July 12, 2005
NAH, JUST GET BETSY SOME THREAD (via Robert Schwartz):
Time for Alberta to exit, stage right? (LINK BYFIELD, July 9, 2005, Calgary Sun)
A University of Alberta professor I know sent me a lengthy article he's trying to get published, entitled: "Let's get while the getting's good."In it, Leon Craig, professor emeritus of political science, lays out a case for Alberta to declare unilateral independence. And he lays it out well. Craig makes no bones about it. Alberta, he says, should go it alone.
Almost overnight, we would become one of the most prosperous nations in the world. But -- and this is his key point -- the main reason to secede is not because Albertans would have more money. Not that there's anything wrong with money.
More importantly, we would create a country that reflects our own political and social beliefs, values and traditions, and our understanding of the common good. Canada, says Craig, has been so badly governed since the Trudeau era, it has doomed itself to a Third World, banana republic fate. We will become -- are in fact becoming -- the Argentina of the 21st century.
Political corruption gets rewarded instead of punished, productivity slides, and the opportunistic politics of envy becomes the basis of our whole system of national government. The only promising place left in Canada, he concludes, is Alberta. And Alberta owes it to itself, to its future citizens, and to like-minded people in the rest of the country to save itself.
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 12, 2005 12:02 PM
Hey, it worked for Texas...
Posted by: Timothy at July 12, 2005 4:17 PMSince it is landlocked, it really can't go it alone. Independence from Canada would mean pretty much immediate union with its biggest trading partner, the US.
Alberta is quite different from the Canada that has elected the Liberals. It has a strong evangelical Christian community that elects MPs and has elected its leaders to the provincial PM post. It is free-market oriented and forward-looking. And since it was such an open border for so long, over the last century or so, many people who came in through Ellis Island ended up there as many people who entered the continent through Canada ended up in the West. Intermarriage is significant.
Posted by: bart at July 12, 2005 5:06 PMOne more major slap from the Federal Government, or the consistent re-election of the Fiberals by Ontario voters, and you will see the Alberta independence movement grow quickly. I am prepared to support them today.
Landlocked means nothing when you have that much oil and other natural resources. Remember that British Columbia will then be cut off from the rest of Canada - and that will spark interest about that ignored ocean province to become the new land known as ABC - Alberta & B.C. That would then provide the former with seaport access - and the wherewithall to develop the off-shore oil on B.C.'s coast that Ottawa presently forbids B.C. from developing.
Posted by: obc at July 12, 2005 11:14 PMobc,
The problem is that the seacoast of BC is if anything loonier than San Francisco and Seattle. They elected Svend Robinson, fer cryin' out loud.
Posted by: bart at July 13, 2005 8:36 AMWell, Svend is gone and I think we (meaning B.C.) would accommodate or join Alberta in a second.
Posted by: Randall Voth at July 13, 2005 9:57 AMBut they elect Bill Siksay in his place and they also elect some America-hating lesbian whose name escapes me for the moment.
Posted by: bart at July 14, 2005 9:35 AM