Thanos Thanos:
bootlegga bootlegga:
Thanos Thanos:
BTW, when I vote in the referendum I fully intend to vote "yes" to wanting the system changed simply because we DO get horribly ripped off by the current arrangement. How much I detest the UCP has no bearing on the basic structural unfairness of the current Canadian system. I don't expect anything to come from this but at least I'll say it out loud while I can.
I'll vote no or spoil my ballot, because this is stupid, petulant and childish.
All it does is cloud the issue and convince dumbasses that Alberta sends a big cheque to Ottawa every year, when that isn't the case.
I don't disagree with your feelings on this. It is a waste of time, but that's only because it won't change a thing.
I could care less about anyone who thinks that a massive withdrawal is taken out of the provincial treasury by Ottawa. We know it doesn't work that way, that Albertans simply pay higher income tax because the wages earned are generally higher here. The point is that when Alberta has problems, especially the severe ones we've had since 2015, Ottawa shouldn't drag it's feet as much as it can before sending assistance, or outright rejecting any help at all from the outset. Yes, I know the province is self-sabotaging far too often, like with Kenney leaving half a billion in federal COVID aid for businesses just sitting there because he can't bring himself to ever thanking the feds for literally anything. All I'm saying is that for all our own fuck ups Ottawa still isn't the good guy in this. Their help comes too few and far between.
For all of my adult years Ottawa has been just as hostile towards Alberta as Alberta has been towards them. And when the Liberals are in power that hostility is done deliberately, because regional fighting and favouritism is and always has been their main route to securing enough votes in Central Canada to get into power. This is the Canadian reality, and that will not change no matter how pissed off you or I are at our own provincial government at any given moment.
Sometimes there's no good guy in a fight. Sometimes it's just a scrap between two equally awful assholes.
PS: look at it from the perspective that this could really blow up in Kenney's face too - if a strong majority votes in the referendum against any re-arrangement or re-negotiating equalization with the feds, or re-opening constitutional talks to revise it, then that's another Kenney botch right there; he won't be able to run away from a crushing referendum defeat, in a vote he himself called for, in the same the way he can by dismissing polling with another rant about how the pollsters are federal Liberal allies or agents that are "always biased against conservative voices"; I'd say that the odds are 50/50 that the referendum could be just another loss for his already winless season, this season-from-hell that began when Albertans were desperate and foolish to buy into his bullshit routine and vote him in as premier.
Yeah, I get where you're coming from, and while I agree Albertans contribute disproportionately to the country because of our higher wages, the problem is as you pointed out - too many here simply cannot say thank you to a Liberal because of something a now dead Liberal PM did 40 years ago (although I distinctly remember lots of anti-Liberal sentiment even before the NEP).
My Dad loved saying, "The only good thing from the East is the road coming West." Just thinking that still makes me chuckle.
Don't get me wrong, I completely understand the anger over the NEP - my parents almost lost our house a couple times in the early 80s because of it and the economic downturn that followed. It fucked over Alberta and the province suffered its effects for most of a decade, so that anger is rightly placed, but also it was 40 years ago and we've had at least two booms since then, so it's time to let it go IMHO.
The way I see it, Alberta is the proverbial case of biting the hand that feeds you, because no matter what a Liberal-run federal government does, it's never good enough. From Klein to Kenney, conservative Alberta Premiers have railed against Ottawa over something because it is popular with the rubes here.
Signed the Kyoto Agreement? Fuck you, why should we care about dinosaur farts?
When the rest of Canada asked why we didn't save more during all those booms? Because Ottawa would have stolen it, that's why!
Buy the TMX pipeline? Not good enough, you cancelled two other pipelines.
Pay more than a billion to clean up orphan wells? Nope, it's your goddamned fault they're orphan wells in the first place and has nothing to do with our lax environmental/business laws.
How dare they not give us Cabinet representation when we didn't vote Liberal? I mean really, WTF?!?
I could go on and on, but NOTHING the Liberals ever do is good enough, and so the majority here keeps voting Con blue and then keep acting surprised when the federal government ignores us (although that also happened when Harper was in charge too because our vote was in the bag no matter what he did).
I'll agree the federal Liberals are certainly not 'the good guy' in the equation here, but they are generally altruistic and when we vote for them, we get perks for doing so - there was lots of investment here in the 90s when we still had Liberal MPs (and Cabinet members) in Alberta.
Instead, we keep shooting ourselves in the foot and then bitch that the federal Liberals won't give us a band-aid for our self-inflicted wound.
The fact is Alberta is our own worst enemy when it comes to dealing with the federal government, no matter who is in office.
P.S. Even though I would love to see it, Kenney won't lose that vote because there too many rednecks here who are convinced that Ottawa is robbing us blind and will vote 'YES'. It's the same with those ridiculous Senate 'elections' we have every decade or so - the slate is mostly far right conservatives who won't get appointed by the federal Liberals, which provides yet more rocket fuel for the Ottawa hate crowd here. On that note, I've thought if someone ran as a progressive and had a big enough campaign budget, they could probably win and actually have a chance of getting selected.
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