October 5, 2002

PUT A PILL IN HIM:

Death of Hussein fine, 31% of Canadians say (DOUG SAUNDERS, October 5, 2002, Globe and Mail)
Even as Parliament debates whether to support the United States in its efforts to unseat Saddam Hussein, a new poll reveals that a significant number of Canadians want to see the Iraqi leader come to a bloody end.

In the poll, conducted by Ekos Research for the CBC and to be broadcast tomorrow, 31 per cent of respondents said they would support the assassination of Mr. Hussein. The level of support rose to 48 per cent in Alberta, but was only 25 per cent in Quebec.

Men approved slightly more than women of deliberately killing Mr. Hussein--36 per cent to 28 per cent across the country.


Looks like Canada has Red Provinces and Blue Provinces, eh? Posted by Orrin Judd at October 5, 2002 11:17 AM
Comments

I've always thought Alberta would make a fine 51st state, and Calgary a fine northern complement to Houston as the oil cities of the United States. :)

Posted by: Kevin Whited at October 5, 2002 1:46 PM

Orrin:

Not quite. There's always been a difference between Quebec and the rest of the provinces. Quebec has always had an ambivalent military tradition after the Conquest of 1763. Sam Hughes- the Defense minister ofthe First word war squandered a major opportunity to integrate fully the French Canadians in the military. Since the end of WW II, Quebec went through the Quiet revolution during the 60s so a lot of the anti-militarism that exists come from that time period (though the conscription crises of 1917 and '44 also played a role in hardening somewhat Quebec attitudes)

Another importnat factor is that until the late 60's to get ahead in the military, you had to speak English. As most Francophones didn't, they were over representated in the infantry and underrepresented in the specialist fields. The Francophones were practically zero in the navy as it was viewed as the most anglophile- thus the most hostile- to Francophones

Promotions were also a source of friction again because of the lack of English as well as the inability to learn technical knowledge because classes weren't given in French.

Don't get me wrong there are many Francophone units with pround traditions and honourable service but they're not celebrated within Quebec with the same passion as the other provinces with their units.

xavier

Posted by: xavier at October 5, 2002 4:33 PM

Anglophone Canada's a lot like the northern tier of the US. The Maritimes are New England left, with the RINOesque Conservatives doing well there.



Ontario's a lot like New York.



Saskatawan and Manitoba are a lot like the Dakotas, red state country with a occasional flirtation with a prairie left-populists.



Alberta's a lot like Montana and Idaho-serious red-state land and the heartland of the Alliance Party.



BC's a lot like Washington State-leans left but with sane pockets of conservatism.

Posted by: Mark Byron at October 5, 2002 4:42 PM

Maybe geography is destiny after all.



What about Nunavit?

Posted by: oj at October 5, 2002 4:54 PM

You will have to reverse the colours: the Liberal colour is red, while the Progressive Conservatives use blue, the New Democratic Party is orange, and the Canadian Alliance makes do with blue&green. And then there are the Red Tories such as Joe Clark ...



Cheers

Posted by: J.M. Heinrichs at October 5, 2002 7:07 PM

Way to go Kevin!



Who gets to be the 52nd State? British Columbia?

Posted by: Patrick at October 5, 2002 8:15 PM
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