Quote:
Sun, September 11, 2005
Time for some radical moves
By Ted Byfield
Paul Martin, if he hews to a tried and true Liberal formula, will call an election, probably in the New Year, in which his Liberals will portray themselves as representing the interests of Canada, against the Tories who represent the interests of the Alberta "oil barons."
These will be the same oil barons who, he will say, are pocketing untold zillions of dollars from gasoline prices running in the range of $1.50 a litre, a price that may already be throwing thousands of Ontarians out of work.
The election will be a response to the bald theft by Ottawa of Alberta resource revenues, probably disguised (as my editor Licia Corbella intelligently foresees) as a "carbon tax."
Its purpose, Martin will say, is to enable Canada to meet its environmental responsibilities and to enable Alberta to "share" its soaring oil and gas revenues with the rest of the country.
Alberta will resist the bill ferociously, and on that pretext Martin will "let the people decide," by calling an election in which he will sweep Ontario and win.
Once in federal hands, the Alberta money will be used to prop up Ontario and Quebec manufacturing industries against competition from China.
Since such an endeavour is futile, those industries will collapse anyway, and the temporary advantage provided by our natural resources will be lost to both Canada and Alberta.
So what can Albertans do about this? I think we can do two things:
First, we must quickly develop programs of research and technology that will put Canada in the forefront of the world, and we should use the undoubted billions that will accrue to this province --the revenues Martin wants to steal -- to carry out that program.
We should design it so that it will be centred, not only in Alberta, but in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia as well.
We should describe this initiative, not as a plan to enrich Alberta, but as a plan to enable Canada to meet the competition that Asia is already offering, a competition which will soon overwhelm us, if we do not act to meet it.
So the federal election should become one of the Martin plan for Canada versus the Alberta plan for Canada, stressing that the Alberta plan seeks to build, where the Martin plan seeks to prop up.
He is trying to prolong the past.
We are preparing for the future.
When Martin, echoing last month's Courchene Report, declares that the Alberta plan would cause a massive shift in the Canadian population from East to West, we should reply that it will be no more massive than was the shift that went on, through most of the 20th Century, in the opposite direction.
But at the same time, we should make something else very clear, namely this: The Alberta vision does not require ratification from Ottawa.
If Canada rejects it -- that is, if the Liberals win the election with the customary huge majority from Ontario -- then we should forget all about Canada and with precisely the same economic assumptions, advance the Alberta plan to Albertans.
This would not take very long.
I think much of the present provincial Conservative caucus would support it, enough perhaps to turn the provincial government in its favour -- or, if not, to defeat the government after a caucus walk-out, and bring about an immediate provincial election with the Alberta program the sole issue.
If the Alberta program carried the election, the next step would be right behind it -- a referendum under the Clarity Act, with the question indisputably clear.
We're proposing to go it alone. Since Canada doesn't want Alberta, then Alberta doesn't want Canada.
It's that simple.
If Alberta pulled out, where would that leave B.C.?
The choice would soon become clear -- either join the U.S. as a Pacific coast state, or join Alberta.
How soon before Saskatchewan and Manitoba followed?
The role of prairie hinterland to an impaired Canada would not remain attractive very long.
All these eventualities should be laid before the people of Ontario in the coming election.
If they give us the usual answer -- that they prefer the crooks to the Westerners -- then the hour of decision will be upon us.
It will be then or never.
Radical?
You bet!
But has anybody got a better idea?
Sun, September 11, 2005
Time for some radical moves
By Ted Byfield
Paul Martin, if he hews to a tried and true Liberal formula, will call an election, probably in the New Year, in which his Liberals will portray themselves as representing the interests of Canada, against the Tories who represent the interests of the Alberta "oil barons."
These will be the same oil barons who, he will say, are pocketing untold zillions of dollars from gasoline prices running in the range of $1.50 a litre, a price that may already be throwing thousands of Ontarians out of work.
The election will be a response to the bald theft by Ottawa of Alberta resource revenues, probably disguised (as my editor Licia Corbella intelligently foresees) as a "carbon tax."
Its purpose, Martin will say, is to enable Canada to meet its environmental responsibilities and to enable Alberta to "share" its soaring oil and gas revenues with the rest of the country.
Alberta will resist the bill ferociously, and on that pretext Martin will "let the people decide," by calling an election in which he will sweep Ontario and win.
Once in federal hands, the Alberta money will be used to prop up Ontario and Quebec manufacturing industries against competition from China.
Since such an endeavour is futile, those industries will collapse anyway, and the temporary advantage provided by our natural resources will be lost to both Canada and Alberta.
So what can Albertans do about this? I think we can do two things:
First, we must quickly develop programs of research and technology that will put Canada in the forefront of the world, and we should use the undoubted billions that will accrue to this province --the revenues Martin wants to steal -- to carry out that program.
We should design it so that it will be centred, not only in Alberta, but in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia as well.
We should describe this initiative, not as a plan to enrich Alberta, but as a plan to enable Canada to meet the competition that Asia is already offering, a competition which will soon overwhelm us, if we do not act to meet it.
So the federal election should become one of the Martin plan for Canada versus the Alberta plan for Canada, stressing that the Alberta plan seeks to build, where the Martin plan seeks to prop up.
He is trying to prolong the past.
We are preparing for the future.
When Martin, echoing last month's Courchene Report, declares that the Alberta plan would cause a massive shift in the Canadian population from East to West, we should reply that it will be no more massive than was the shift that went on, through most of the 20th Century, in the opposite direction.
But at the same time, we should make something else very clear, namely this: The Alberta vision does not require ratification from Ottawa.
If Canada rejects it -- that is, if the Liberals win the election with the customary huge majority from Ontario -- then we should forget all about Canada and with precisely the same economic assumptions, advance the Alberta plan to Albertans.
This would not take very long.
I think much of the present provincial Conservative caucus would support it, enough perhaps to turn the provincial government in its favour -- or, if not, to defeat the government after a caucus walk-out, and bring about an immediate provincial election with the Alberta program the sole issue.
If the Alberta program carried the election, the next step would be right behind it -- a referendum under the Clarity Act, with the question indisputably clear.
We're proposing to go it alone. Since Canada doesn't want Alberta, then Alberta doesn't want Canada.
It's that simple.
If Alberta pulled out, where would that leave B.C.?
The choice would soon become clear -- either join the U.S. as a Pacific coast state, or join Alberta.
How soon before Saskatchewan and Manitoba followed?
The role of prairie hinterland to an impaired Canada would not remain attractive very long.
All these eventualities should be laid before the people of Ontario in the coming election.
If they give us the usual answer -- that they prefer the crooks to the Westerners -- then the hour of decision will be upon us.
It will be then or never.
Radical?
You bet!
But has anybody got a better idea?
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