CIVITATENSIS

Last night, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach addressed the province in an 18-minute pre-recorded, televised video. It was entitled “The Way Forward.”

One has to wonder about the timing of the address, two days before the Wildrose Alliance pick their new leader (to be announced this coming  Saturday), and a few weeks before he faces a leadership-review vote in his own party.  The key component in the mix is that he is rapidly sliding down in popularity among voters.

So, he wanted to give an economic update, which to me sounded more like a Speech from the Throne, filled with general platitudes. If that were all he was trying to achieve, and he didn’t do badly at that,  he would have given that speech in the Legislature and not on prime time.

The choice of prime time TV seems clear.  On this score, the video was a failure if its aim was to make him look better to the voters.  To be fair to the premier, image-wise he was not terrible and he had the courage to come out in public, so to speak. Those who already like Stelmach and continue to like him are not going to find much cause to dislike him after watching the video.  So, at least he’s keeping the audience he possesses. But there was not much there that would endear him to those who already dislike him or are seriously questioning his abilities –a number that seems to be fast increasing.

Yeah, he wants to do all he can to make sure the economy is on track. But the gorilla in the room was the question in the minds of most Albertans: How come Saskatchewan in doing so well? There is no way he was going to touch on that. But Albertans know.

Insofar as the address did little to stop the loss of popularity (I’m sure that the polls will attest to this in the next couple of days), it should be considered a failure. He’s still going to get thru the leadership review fairly well. But his own party is per se not the worry these days. It’s his shrinking  right flank.

The way forward does not seem that bright for the premier. It will seem worse when Danielle Smith wins the leadership of the Wildrose Alliance.  What would Stelmach look like next to Smith in front of cameras when all on his own he looked so wooden in well-rehearsed, pre-recorded footage that took three days to shoot?  Oh, I have to turn away from that image.  The way forward looks pretty tough for Eddy.

The country can breathe with some relief now that it has been announced: Stephane Dion will once again run to represent the good citizens of Saint-Laurent-Cartierville.  With Martin Cauchon returning and Dion staying, Michael Ignatieff can convincingly show that he is a leader capable of attracting new and vigorous blood to the Liberal Party.

Considering that Denis Coderre wanted Dion to disappear, this is a victory for the Cauchon Team.

The contest continues: It’s now Cauchon 3, Coderre 4.

I caught Michael Ignatieff saying on CTV that he “will give Quebeckers a choice.” He and Bob Rae already have done that, however: It’s Martin Cauchon (and the Chretienites) or Denis Coderre (and the Martinites). It’s Deja-vu.

Ignatieff also said that there is no need for a Quebec Lieutenant. Reportedly, he will run Quebec out of his Ontario riding office.  Gotta  hand it to the man. He has the power of conviction that any zealot would envy:  When he believes that led balloons will fly, he believes that led balloons will fly.

The contest continues: It’s still Cauchon 1, Coderre 3

Michael Ignatieff found out today that cutting people off at the knees, especially when they are your provincial lieutenant, is never a good thing.  But doubly so in Quebec, where Ignatieff’s decision to displace a woman candidate from the riding of Outremont in order to benefit Coderre’s political rival, Martin Cauchon, left Denis Coderre weak, and open to separatists accusations of spineless lackey.

This morning Denis Coderre quit his position as Quebec federal Liberal chieftain, giving a blow to Michael Ignatieff’s chances of bouncing in Quebec in the near future. In addition, the new lieutenant, whoever the Grits choose, will have to answer as to whether he can make local decisions on his own, or whether he will be a slave to Ignatieff’s indecisive will,  even when the leader’s decisions work against women in Quebec.

Should Ignatieff choose Martin Cauchon for the job Coderre has left vacant (one cannot put this eventuality past Ignatieff), we will no doubt soon assist to yet another round of the Liberal civil war in Quebec. Ignatieff has all the skills, what is more, to see the feud spread across the country. That’s not just wishful thinking on my part. That scenario, given that Bob Rae is already trying to get involved, is well within the political gifts of the national Liberal leader.

One might say that Ignatieff does not understand the political culture of Quebec. But this has little to do with how looooooooooong he has been out of the country. To displace a woman candidate so as to parachute a powerful male politician into a riding is only different from the Duplessis years in that there were no women candidates in the Duplessis years.

