Alberta Bound

Let’s see…Leader of a debt ridden, corruption plagued political party whose years in the wilderness may only just have begun or Premier of the richest province in Canada.

If Jim Dinning wins the leadership of the Conservative Party in Alberta there is a fairly good chance that Alberta will rub along in Confederation, a bit resentful of the dollars flying off to support the nation of Quebec and the rest of the Canadas; but predictable, safe and not likely to rock the boat. Think Peter Lougheed/Don Getty.

If Ted Morton wins? He’s being painted as a socon which is not, looking at his record and platform, strictly true. But, more important than his allegedly socon views, Morton is a radical. In fact he is just the sort of radical who could take Alberta out of any number of federal programs like the CPP and the Canada Health Act. Along with the now Prime Minister, Morton signed the “firewall letter“.

While our Liberal friends duck the debate on what they could possibly have meant with the “nation” resolution and discuss who is electable in Quebec and Ontario, Morton will be putting the organization he helped develop for the Reform Party to work to bring out the vote on Saturday. At this instant it is still, apparently, possible to register to vote in the second round and it is a pretty good bet that Morton’s people will be combing the division roads of rural Alberta for every last vote.

Which ever of the Fab Four is elected in Montreal will seem remarkably insignificant if Ted Morton emerges as the Premier of Alberta. Klein talked a good game but, push to shove, would collapse in the face of the Feds; Morton is made of sterner stuff. “Maitres de chez nous” is not a foreign concept to Ted Morton but it may come as a bit of a surprise to the Editorial Board of the Globe and Mail. (The Editorial Board of the Toronto Star will, of course, greet news of Morton’s election by stuffing Kleenex in its ears and running in circles yelling “We can’t hear you.” over and over for the duration of Premier Morton’s tenure.)

Written by jay on November 29th, 2006 with 3 comments.
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Freefall

To be an English Canadian, by contrast, is to be a stranded colonist, floating untethered on the plane of human varieties. Our ties of continuity with the past were cut in the hope that the French would cooperate and drift toward us; it is indeed terrible to contemplate the betrayal of that hope and our consequent state–so terrible, in fact, that Coyne can write that “[Quebeckers] have as much or more in common with other Canadians as they do with each other” and not even recognize that he has been driven totally round the bend by horror vacui. colby cosh

Colby neglects to mention that, as well as having the ties to the Anglo Canadian past severed, we have also had the endless, relativist, politically correct delights of multi-culturalism paraded as the ideology of the enlightened. Which has not been quite as pleasant as the pundits predicted.

Written by jay on November 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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Brave Liberals, Men of Courage….

A day after the House of Commons passed a Conservative motion to recognize the Québécois as a nation, the federal Liberals say they will not debate the contentious issue.

Liberal leadership candidates had been squabbling over their own motion, which was expected to be a flashpoint at this weekend’s party convention in Montreal.

William Hogg and Marc Belanger, who launched the move to discuss the Québécois nationhood motion at a meeting of Quebec Liberals in October, said the motion removed the need to discuss the issue.

“We have other important issues facing this country to discuss,” Hogg said Tuesday, citing Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan, the Kyoto Protocol and the country’s fiscal imbalance as priorities for the convention.” cbc

The last thing the Liberals - or at least the Iggy/Rae end of the party - want is an actual debate on the floor of the convention. No matter that the nation (er, the Canadian “sea to shining sea” nation) has been convulsed with this debate for the last two weeks and that Iggy, more or less, started it. Let’s talk about something else, please; just change the subject.

I have to bet that the great and the good in the Liberal party have been reading the polls and realize that “Quebec is a nation” is clobbering the Grits outside Quebec (and doing very little to help inside La Belle Nation).

However, like most things in politics this decision cuts a lot of different ways. First,it kicks the chair out from under Kennedy’s run as a man dedicated to the “One Canada”, the sentimental favorite of Trudeau era Grits. Second, it palms yet another card for Iggy who no longer needs to be both for and against “Quebec nationhood”. I am inclined to think it is a push for Rae and Dion; but by screwing Kennedy it makes it more likely that the Dion run up the middle might work.

The one thing which is certain is that Canadians are not going to given a clue where the Liberal Party stands on the Quebec “nation” question or the more interesting question of who might be counted as the citizens/members of such a nation.

Written by jay on November 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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