitment difficulties they face. I am sure this will give them time to concentrate on what they do best; protecting the liarberal junta.
One glorious morning, we may wake up to an Alberta Provincial Police.
A second step is to ensure the financial stability of the Alberta Heritage Savings trust fund. This needs to be done by ensuring it is in assets that are safe from the confiscatory powers of the junta. Furthermore, it needs to be safe from the collapse of the northern peso
Thirdly, is the establishment of the Alberta Pension Plan with the rightful and proper return of Albertan’s pension savings. An amount that is correct based upon the surplus of contributions we have made to the plan and the actuarial calculations. Again, these funds must be properly secured and protected.
Having proper foreign reserves contained in the Heritage Savings fund and through the Alberta Treasury will maintain cash liquidity. Foreign reserves would most likely mean the world’s reserve currency and that of our largest trading partner, the United States
YW, I agree with you strongly about a provincial police force. A financial center is a relatively minor affair. Money flows to where opportunity knocks. But A/S will never be independent or having even the pretensions of independence as long as Ottawa controls the armed police forces. It’s a little-known fact that in the runup to the 1995 referendum, Jacques Parizeau did his best to secure the loyalty of the Canadian armed forces stationed in Quebec. No fool, he knew that any separation would only be as strong as the armed force supporting its legitimacy.
A independent financial sector is essential, IMHO. Say AB defies Ottawa and goes all-in on energy production. Ottawa freezes a bunch of assets, cutting off capital to the energy companies. They go tits-up. Both independent armed forces and a financial institutions are essential to sovereignty, IMHO.
Yes ATB and a number of credit unions for banks. My wife an I do quite a bit a business with ATB and much of it shifted from the royal bank after an incident 3 years ago. An Alberta police force is developing with the expansion of the sheriffs office. Soon most actual policing will be done by Alberta with the RCMP just doing brown shirt duty for the feds. That is pretty much what they do now anyways.
“I don’t agree with all of Alberta’s complaints — especially the claim that Alberta doesn’t get its fair fiscal share inside Canada”
Idiot words.
I’m from Ottawa. You people are getting hosed.
But apparently many of you like having a size 9 poop chute.
Nobody east of the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border has even heard of western secession or separation, it’s entirely not a thing in government run media.
A few politics nerds would know, but the herd animals in this place would give you a blank stare if you mentioned it.
When I was a graduate student at UBC well over 40 years ago, most of the Lotuslanders I met thought Albertans to be not just hicks, bumpkins, and hillbillies, but a bunch of whiners ungrateful that Canada even allowed them to stay in the country.
In the early 2000s-2010s, I worked in Montreal for an outfit that also had a campus in Edmonton.
Sometimes the company would fly some of us out there, or some of the Albertans to Montreal for a week or so, and we all got along fine.
That might be because there are a number of towns in Alberta where French is the main language.
But not everyone down east is aware of that. During my time at UBC, my supervisor hired a summer student. The kid was from Quebec and he was absolutely convinced that we Albertans were nothing but rednecks with itchy trigger fingers, ready and willing to fire a load of buckshot into the backside of anyone who spoke French.
I explained what the situation really was, but I’m not sure I convinced him.
There are a few towns in Alberta where you can find French-speaking people. I’m not sure if theres anywhere in Alberta where French is the “main language”, or where the main language is anything other than English.
Quebec separatism wasn’t taken seriously until the FLQ showed up.
(Not advocating it…just saying.
A better plan would be to anticipate progressive decline, strengthen Alberta as Canada weakens and then lobby to join the U.S when no one can argue seriously against it. 2040 would be a good target.)
I would advocate for expelling Quebec. Ontario has much more in common with Alberta-Saskatchewan that it does with Quebec. Getting rid of Quebec would solve a host of problems for the rest of Canada.
“I would advocate for expelling Quebec. Ontario has much more in common with Alberta-Saskatchewan that it does with Quebec. Getting rid of Quebec would solve a host of problems for the rest of Canada.”
Agreed. If Quebec ever manages to force another separation referendum, *all* Canadians should get to vote on it.
Until the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, Quebec separatism could not be taken seriously. Montreal and Quebec City were essential to the economic life of the country and simply would not be given up. They would have deported the French Canadians rather than let them take the country. It was only once Quebec became sail-through country that people realised, we don’t need this place any longer, and the idea of letting the natives take it became realistic.
The funny thing is that “official” Canada stands behind Ukraine but seem to forget that Ukraine unilaterally split from the Soviet Union because they determined they would no longer be held back by the dictates of far away Moscow…..somehow there are parallels here.
The history of Ukraine, Russia, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union would be very interesting to fully delve into. Something, I have admittedly not done.
But! I would dare say that the Ukraine has been subject to Moscow a lot longer than Alberta has been subject to Ottawa.
Funny how the official position is, as you say, that Ukraine has a right to its autonomy even though they have been part of the greater Russian sphere centuries longer than Alberta and Saskatchewan have.