I predicted here that this was going to take the form a feud, but that’s easy to do because it already was a feud.  Count Ignatieff is a fool for getting in the middle of it.  Where is the Liberal messiah of Unity?

The contest continues: Cauchon 1, Coderre 3 (This was a three-pointer)

Martin Cauchon’s return to politics in Quebec broadsided a female Liberal candidate and plucked a few feathers off of Denis Coderre’s political headship for the Quebec Liberal party.

While Ignatieff got caught in the middle of the titanic egos of the two male Quebec politicians who have leadership ambitions, it was Nathalie Prohon that got pushed to the side to the lesser riding of Jeanne-Le-Ber instead of Outremont.  It’s the new expression of Liberal friendliness toward women in politics.

Coderre’s Facebook status yesterday called for sending Cauchon to the riding of Jeanne-Le-Ber and keeping prestigious Outremont for Prohon (”Sur ma recommandation et celle de notre equipe du Quebec. Michael Ignatieff a offert la circonscription de Jeanne-LeBer a Martin Cauchon. A suivre”).

But Denis Coderre lost the battle to sideline his rival. Coderre has not updated his status since yesterday, no doubt still perplex. As Quebec party chieftain, he expected to prevail but Ignatieff decided otherwise.

The contest has only begun: Cauchon 1, Coderre 0.

They said they’d split the vote and get a Liberal elected. That was the line that the Alberta ruling Tories circulated among the muses in the media, who immediately got to work repeating it. It excited the typical left-wing media that a “rural and right-wing” party was going to be responsible for sending another Liberal to Edmonton, but not just another Liberal: a Liberal from Calgary! Both right parties loose.

It seemed more than wishful thinking than reality, considering that polls in the riding revealed quite a different reality. They progressively showed the erosion of the Stelmach Tory vote while the Liberal second place in the last general election was not getting much traction.

On by-Election night, the results were clear: Wildrose more than quadrupled its vote from the previous contest in the general election of  March 2008.  The government’s numbers plummeted to half of what they were before, and the Liberals–those whose crowning had been announced so many times earlier– in fact lost votes and dropped one percentage point.  In less than 18 months, Ed Stelmach has gotten himself into serious trouble.

Considering that the NDP showed poorly and that there was no Green Party in the running, the Liberal loss of votes is a bit disastrous. It serves to underscore the magnitude of Wildrose’s victory. Hinman was after all supposed to be the country-bumpkin who could not possibly stand even in the shadow of two “solid” urbane candidates.

By-elections are about discontent, so it stood to reason that the Tories would loose. All things being equal, one would have expected the Tory vote, all 25% that disappeared from supporting the Tory candidate, to spread somewhat unevenly across other parties. Most assumed that the lion’s share would go to the Liberal candidate.  Those don’t seem like reasonable assumptions to us now, but they were not totally unreasonable then.

Why then, is the crucial question, the Tory vote did not spread? It is not that they all stayed home, for the participation rate shows a much different picture. People came out to vote and 25% voted Tory. Some of their missing half  may have stayed home, but the majority of them came out and voted for the Wildrose Alliance.

To their credit, Hinman’s team ran an excellent campaign. Even my NDP friends think that their slogan and organisation were fantastic. The “Send Ed a Message” motto was brilliant. But as persuasive as they were, it is difficult to account for the large swing just based on the brilliant campaigning.

Something else may be afoot. We may have seen in Calgary-Glenmore the initial ripples of an upcoming wave. The numbers in Calgary-Glenmore show a tale of change, an appetite for change now traveling in one direction. It is not enough to have a mood for change when it is diffused and all over the electoral map.  But once that mood finds a vehicle to express it, change becomes immanent.

If what we saw in Calgary-Glenmore on Monday night is indeed a first set of electoral ripples of discontent, we’ll see more  in the soon-coming leadership selection of the Wildrose-Alliance next month. We have been waiting for the wave, to steal a well known expression from the title of a book.  It may be coming.

As the Wildrose leadership race goes on, conservative Albertans begin to take notice.

With the Calgary-Glenmore by-election right on the horizon for Monday, many are keeping their predictions to themselves. Except for most Liberals in Alberta, who are predicting a victory right doen the middle between the Tories and the Wildrose. Grant Mitchel is even claiming “realistic” gains for Ignitieff’s Liberals in Alberta at an election not-yet called.

