Western alienation

[Guinness Stout]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1123588600678_121?s_name=&no_ads=

Ya, I know it was a poll done by an Alliance supporter, but even still just over a third of Westerners supported the idea of looking into seperation.

While I am not a supporter of seperation, I do think we should explore the possibility, even if it is only "saber-rattling". It seems to work for Quebec. Maybe we'd even wake up Ottawa and they'd pay attention for a change.

What are your opinions? I was born/raised back east, but I've been out here a long time and my perception is that Ottawa really can't see past Ontario/Quebec.

cheers

 

[sdw]

If you are a Liberal leader and know that you only need the votes in Ontario and Quebec, why listen to anyone else? Every dollar that is spent trying to buy a vote in BC, can't be spent buying votes in Quebec.

The only option that the West has is seperation. There is nothing to stop us. They've made the Canadian Military into a laughing stock. They even have to hire a private company to provide planes to test HMCS Vancouver and HMCS Ottawa's antiaircraft defences during exercises. Have you ever seen a scuba diver become an enemy submarine? They can't use the submarines that Britian dumped on them because the Sub would stay submerged. No live fire because the budget doesn't even cover the cost of practice rounds.

 

[vancouverman]

They can't use the submarines that Britian dumped on them because the Sub would stay submerged.

hey ... wait a minute ... how about the one dock in New West .... so what that is a Russian... or the one from West Edmonton Mall .... we have subs .... all two ....

 

[BigEye]

hey ... wait a minute ... how about the one dock in New West .... so what that is a Russian... or the one from West Edmonton Mall .... we have subs .... all two ....

correction, v-man, West Edm Mall has 4 working subs ... the LARGEST existing Cdn fleet! Wonder if they'll hire out as mercineries if we're attacked .

 

[vancouverman]

thank BigE
never been there ..... but it is nice to hear our fleet is strong

 

[dexi]

Westerners have never understood the very simple concept of representation by population.

2/3 of the population of our country lives in 2 provinces. It stands to reason that the bulk of resources go to those provinces. Should the federal gov't dole out equal transfer payments to Ontario and Saskatchewan?

Western alienation is a divisive device used by politicians in an attempt to gain or maintain power. It's not easy to convince your constituents that everything is fine. It's easier to convince them that there are big problems and that Ottawa's to blame. It's a great trick, it's works whether you're the encumbent or not. "Western alienation" is your leaders' way of preying on your gullibility and ignorance so you won't punish them for their own mistakes and mismanagement.

If the country broke off west of Ontario, the Manitobans after a few self-satisfied years would start complaining about Eastern Alienation.

 

[LonelyGhost]

If the country broke off west of Ontario, the Manitobans after a few self-satisfied years would start complaining about Eastern Alienation.

... most of the population in sask and manitoba is so old that scientists figure in a few years they can import animals from africa to populate the prairies ...

 

[dirtydan]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1123588600678_121?s_name=&no_ads=

Ya, I know it was a poll done by an Alliance supporter, but even still just over a third of Westerners supported the idea of looking into seperation.

While I am not a supporter of seperation, I do think we should explore the possibility, even if it is only "saber-rattling". It seems to work for Quebec. Maybe we'd even wake up Ottawa and they'd pay attention for a change.

What are your opinions? I was born/raised back east, but I've been out here a long time and my perception is that Ottawa really can't see past Ontario/Quebec.

cheers

First of all "western alienation" is by in far a product of the Conservatives (PC's, Socreds, Reform, Alliance, and now the new Tory party) crying in their beer of not getting their way. Canada is a huge country and very obvious one region or another has felt it has been wronged in some manner.

Second, it is truly amazing to see those that scream the loudest when damning the seperatist movement in Quebec to be scheming for the their seperatist movement. How in hell can some far right schmuck be foaming at the mouth calling for Quebec seperatists to be treated as traitors and be advocating the seperation of the West from the rest of Canada? Would that make him a traitor as well by their own definition. Perhaps not being of French ancestory makes treason something to cherish?

Third, those that trumpet "western alienation" all too often forget that a seperate west would be dictated by power levers in Alberta.

Fourth, why in climb into the same bed that been soiled by the likes of Jim Keegstra, Elmer Knudson and a host of other right-wing crackpots?

Fifth, time to pull out the Travellers' CD and listen to "This Land Is Your Land".

 

[luckydog71]

Western Canada has no political power and no economic power.

