Why are so many BC'ers anti-Albertan?
Thanos @ Tue Dec 18, 2018 4:54 pm
Yeah. Alberta is considered to be hardcore "right wing" by the rest of the country so that leaves the federal government open to all the left-wing tactics at it's disposal when they feel the need to try to nuke us again. They come in the guises of "you need to share more" and "environmental catastrophe in the making" most of the time. Both are absolute lies but they're still going to use them as weapons anyway.
Individualist @ Tue Dec 18, 2018 5:39 pm
Thanos Thanos:
Yeah. Alberta is considered to be hardcore "right wing" by the rest of the country so that leaves the federal government open to all the left-wing tactics at it's disposal when they feel the need to try to nuke us again. They come in the guises of "you need to share more" and "environmental catastrophe in the making" most of the time. Both are absolute lies but they're still going to use them as weapons anyway.
If the oil had been under Quebec, do you think there would be a problem with any infrastructure required to leverage that resource? Or talk of a carbon tax? Climate change wouldn’t have been that big a deal if it were the Quebec oilsands.
If a fountain of youth had been discovered in Alberta, the federal Liberals would have at first attempted to nationalize it and funnel the proceeds from it eastward or, failing that, raised an alarm about the looming threat of overpopulation and attempted to have it buried in concrete for the sake of the planet.
Thanos @ Tue Dec 18, 2018 5:44 pm
I'm still waiting for a big cheque for my portion of profits from Hydro Quebec that they're supposed to share with the rest of the country. 
herbie @ Tue Dec 18, 2018 7:18 pm
Individualist Individualist:
Thanos Thanos:
I agree with most of this. The foundational structure of this country will always engage in a reactionary defense of itself, even if having another center of political and economic strength elsewhere in the country is to the obvious advantage of everyone, even if just in terms of the revenue it generates. No different than anywhere else in the world where the entrenched elite and neo-nobility automatically crushes anything that might challenge their unquestionable rule over the mass.
Much of the history of Canada can be summarized as “old money defending itself against new money” and old money elites embracing left-of-centre politics as a way of pulling the ladder up behind them in terms of wealth acquisition.
Old money doesn't really care about left or right. Old money knows they get more grant money from Tories because that's what they are.
Never any actual fixes, but at least 'other people' don't get any grant money.
Individualist @ Wed Dec 19, 2018 6:13 am
Thanos Thanos:
I'm still waiting for a big cheque for my portion of profits from Hydro Quebec that they're supposed to share with the rest of the country.
Yeah, convenient how the rules were rigged so that renewable resources weren’t subject to wealth redistribution. Funny how the “You just lucked out living on top of a bunch of oil. Hard work my ass.” logic is never applied to those natural endowments that benefited Central Canada, be they the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway or a geography suitable for hydroelectric power generation.
Harper really screwed up when he talked about a “culture of defeat” in the Maritimes. Culture had nothing to do with it. They were simply defeated, a long time ago, by the forebears of the same elites who are now targeting the prairies. The dependency of the Maritime provinces on Central Canada wasn’t by accident, but by design. Circumstances simply made the job easier than is the case now with the prairies. But the end game is the same, to reduce the prairie provinces to mere colonies of Ontario. Quebec supports this because Quebecers wish to preserve the myth of Quebec being half of Canada, and colonies of Ontario don’t count in that math.
BC is largely exempted from this program of colonialization, probably because it’s too far away and too much part of an integrated Pacific economy to bring to heel easily. Besides, much of the population of that province (at least in Vancouver) has bought into and actively promotes the Laurentian agenda, largely out of a need to feel superior to this prairie folk on the other side of the mountains.
The basic arrangement being offered to Alberta is “Let us control the country, including your region, politically and economically, and we’ll give you all the welfare you need. If you have any resource wealth sitting under you, let us take care of that. Owning a resource constitutionally won’t feed your families if we don’t let you bring it to market. Just sit back and keep your mouths shut and we’ll make sure none of you go hungry or without shelter. We’ll even let you call yourself Canadians, even if our PM occasionally forgets about you on Canada Day. Deal?”
bootlegga @ Wed Dec 19, 2018 7:42 am
Individualist Individualist:
If the oil had been under Quebec, do you think there would be a problem with any infrastructure required to leverage that resource?
If quebec owned the oilsands, it would either be run slightly better than Venezuala's oil industry or it would have been developed by another province, which Quebec would have then screwed with a deal promising Qubeckers free oil for the next 100 years.
Individualist Individualist:
Or talk of a carbon tax? Climate change wouldn’t have been that big a deal if it were the Quebec oilsands.
No, the oilsands would be boycotted and campaigned against no matter where in Canada they were for two reasons:
1. That campaign is driven by ENGOs from outside Canada who just want to stop it from getting to tidewater.
2. Given that it's in US interests to keep it in the ground, it would have been undercut or marginalized some way, which would allow them to take market share away with their fracked oil.
bootlegga @ Wed Dec 19, 2018 7:45 am
Thanos Thanos:
I'm still waiting for a big cheque for my portion of profits from Hydro Quebec that they're supposed to share with the rest of the country.
That's one reason they sell their electricity for pennies on the dollar - to avoid getting dinged in equalization payments.
I sure hope I'm alive in 2041 when the deal for Muskrat Falls comes to an end - Quebeckers will finally have to pay going market rates for electricity instead of havingtheir neighbours subsidize it for them.
The schadenfruede from their squeals of pain will be thoroughly enjoyed in both Alberta and Newfoundland.
herbie @ Wed Dec 19, 2018 11:53 am
Well BC waited years to benefit from the Columbia dams, only to see California pay market rates, default on it and get away with it. Shit happens.
And it's about time to let this thread and all the other "anti-Alberta" whining ones to die.
Individualist @ Wed Dec 19, 2018 1:36 pm
Individualist Individualist:
Justin doesn’t need Alberta oil revenue because he and Butts literally believe that you can generate a successful economy purely on government spending and boutique industries like green energy and, uh, sticky green.
Oops, better hope the sticky green pays off...
https://business.financialpost.com/opin ... ssion=true