But the heat is truly on the Conservatives. Not just because it’s the incumbent party and the party in government, but because they have spent tons of money and resources making sure that this by-election is not the embarrasment that their defeat at Calgary-Elbow was for them, losing Ralph Klein’s former seat.

The challenge will be for the Tories not just to win but to win decisively. One would expect it to be so after all they have invested in the riding to make sure that Glenmore does not slap Stelmach in the face.  Given that, a victory for the Tories short of demolishing the Liberals and the Wildrose will be a sign that the Tories continue to be in trouble.  Anything short of a crushing victory will be a warning for Ed Stelmach that Albertans –Calgarians, especially–are not impressed with the his fiscal and energy policies.

A single seat does not matter to Stelmach’s Conservatives, and by-elections are notorious for turning against governments. The Liberals could win, indeed. But another Liberal in the Calgary area will endear Stelmach to Calgarians even less, making them see Wildrose as a better and better alternative down the line.

Who knew?

Ed Stelmach will not admit in public that the royalty review and changes he brought about were a mistake, but he is surely trying to deal with some of the consequences.

Alberta, Canada’s top energy-producing province, offered its battered industry up to C$1.5 billion ($1.2 billion) in royalty breaks and credits on Tuesday to boost drilling and protect jobs as oil and gas prices sag.

Alberta Energy Minister Mel Knight, who championed a hike in royalty rates before prices collapsed, said the moves did not mean a softening of his stance, but rather a short-term response to the global economic crisis.

Offering to help with $1.5 billion in royalty credits is partially reversing his new royalty scheme. Of course, the reversal is motivated by the economic crisis, the government will say. And that’s partly true.

But in the meantime, Saskatchewan has become the immediate beneficiary, just as it was foretold. This is from a CNN report.

“It’s a great time to come to Saskatchewan,” said [Premier Brad] Wall, who even called the Toronto Star newspaper to tout his province’s economic success and let Ontarians know there were jobs for the taking.

“For those who are losing their jobs, we need them to know we have thousands of jobs open right now in both the private and public sector,” Wall said. “We have a powerful story to tell, a story of success and that’s something we want to share with those who are struggling.”

Wall’s province is one of the exceptions to the unemployment increases battering provinces across Canada. Saskatchewan’s unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent in January from 4.2 percent in December, making it the only province recording a decline. In Ontario and the city of Toronto, unemployment rates rose to 7.2 percent and 8.5 percent respectively. To the west, British Columbia shed 68,000 full-time jobs in January.

More Saskatchewan jobs should be on the way. To stave off any possible recession, Wall announced a $500 million infrastructure “booster shot” to help keep the economy strong.

Just like Alberta, Saskatchewan exists in the same world in which there is an economic crisis. The difference is that Ed Stelmach is not running it and not running businesses out of it.

If Stelmach thinks that businesses are going to trust him now, he is mistaken. The money that fled is not suddenly going to come back and expose itself to the less than honourable changes Stelmach introduced, often in contravention of existing contracts.

Ralph Klein used to apologise when he made mistakes, and then was quick to try to remedy the mistakes. Stelmach is too late to bringing remedy and does not have the strength of character to say that he was wrong. But he was!

Jacques Parizeau, the former Parti Québécois premier of Quebec, said that a coalition government would be weaker than the incumbent, a prospect he said was "eminently satisfying."

"The fact that the Bloc got Stéphane Dion to sign a political accord in which it is explicitly written that he undertakes to act in partnership with Canadians and the Québécois should bring a smile to the face of many sovereigntists," Mr. Parizeau wrote.

Finance and math has never been the strength of socialists, which is why Jack Layton is excited about how the coalition he engineered with the Quebec separatists will trade Alberta’s five ministers, including one PM, for one Edmonton NDP MP.

In addition, Alberta’s lone Layton MP plans to follow through with her party’s desire to shut down the tar sands, which is an indirect way to say that they mean to shut down Alberta’s economic engine.

The woman who might soon be Alberta’s only federal cabinet minister says no new oilsands projects should be approved until Ottawa develops full environmental and health effects policies.

