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- Points
- 210
What, like Edmonton isn't full of giant pants and sideways ball hats too? What about all the LA-style drive-by shootings in Millwoods? The only difference is that the boom cars are pickup trucks.
Kat Stevens said:RCR I presume, as your moral high ground shouldn't be watered down by exposure to our borrowed values and culture in the PPCLI. Good luck with that...
TCBF said:"See how much the Toronto-hating populous of Ontario likes being saddled with the bills for all the municipal and provincial services that aren't economically feasible without the provincial income generated by Toronto. I'd wager Ontario starts sucking up equalization payments within 2 years if that happened.'
- A lot of those so-called services are corrupt commie psychobable money pits that serve no useful function other than to turn productive citizens into lifelong wards of the guvmint. Toronto can take those services with her.
Down with central Canadian colonialism!
;D
Tom
Kirkhill said:The problem, Glorified Ape, is that many in your part of the country want a monolithic state with one set of laws applying across the country. A federated, or confederated state, doesn't work that way. The whole point of a Federation is to allow a PATCHWORK (Lord how that word has come to be detested) of laws across the country as individual groups of people accept that they are not like each other, they don't want to live their lives the same way but they do want to get along. That is how you address the disparities in population and the differences in belief. That is precisely why Canadian politicians, and everyone else for that matter, are urging a federated state for Iraq.
The whole purpose of the Confederation exercise was to allow a degree of local autonomy. That autonomy has been eroded and the imposition of central authority is having a corrosive effect on the residue of goodwill of those that find themselves subject to laws not in consort with their beliefs.
As to Alberta being tyrannized - I don't suppose it makes much difference to the person on whom a code of conduct is imposed if it is imposed by a raving lunatic like Saddam or a well-meaning democracy like America. Isn't that the essence of the argument against supporting the US in Iraq? If you believe you understand why Iraqis don't want democracy imposed on them along with an American style constitution, why is it so difficult to accept that some folks out west might not be appreciative of well-meaning easterners imposing their views on them?
WRT voting with your feet - what I am saying is that people of like views will seek out places where they can associate with people of similar views. The trade works both ways. Conservatively inclined free-traders from the east gravitate to the west. Liberally minded, socially conscious, supporters of big government and statist agendas gravitate towards the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal area. Populations naturally divide over time. That is an ongoing, unchangeable process as constant as the rise and fall of the tides and the come and go of the ice-ages.
WRT colonialism - colonialism has nothing to do with contiguity or distance although if you want to consider that then Alberta is farther from Ontario than England's first colony, Ireland, was from her. It has everything to do with exploitation, or in the words or some rabble rouser down south, "No taxation without representation". Although we can't argue that we aren't represented we can argue that we are under-represented, over-taxed and unheard.
And please don't start doing the numbers and needs thing. Next thing you know you'll be citing "From each according to their ability. To each according to their need." This isn't about central planning. This is about voluntary co-operation.
The issue is not money. That is a straw man. Blow him down as you will. You set him up. The West generally has had more grievances, of longer standing, with Ottawa than just the current brouhaha over 400 dollar checks.
The call from the West, since the time of the depression, and before, is to give the West consideration when creating policies. At least as much as are given to Ontario and Quebec separately (10 million Westerners, 8 million Quebecers, 12 million Ontarians, 2 million Maritimers, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians).
Finally on the crack about "borrowed" culture - read the book "Braehead" if you want a good synopsis of how Albertan culture became what it is. It came by it naturally. It came north with the cattle and cowboys in the 1880s and was seasoned by British remittance men, some of whom were already investing family investments in ranches and railways in the Western US. Southern Alberta land wasn't considered suitable for anything else other than raising cattle. This western culture of course is vastly different to the culture of the east where British remittance men invested in fur trading and railroads after having left the Yankee rabble to sort themselves out. They eventually reinvested in that country as well, in fact according to Amir Taheri they are the biggest foreign investors in the US http://www.benadorassociates.com/pf.php?id=18452.
The attachment to America may be a bit stronger in Alberta in part because when Alberta needed funds to develop her economy in the 1930s and 40s, she went to Ottawa to get financial support. Ottawa declined so Alberta printed her own money for a while. That was declared inappropriate and Ottawa still wouldn't support even loan guarantees so the Alberta government of the day went to New York and there found investors willing to back Alberta so that she could develop her oil assets.
I would just make one final note on tone. For someone who rightly decries stridency and lack of toleration from others you seem quite comfortable taking hardline positions yourself. Not much room for compromise with you it would seem.
In any event, wish you well Cadet.
Kat Stevens said:You want to bring up "borrowed culture"? Puh-leeze... anywhere in the GTA it is impossible to decipher where Illinois and Michigan end, and Ontario begins. I have heard more fractured English and Ebonics babble from directly across the line than anywhere else in Canada. If you are referring to me as a Western separatist, you missed the mark. My post was in reply to a "what if 12 million Ontarioids left?" question. I see you are trying to be an Infantry Officer, RCR I presume, as your moral high ground shouldn't be watered down by exposure to our borrowed values and culture in the PPCLI. Good luck with that...
TCBF said:Fort Mac to Innisfail? Another set of tail lights zipping by like two tracer bullets in a dead heat.
Tom
Old Ranger said:I worked in Valleyview on my days off and the little place called Red Earth with a 400km coverage area.
Ben
Larry Strong said:Red Earth....thats approaching the spincter of the world