Federal elections are decided by the time 8:00PM hits the Ont. Man border. With only minor exception Western Canada business community is made up of branch offices that take direction from Central Canada.

I do not know if rail is still subsidized. But freight shipments from east to west were subsidized, but not the other way. On the face of it, it sounds good for western consumers. It is not. It encourages manufacturing to concentrate in the east. Even during the privatization of Air Canada there was a stipulation that the head office must remain in Quebec.

The west is a resource rich area and it should have lots of economic clout based on that fact alone. During the oil crises in the late 70’s Alberta was force to take less than fair market price for its oil that went to eastern Canada.

There are hundreds of examples and the west is more like a colony of Upper and Lower Canada than it is an equal partner in confederation.

In the US, it is not much better. The western states have very low populations in comparison to the eastern states. Western states are also much larger in area, so even the senate is controlled by the east.

There has been talk for years of a new country called Cascadia…

I think this is a great idea, but it will never fly. The west on both sides of the 49th does not have the political leaders that can bring such an idea to life.

Such a country with Alaska and Alberta and maybe even Saskatchewan, would be a power house in the world. It would be the gateway to Asia Pacific for what remained of Canada and the US. It would have the natural resources and food supply to make it self sufficient and likely a net exporter.

I have heard rumblings about this for years but it has never got more than a few radicals to support the idea. I can not imagine this will be any different.

 

[dirtydan]

Westerners have never understood the very simple concept of representation by population.

I'll take offence to that. What you are playing on is the same idiotic perception those Tories have inflicted on the West for a great many decades. That being we westerners are all good little Tory voters that give no thought to the way we vote.

Quite frankly a goodly amount of Westerners have no love for the Tories. In fact look around the West and you are likely find the bulk of the voters don't vote Tory.

2/3 of the population of our country lives in 2 provinces. It stands to reason that the bulk of resources go to those provinces. Should the federal gov't dole out equal transfer payments to Ontario and Saskatchewan?

The House of Commons should be based largely on 2 considerations: one the population of the country and the country's geographical size.

Western alienation is a divisive device used by politicians in an attempt to gain or maintain power. It's not easy to convince your constituents that everything is fine. It's easier to convince them that there are big problems and that Ottawa's to blame. It's a great trick, it's works whether you're the encumbent or not. "Western alienation" is your leaders' way of preying on your gullibility and ignorance so you won't punish them for their own mistakes and mismanagement.

Meanwhile those on the Right castigate voters in Ontario. Kind of hard to gain seats in a province where one's party and its supporters are hateful towards the voters. No wonder the Liberals have kept such control over Ontario.

If the country broke off west of Ontario, the Manitobans after a few self-satisfied years would start complaining about Eastern Alienation.

YUP!

More spefically "western alienation" is the crying of Alberat Tories, who in turn want to tightly control everything. So in a seperate West, Edmonton would be seen the same way as many people negatively view Toronto. In other words "western alienation" is DICTATED to the rest of the west by Alberta Conservatives.

Best thing to is to tell them to go fuck themselves!

 

[dirtydan]

Western Canada has no political power and no economic power.

Bullshit. There are over 70 seats from the West in the Commons. That is a very significant block. As for economic power, gees ever look at the economies of the 4 western provinces lately?

Federal elections are decided by the time 8:00PM hits the Ont. Man border. With only minor exception Western Canada business community is made up of branch offices that take direction from Central Canada.

Another bullshit issue. Look where the bulk of the Canadian population is. Of course there are going to be more seats in Ontario and Quebec. And look at the freakin' size of the country. There is what 5 or 6 time zones? Really LD what is the difference if you add 1+3 or 3+1, the outcome is still going to be the same.

I do not know if rail is still subsidized. But freight shipments from east to west were subsidized, but not the other way. On the face of it, it sounds good for western consumers. It is not. It encourages manufacturing to concentrate in the east. Even during the privatization of Air Canada there was a stipulation that the head office must remain in Quebec.

Are you thinking of the Crow Rate? That was done away with in the early 1980's and too much protest from farmers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The Crow was replaced by the Western Transportation Subsidy, which in turn was dismantled the Tories and Liberals back in the 90's. Funny, the farmers were awfully quiet the second time around.

The west is a resource rich area and it should have lots of economic clout based on that fact alone. During the oil crises in the late 70’s Alberta was force to take less than fair market price for its oil that went to eastern Canada.