The Soviet Union wasn’t created until 1922. But it was under the control of Russia but before that, Lithuania and Poland. Somehow people seem to believe that the borders of countries last forever.
Can’t reply further to the thread up above about Alberta Go already.
If Mark Carney wins, which it appears he will do so because the have not provinces decided that he should win, I think we can agree that canaduh is well and truly f@cked!
So what then, just shut up and take it? I have two kids, one in Toronto no less and one attending school in the States. I have told the one in the States, as much as it breaks my heart, to stay there as it is his best chance of having any kind of a future.
My daughter in Toronto? When I went out to meet her now fiance for the first time, his opening line was “Welcome to Canada”
Look, do we really want to separate? I think even the most die hard independentiste would say no. What we would like is to be treated equally as full citizens in a country that actually respects the natural rights of human beings. To have my vote count the same as every other citizen. To not have to work a good portion of my day to pay the welfare benefits to the perpetually aggrieved or else they will leave and then who will I have left to subsidize?
Every single person here should just give up. The conservatives were up by 20 points. Now, the natural ruling party will win a majority again. And screw Alberta and Saskatchewan again…only worse.
So I give up. There’s too many redcoats. Cornwallis is too good of a general. We should just give up and happily pay our tribute as we eat bugs and freeze in the dark.
I give up. I won’t even bother to vote now as I will be voting for an MP who will just be mocked and ridiculed for her prattling and she will never make a difference.
My apologies for prattling on. I won’t any more. I give up as all of you on this blog should do as well.
Canada died for me in February 1980. When CBC-TV’s coverage began in B. C. on election night, the host (Knowlton Nash, I think) had a smirk on his face and his first words were along the lines of “Good evening, British Columbia. The election’s over and the Liberals have won another majority.” He was enjoying it.
That’s when I realized that, being in the west, my vote didn’t make any difference. This was the election in which PET was advised by Senator Keith Davey, “Screw the west–we’ll take the rest.” And screw the west PET certainly did. It didn’t take that bastard long to bring in the NEP and, a few years later, I was one of thousands who couldn’t find work because the oil and gas industry in western Canada had been deliberately devastated.
That’s when I also learned that this country’s ruled by the Uniparty. PET’s Liberals were just as bad as Mulroney’s PCs.
“ especially the claim that Alberta doesn’t get its fair fiscal share inside Canada ”
The writer lost all credibility with that line.
Preston and his forever need to be relevant.
He was confronted by the mathematical fact of the wests colonial status in CON-federation in 1987 yet he still sucked in thousands of people with their blood sweat and treasure. Nice pension you got there Preston.
He too, like the writer, has no credibility to be claiming only now, to seeing the light.
WEXIT is inevitable.
Money talks.
Our best interests,ie fiscal future, are not those of Eastern Canadian Citizens.
Canada is bankrupt.
For demographic reasons,Eastern Welfare is funded by Western production.
The national debt is a crushing burden.
Which our Dear Leaders clearly intend Western tax payers to pay.
Such injustice seems beyond the Canadian Not Sees bandwidth.
The Uni-Party platform,is “Free Stuff for all”.
And their drug of choice OPM is running out.
So ends every kleptocracy.
When the producers fail or leave.
Then Other Peoples Money becomes real hard to steal.
So “We party,you pay” has an end date.
Preston may have been wrong,but we had to try Reform.
As patriots,we had to try to fix our country.
Hence: “The West Wants In”.
A very successful political movement.
And a practical failure.
The lesson?
Reform of a kleptocracy is impossible using Robert’s Rules of Committees.
When theft and corruption are made law,peaceful reform is highly unlikely.
As too many voters have a vested interest in stealing from the rest.
So ?
Independence is the next logical step.
For every single aggravation,insult and injustice that Reform sought to reform..Remains unaddressed.
Ain’t Democracy,mob rule,grand.
And today,what does Canada offer us?
What is “The Case For Canada”?.
We have learnt many things since the hay days of Reform.
So many official Lies from This State of Thuggery are exposed.
Why would any productive person wish to remain a citizen of a country that provides zero protection of private property?
Why would you trust a nation that claims the right to “Freeze you bank account”?
Where are those individual rights and freedoms to protect a citizen from collective excess?
When did self defence become a crime?
What kind of nation would criminalize being an employer?
What is this Canada,that we are supposed to be loyal to?
John I would cut Preston a lot of slack had he been transparent in Winnipeg in 87. AND then later as Reform folded come clean on his big mistake on advocating for a new federal party.
He was confronted with the question “what federal party would form a coalition with Reform to successfully implement Reforms top 10 constitutional priorities?”
He refused to give a straight answer and admit then, and even now, that the only path to western success was via provincial legislatures.
Now he has his wet finger in the air and wants to be relevant.
He will get my respect when he publicly apologizes for leading the west and a generation out into the colonial wilderness for 35 years.
We now have a mass of westerners that don’t know this history and will get sucked in again thinking there’s merit in the choices and process.