“We don’t want any new approvals until we get a handle on the environmental impacts,” says NDP MP Linda Duncan, who surprised even Edmonton by winning the Strathcona riding on Oct. 14.

“That was NDP policy in the election and I support it.”

We’re too dumb to get excited about that prospect, I guess.

It has been a long time since I have paid attention to much that Jeffrey Simpson writes, but some of his observations regarding the recent federal election results in Quebec deserve some attention. Simpson seems completely unaware that he is now sharing political space once occupied decades ago by the Reform Party and the redneck Westerners he so often mocks.

They [francophones in Quebec] apparently welcome a party that wants no part of governing Canada while continuing to demand more and more from it.

[...]

Since 1993, the largest number of francophone Quebeckers [they call themselves "québécois" but Simpson seems confused about what to call them. Haitians are Quebec francophones, for example, but they are not "québécois."] apparently has wanted no part of federal parties, and therefore of the government or governance of Canada. Canada is no longer a country they wish to participate in governing, but one from which they wish to withdraw cash, like an automated teller machine.

They want to influence decisions in Ottawa without taking any responsibility for those decisions. They want neither to separate from Canada, nor to govern it. They want, through the Bloc Québécois, a variation of an old and enduring ambition: to be part of Canada, but only sort of, and on their terms, which means some sort of associate status, égal à égal, separate but not fully separate, sovereignty but with association, autonomous but still tied, somewhat in but somewhat out, or, in the metaphor of the brilliant Quebec journalist Jean Paré, parishioners in a church called Canada they seldom attend except for important occasions like Christmas, Easter and maybe marriages. They want to take but not to give. And they always prefer leaders, when given a choice, from [francophone?] Quebec.

It is historical fact, reinforced again this week, that [francophone?] Quebeckers have always voted for a party led by a [francophone?] Quebecker when confronted with a choice between such a party and one led by someone from outside the province.

What an epiphany! Preston Manning was saying things of this sort for more than a decade, since the late 1980s. But it was people like Mr. Simpson and his journalist friends in Toronto and Montreal who repeatedly accused Manning of racism and anti-Quebec intolerance just for saying them.

Nice to see that the Glob columnist has come around, even if it only has taken him two decades to see past his own mental block.

Alleluia for Simpson!

What’s next? Will he now join Stockwell Day’s Church, whose beliefs he so vehemently smeared with the same petulant conviction that he once smeared Preston?

I was raking the leafs in the backyard today as my eight-year old boy pranced around in military fatigues, his toy AK-47 in hand (he also has a toy M-16) and also sporting a balaclava. When I suggested that he looked like a terrorist, he shrugged me off.

After he finished helping me pick up some of the debris on the ground, I said: “Thank you, al-Qaeda boy.” “I am not al-Qaeda,” he said. “I’m from Alberta.” Thinking that he didn’t understand the reference, I pointed out that al-Qaeda sympathizers have been known to live in Canada. “I know,” he said, with an annoyed tone. “That’s exactly why I said I’m from Alberta.”

That shut me up!

Saying climate change may result in his two sons never seeing polar bears in the wild, a star NDP candidate from British Columbia called Thursday for the shutdown of Alberta's tarsands [Newflash: if a kid actually got to see a polar bear in the wild, he'd probably end up being the bear's meal]. "We have to do something to address the climate change crisis, we need to do so now," said Michael Byers, the New Democrat hopeful in the key battleground riding of Vancouver Centre [Oh, yes, the Crisis!].

"We need to go after the big polluters, we need to shut the [Alberta] tarsands down."

Byers is not advocating that oil production be shut down anywhere else in the country –in Atlantic Canada, for example. His reference to the tar sands is a not so hidden code calling for the destruction of Alberta’s economy.

Liberals figure they can tax the Alberta economy into destruction. The Dippers are after the same goal, but they want to take a shortcut. That’s NDP efficiency.

Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe wants to reduce Quebec’s dependence on oil by half within 10 years.

Mr. Duceppe has been saying since the beginning of the [election] campaign that oil impoverishes Quebec while making Alberta rich [Apparently we are the only people in the world --let alone the country-- who sell oil!!!].

“It’s a real drain on the province’s economy,” Mr. Duceppe said Saturday during a news conference in Montreal.