Blame a conservative and short-sighted constitution for that which wrongly allocated natural resources to the provinces. The resources of a country, should be just that, of the country. For all of Canada's oil there is NO reason why we cannot be self sufficient in oil and still export. IMHO, we should be a member of OPEC instead of buying Middle East oil so that US gets "subsidized" oil from Canada.

There are hundreds of examples and the west is more like a colony of Upper and Lower Canada than it is an equal partner in confederation.

Then feel free to name a few dozen since there are hundreds.

 

[tongue]

Has anyone ever applied for funding from the Western Economic Diversification Fund? Impossible nearly. However much easier to get funding from the government's Atlantic Opportunites Fund. You can even get funding from Atlantic to attend foreign trade conventions in luxury hotels.

BC is getting a raw deal.

 

[noneasgood]

The concept of Western Alienation is to vague to take seriously in my opinion.

For starters we in the west have nothing to complain about. B.C. and Vancouver in particular, is one of the best places in the world to live.

Alberta is debt free and has more money than it knows what to do with. Seriously, they don't know whether they should consider giving their citizens an annual dividend, like they do in Alaska, or cut taxes even further. There's even talk about eliminating corporate taxes. Meanwhile Ontario, and Quebec in particular, are in debt up to their eyeballs on a per capital basis. But regardless of these factors you can't change the demographics a great deal. The largest Canadian markets will always be there and the largest U.S. markets will always be close by. For obvious reasons manufacturers prefer to be close to their markets..seperation wouldn't change the economics of this, unless we were prepared to permanently subsidize the transportation of their goods.

Politically, what does this mean?

Well the votes are in the east and increasingly the money is in the west.

And since there's only two national parties to choose from, both of whom are remarkingly similar, it doesn't mean much.

What's the alternative? Seperate and you likely have Gordon Cambell leading the new country because BC has more citizens than the rest of the three provinces and the Yukon if they happened to join in.

Even if it's not him, but someone else, could we manage the fisheries better..maybe, maybe not..could we support our own armed forces? Doubtful.

It might even end up being the case of the Who song.."meet the new boss..same as the old boss"


I haven't seen anything to suggest BC polititians (think fast ferries) have superior management skills compared to Ottawa. Alberta might come out ahead for awhile since it pays equalization payments, but first one has to decide the purpose of separation.

Is it about money? Is it about a desire to have more power? Is it because we don't like the direction our country is heading in?

I personally don't think any of these would be answered yes.

If it's about money, Alberta might end up in a situation where it's subsidizing Manitobia or Saskatchewan.

If it's about power, power for what purpose? what changes are being proposed and are these changes better than the status quo?

If it's about where the country is headed: what's an alternate course?

What about world issues?

Currently we're part of the G7 (or G8, if you include Russia) and technically we're lucky to even be part of that since we're not in the top 7-8 countries economically. Then you have NATO commitments, a weaker voice in the UN and on it goes.

Would we have more influence to our neighbours down south, if we were split into two or three parts? Undoubtably not.

So because of all these factors, most of which are negative, this issue isn't going anywhere.

And besides, we may have more elephants than people in Saskatchewan in the next hundred years..

 

[Maury Beniowski]

Excellent and well-reasoned points noneasgood. However, geopolitical upheavals don't always follow the most logical path, but rather are triggered by irrational emotions, regional disparities - even contrived ones and the illusion of comfort sought through momentary anarchy.

Oh yes, I forgot... Political Opportunism (probably the biggest one)

 

[smackyo]

Westerners have never understood the very simple concept of representation by population.

2/3 of the population of our country lives in 2 provinces. It stands to reason that the bulk of resources go to those provinces. Should the federal gov't dole out equal transfer payments to Ontario and Saskatchewan?

Western alienation is a divisive device used by politicians in an attempt to gain or maintain power. It's not easy to convince your constituents that everything is fine. It's easier to convince them that there are big problems and that Ottawa's to blame. It's a great trick, it's works whether you're the encumbent or not. "Western alienation" is your leaders' way of preying on your gullibility and ignorance so you won't punish them for their own mistakes and mismanagement.

If the country broke off west of Ontario, the Manitobans after a few self-satisfied years would start complaining about Eastern Alienation.

exactly, the whole concept is bullshit. the more the people in power can keep us divided the longer they stay in power. people in favour of this, wake the fuck up!