L'aliénation Dans L'Ouest

I read that yesterday but the article I read didn't list the actual questions that the people were asked. A letter to the paper's editor cited another poll that said there is no 'monolithic' west; the federal Liberals have more support in BC than in Ontario for example. I have always suspected that "western alienation" is really just a myth, one that the Conservative party really likes for some reason.

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"George Bush has declared the war on terrorism to be the cause of his generation. The cause of Canadian sovereignty will be ours." - John Godfrey, MP for Don Va

why must they also say that the NEP was divisive when in the real world on planet earth, something like 89% of canadians were in favour of it.

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"George Bush has declared the war on terrorism to be the cause of his generation. The cause of Canadian sovereignty will be ours." - John Godfrey, MP for Don Va

So theft is okay as long as it's a popular theft? Of course, given the fact that so many of the liberal-left posters on here suffer from a textbook case of "Tall Poppy Syndrome", the answer would undoubtedly be "yes".

For me, the fundamental test of the NEP is one of fairness. Would Quebec have been treated the same as Alberta if the oil had been there instead? The NEP fails the "fairness test" miserably.

The Liberals saw that Alberta's oil wealth was going to shift power away from their Central Canadian base. So they tried to crush that "threat", while simultaneously playing to their own base of support by ensuring cheap fuel for Ontario industry.

Western alienation is real, and not just confined to Alberta. Alberta's only the most vocal (mainly because they're the least reliant on Ottawa's largess).

Alberta's oil wealth was an unlucky accident for Central Canada's powermongers. Had it not been for that, MacDonald's (and Trudeau's) vision of the West as serf to the East would have remained intact.

i don't get how canada can steal its own oil. i've never understood how it can be theft when canada goes into one of its regions & develops resources there.

if the fundamental test of the NEP is fairness, would you say that it's fair to have ~4 canadian oil companies operating in the tar sands compared with >40 american ones?

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"George Bush has declared the war on terrorism to be the cause of his generation. The cause of Canadian sovereignty will be ours." - John Godfrey, MP for Don Va

Your point is well taken. Companies should however be albertan companies where Albertans decide where the revenues should be spent, not the ones in Ottawa.

Should Albertans decide that it is worthwile spending money in the ROC, that is quite fine with me of course. I think that transfer payments administed by a totally ineffective middle man is a worse evil. I have already staed many times that so called "have-not" provinces (e.g. Newfoundland)would be better off today if they had remained sovereign.
We are still colonial IMHO and still like a remote center to make decision for us. What does that tell you about the likelyhood of making progress on "Canadian" sovereingty? Canada will become sovereign the day the People and the provinces act in a truly sovereign way. Quebec has a lot to teach to the ROC in this matter as they are at least 30 years ahead: e.g. 1976 the PQ when first elected cleaned up the financing of its provincial political parties.

I still don't buy the logic that the US will "take us over" if heading toward People and provinces increased sovereignty. That is a bad colonial attitude.

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"We are all in this together somehow, some more than others somehow"

Why is the oil in Alberta all of Canada's, but the mineral wealth in Ontario and hydro-electric power in Quebec not?

And if Trudeau would had gotten his way, there would be one oil company operating in the tar sands - Petro Kanada, a Soviet-style operation run solely for the benefit of its Eastern masters, MacDonald-style mercantilism at its worst.