Once again, Quebec separatists are promoting greater animosity toward Alberta and Albertans in order to get votes. Oil makes Alberta rich on the backs of Quebeckers, don’t you know.

Duceppe is welcome to buy his oil exclusively from Hugo Chavez if he wants. But let’s be fair: if wants nothing Albertan, he should also petition the feds to stop sending Alberta’s money to Quebec?

For years Quebeckers have so ignored Jack Layton that he now looks new and fresh to them. That’s just a little bit funny. Good for them, I guess. Jack’s fortunes seem to be on the rise in the province the more they see of him.

Stephane Dion, on the other hand, has the opposite trouble. The more voters learn about him over the country, the less they like him. It doesn’t matter who is standing next to him.

But for all of Layton’s popularity in La Belle Province, he may not win much in Quebec, except to funnel away from Liberals and left-leaning Bloc supporters getting a few more Tories elected. Go, Jack Go!!

Most Albertans are convinced that Stephan Dion wants to rip them off with his Green Shift, or the Green Shaft as it is better known in this end of the country.

Liberal politicians like David McGuinty (there is a name that Albertans truly trust)

argue that the tax could help Alberta solve many of its environmental and image problems related to the oilsands, while still treating Albertans in a fair manner.

Did you read that correctly? Liberals are going to help Alberta!

As they relieve us of our money, they will help Alberta to solve its environmental problems. That would be largely the problem about which CBC, the Red Star, David Suzuki and Jack Layton have convinced the simple minded elsewhere: oil companies are turning Alberta into a wasteland (twice the size of New Brunswick!!!). We have gone from a province in which these same dumb people believed that we paved our streets with gold to one whose natural settings have now been devastated. The reality is even if Alberta’s environment looked like the surface of the moon, the last person Albertans would trust to fix any thing for them would be a liberal, let alone an Ontario liberal. Most Albertans are aware of what Ontario and Quebec fixers can do.

The second is that they will help with our image. That may as well be an open threat. The same people who bad mouth our province now claim that they want to help with our image. The translation in simple: give us your wealth and we will stop bad mouthing you. That’s their version of help. These are the same people who have been unable to dispel the image of their own leader as an incompetent university egghead! And they want to help us with our image? In truth, not even Alberta Liberals would want to receive public relations advise from Stephane Dion’s “dream team.”

Last but not least, they claim that Liberals are going to treat Albertans fearly. Out here, we can all trust that it will be the opposite. Thanks, but no thanks. It was not all that long ago that Ken Boschcoff made clear who their plan was aimed at and said precisely what the Liberals mean to do with the Green Shaft:

Ontario Liberal MP Ken Boschcoff has plainly stated that the Green Shift is a way to transfer money out of Alberta into the rest of Canada, with roughly $9 billion of the $15.3 billion collected each year returned to Canadians with annual incomes of less than $40,000.

Boschcoff called it “the most aggressive anti-poverty program in 40 years. The shift will transfer wealth from rich to poor, from the oil patch to the rest of the country, and from the coffers of big business to the pockets of low-income Canadians.”

The McGuinties, Dions, Ignatieffs and Raes have momentarily confused us with Ontario voters.

You know it’s bad when even the Glob rebukes the mercurial Danny Williams:

Mr. Williams’s shenanigans have represented the very worst in federal-provincial bickering, and have taken it to levels that would have made Ralph Klein wince. Mr. Williams, himself a provincial Conservative, has registered his own "ABC" ("Anything But Conservative") political party. He has staged a press conference in which a man in a puffin costume emerged holding an "ABC" sign. He has said that "a majority government for Stephen Harper would be one of the most negative political events in Canadian history." Mr. Williams is not only embarrassing himself; he is also doing a disservice to Newfoundland and Labrador, deliberately soiling relations with the party likeliest to hold government after the election even as he attempts to exact revenge for perceived equalization slights in the past.

The now typical Liberal flogging of a “hidden agenda” notwithstanding, according to most polls the Tories are inching toward the finish line at a steady pace. The slow pace will get the “league of the perpetually scared” Ontario voters more and more used to a potential Harper majority. What is more, Ontario voters are used to mimicking Quebec in the federal scene. As Quebec becomes more comfortable with Harper, most likely so will Ontario. Chances are that Newfoundlandes will also demonstrate that they are not Williams’ sheep.

There is no great Tory surge in the polls. That’s true. But that means that there is no great monster with which to scare CBC viewers and latte-sipping central Canadian urbanites.  In true conservative fashion, just slow and steady advance that is less likely to be shaken by electoral mood swings.

Michael Coren has chosen to be charitable in his interpretation of how Quebec journalists, politicians and members of the intelligentsia in general are reacting to the news that some of the candidates in the present election campaign have Christian beliefs of one sort or another.

Coren thinks that Duceppe is stupidly going after Opus Dei caricature, disingenuously detaching it from the Catholic Church.

 But Dan Brown is evidently big in Quebec and, much to the chagrin of the Bloc, so might be the Conservatives. Accordingly, Gilles Duceppe announced that the Tory candidate in Saint-Hubert-Saint-Bruno, Nicole Charbonneau Barron, was an Opus Dei member. Then Raymond Gravel, a Catholic priest and outgoing Bloc MP, opined that, “Social conservatives such as members of Opus Dei may be running for office in order to change policies concerning abortion and same-sex marriage.”

Earth to dotty separatist: It’s not Opus Dei but the Roman Catholic Church that teaches that life begins at conception and that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. You might know that if you weren’t suspended from almost all priestly duties. Indeed it is entirely likely that in a less liberal place than Quebec in the 1980s, this former prostitute who worked in Montreal’s gay leather bars would never have been ordained in the first place.

They are not at all detaching it from the Roman Church. They know very well that their smear of an Opus Dei candidate is also an attack on the Church. They also know well that there will be no backlash. Quebec is the same province in which a bunch of radical feminists desacrated Mary Queen of the World cathedral but the police refused to press charges.

Among journalists, academics and politicians of most stripes in Quebec it has for long been fashionable to ridicule Christianity, and Catholicism in particular. It is the bigoted fetish of their Intelligentsia to claim that the Christian faith renders one incapable of occupying and exercising public office. It’s what passes for intellectual enlightenment and sophistication. It’s as fashionable in Quebec as their anti-semitic cousins were in the nineteenth century. Quebec’s anti-Catholicism has become the last refuge for ‘enlightened’ scoundrels.

See also here for a peak on how Le Devoir reports the presence of Christians on the ballot as though they were announcing that candidates have cancerous moral failures (en francais). Barbara Kay examines the double standard.

 It would appear that at least one of Citoyen Dion’s supporters is not content enough with just slamming Alberta in the media on a daily basis.

Kick Alberta Out Of Canada And Nuke It Until It Glows Says:
September 11th, 2008 at 12:09 pm

It’s not Canadians that are stupid, it’s Albertans. Who are really Americans who don’t understand that in the US the federal government controls all the natural resources, so if Alberta became a state, it’s [sic] loser officials and so-called business leaders would be out of a job and dipping transfat in high fructose corn syrup at Timmy’s. Dion should change his slogan to “Crush Alberta.” He’d get millions of votes from decent Canadians who hate genocidal duck-oiling rednecks.

There is a new earth-shaking environmental policy for the Green-Red pair to proclaim! Jack Layton too would be prrrroud!

In the fantastic mind of the “stupid Canadian” (May’s words, not mine) who left the comment at TAC, the untimely and unfortunate death of a few ducks constitutes genocide (technically meaning the killing of mass numbers of human beings); all Albertans are guilty of it and should now be nuked. Anthropomorphising ducks! This youngster has been watching too much Disney.

a federal politician in this country dares say what we all know about Bloc jobs:

Mr. [Michael] Fortier said the Bloc has achieved no real results, spearheaded no major projects and created no employment.

"The only jobs that Bloc MPs have created in 18 years are their own," he said. "A vote on the Bloc is a wasted vote – Quebecers are already realizing the Bloc can’t deliver, and are already turning their back on this powerless party," he said.

It’s about time.

Ed Stelmach and Rona Ambrose address the Alberta bashing coming from central Canadian politicians like Taliban Jack and Citoyen Dion.

Stephen Harper’s lady in northern Alberta, Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Rona Ambrose, picked up where Stelmach left off.

“Political leaders like Jack Layton and Stephane Dion are going to use the good things coming out of Alberta and twist and distort them, and use them against us,” Ambrose spat.

“We cannot forsake the jobs of regular people across this country for a risky experiment like the Green Shift,” she continued.

And she concluded that Dion wants to “punish” Alberta.

Grandinite finely addresses the stupidity of the media (the Toronto Star) from the same region on the same issue:

I pity da fool who depends on the Toronto Star for balanced coverage of anything Alberta.

Jack Layton flew over northern Alberta today hoping “to make inroads in Quebec by appealing to their environmental conscience.” The strategy betrays a tried and true method among most federal politicians in the last few elections: attract votes somewhere else in the country by using Albertans, their wealth and prosperity as their whipping boy. There is no likelihod that a Dipper will be elected in Alberta to the federal House after all.

Taliban Jack wants to stop development of the Tar Sands by claiming, with the help of the Red Star and other complicitous central Canadian media, that Alberta’s natural setting is becoming “completely contaminated.”

But Jack does not have the courage to come to Fort McMurray to tell workers from all over the country, many from Quebec and the Maritimes, that he plans to get rid of their jobs. Nor does he stand in front of Quebeckers to tell them that reducing or stopping the supply of oil from Alberta into the markets will surely send the price of gasoline and other petrol derivatives soaring, short and long term. Do Quebeckers want to pay $3 for a litre of gasoline? Do Torontonians?

Instead, Taliban Jack grand stands before the media muses suspended by a polluting jet at 5,000 feet in the Alberta skies.  Jack does not have the intestinal fortitude to land at Fort Mc to give them news of his economy-busting, job-arresting plan. Would Citoyen Dion?

The cowardly gesture will nonetheless win him attention and esteem in Quebec, I’m sure.

Lorne Gunter looks at citoyen Dion’s “Green Shift” and finds it to be a “Green Shaft” for western Canadians: it taxes the base of energy production and gives money based on consumption, which will benefit the place where more people live and consume in the country.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Dion intimated that while Alberta and Saskatchewan have just 13% of the national population between them, their economies could — should — pay up to 40% of the cost of his carbon tax because they produce 40% of Canada’s carbon emissions.

At about $16-billion a year in new carbon levies, the Green Shift would cost each Canadian about $500 a year — just under $2,000 for a family of four. Mr. Dion has promised to return that amount in the form of income tax cuts and subsidies. His proposal would “shift” part of Canadians’ tax burden from income to energy consumption.

But if [sic] won’t shift it evenly across the country. By aiming his taxes at producers, rather than consumers, Mr. Dion clearly means to extract more of his new revenues from some provinces than others — not coincidentally the provinces that seldom elect Liberal MPs. [ed. That must be a coincidence!!]

The share of the green taxes he wishes to impose on Alberta and Saskatchewan would work out to nearly $1,500 per capita, or $6,000 per family. In the rest of the country, the load would be just $325 per person or $1,300 a family. [ed. Why would hick farmers need so much money when slick, latter-sipping Central Canadians can do so much more with it?]
And it’s not as though Albertans, in particular, aren’t making a disproportionate contribution to federal finances already.

In addition to fuelling the federal budget surplus, Albertans contribute about $4,000 more per person to federal finances than they receive back in federal program spending. By comparison, the fiscal deficit Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty frequently speaks of for his province is just over $1,500 per person per year, and Green Shift wouldn’t raise that to $2,000.

Add together what Albertans are already contributing to Confederation with the green surcharge Mr. Dion is proposing, and Alberta families would be kicking in more than $20,000 extra per family if the Liberals are ever returned to power.

Mr. Dion spent four days in the West last week insisting it was not his intent to punish any one region for his environmental fantasies. But on Thursday, on an online news site for northwestern Ontario, Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff admitted that Green Shift was not an environmental proposal, but rather “the most aggressive anti-poverty program in 40 years,” designed to “transfer wealth from the oil patch to the rest of the country.”

With this kind of incentive, I would not be surprised when Ontario flexes its envious electoral muscle and votes overwhelmingly Liberal again.

Not entirely a surprise, but not immediately expected…? Kevin Taft quits. Recently stumped by Ed Stelmach in a general election, in the big scheme of things, Taft had little choice but to say goodbye.

Frankly, I expected a resignation the night of the election, but doing some thinking before making decisions is not a bad thing. Some of us take longer to decide what to others may seem obvious.

When Quebeckers complain about the price of gasoline, they often think that Albertans are ripping them off.

Well, Quebeckers may be getting ripped off at the pumps, but it’s other Quebeckers doing it.

Scott said the charges stem from an extensive investigation that showed gas retailers in the four markets phoned each other and agreed on a price.

“The evidence suggests that the overwhelming majority of gasoline retailers in these markets participated in the cartel,” the Competition Bureau said in a news release.

[...]

Those who were charged operated in Sherbrooke, Victoriaville, Thetford Mines and Magog, cities that are all south of Montreal.

The companies that were charged are: Les Petroles Therrien Inc., operating under the Petro-T banner, and Distributions Petrolieres Therrien Inc. ($179,000), and Ultramar Inc. ($1,850,000). One individual, Jacques Ouellet, an employee of Ultramar, also pleaded guilty and was fined $50,000.

The Arrogant Worms are right. Their mayor truly is a dork.

Writing for the Glob, Lysianne Gagnon makes several arguments pointing to the sham of the official Canadian multicultural policy. Her arguments are incidental to her point against the Bloc’s phony desire to see Quebec exempted from the official federal policy. Her piece is evidence of how sound arguments can be used to marshal fallacious conclusions.

Never mind the official ideology of “multiculturalism,” a gimmick set up by Pierre Trudeau to facilitate the adoption of the Official Languages Act. At the time, some ethnic groups, especially in the West, were furious at the privilege bestowed on French Canadians, whom they considered to be just another ethnic group. Very well, said Mr. Trudeau - we’ll promise that these groups will also be able to retain their cultures of origin.

In effect, this policy turned out to be nothing more than another way to pander to ethnic communities. While their folk-dance troupes received generous grants, young Italians, Ukrainians and Chinese were quickly integrating. Multiculturalism is just another word for tolerance and reasonable accommodation. Cultural practices that go against basic Canadian values - arranged marriages, genital mutilation, polygamy, sharia-based family law - are actively discouraged.

Contrary to another myth circulated by anglophone Canadian nationalists (who want to distinguish themselves from the Americans as much as the Quebec nationalists want to be distinct), the integration of immigrants into the Canadian mainstream has followed the same pattern as in the United States. The second generation of immigrants is integrated and the third is assimilated.

In most cases, the original language is lost. What remains are certain family and culinary traditions. When some ethnic groups are ghettoized, it is not because they are encouraged to do so by some crazy multicultural authority. It is either because they are religious fundamentalists or because they belong to poverty-stricken communities.

Let’s leave the assumption that there is such thing as “basic Canadian values” for now. Let’s focus on the political “gimmick.” Gagnon’s piece goes no further than suggesting that Quebec should not be allowed to set up its own brand of multicultural gimmick because their gimmick is not really distinct from the federal gimmick. The federal gimmick is thus good because it is federal. Long live provincial autonomy!

That’s one heck of an argument. If it occurred to her to erase the gimmicks on both sides, it is not apparent in this piece. Against the very logic with which she makes her argument, she goes on to conclude that both societies live under an artificial, calculated political gimmick, as though it were a virtue:

English Canada integrates its immigrants pragmatically, without much fuss, while Quebec, true to its Cartesian tradition, has developed plans and theories about the issue. But the end result is the same. Quebec is a multicultural society, just as Canada is.

At least Quebec’s policy typically acknowledges that what they seek is cultural integration. It’s a more honest gimmick.

In the end, Gagnon just muddies the waters on this one. It really would help Ms. Gagnon to learn to distinguish more clearly between the official, fragmenting “multicultural” federal policy and the sociological reality on the ground of mixed cultural variety that leads to ultimate integration, whether in Quebec or in the RoC.

In the Glob this morning, good news from Saskatchewan:

Officials in Saskatchewan are drafting a bill for the election of senators during elections for the provincial legislature. Premier Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party government hopes to introduce the legislation this fall.

"We’ve made the decision that we support Senate reform," Bill Boyd, provincial Intergovernmental Relations Minister, told The Globe and Mail. "Regardless of what other provinces are doing, we certainly want to move in this direction."

The change is seen as a way of altering the Senate without opening the Constitution, because the Prime Minister would still technically appoint senators – although he would be choosing from a list of people elected by Canadians.