How did the previous provincial (conservative) governments blow the $13 billion or so Heritage Fund that Lougheed built up?

I'm surprised no one there has tried to pin the blame on the Liberals or N.D.P.

Anyway, you have an easier time of it with energy prices the way they've been for the past few years. Tough times were back in the early '90s.

Careful. King Ralph is pretty good at semantics games. The talk about Alberta means very little, really. I suspect if you were to look at the *net* debt, it may well have been debt-free for quite a while already.

As to gross debt, this is totally arbitrary. If you siphon money into assets somewhere rather than paying the debt, you'll always have a debt. Meaningless, really. But in Alberta, it makes for good politics.


OK, OK. Next you'll convince us to move to Red Deer North? What more?

We have been in Calgary for twelve years. Population has grown by 50%. Yet the inferiority complex (and voting stats) remain the same. Does it mean they only import braindead reform folks? Or do the folks who move here buy into the inferiority complex thing?

I really don't understand. The city seems to be evolving and getting somewhat more sophisticated. But the inferiority complex doesn't seem to change, although it should?

Memo to King Ralph:

Ref: That Firewall thingy.

Ralphie Boy,

I am thinking that we might need a moat to go along with the wall. I just can't decide which side of the wall to put it on.

If we put it on the outside then it helps slowdown anyone trying to scale the wall. But, if we put it on the inside then maybe they will drown when they fall off the wall.

Rats can't swim can they?

Tell me something..why is the population of Quebec declining so rapidly as a percentage of the total Canadian population...is it because the laws there are too restrictive for most businesses like GM. 25 years ago Ontario had 10% more population than Quebec and now it is almost 50% more...are you that special or economic parasites? 25 years ago Quebec was over 27% of the total Canadian population and now it is around 22-23%...is it beacuse of the harsh winters or harsh climate for a decent life style.
Why are the Quebec anglos continuing to grow faster economically than their fellow Francophone citizens? Is it because they are bilingual and able to make a living anywhere in North America.....I wonder about those things and the reasons why. :rolleyes:

Les condition gagnantes sont pas la....... reveille toi.
Why is it the population of Quebec will have the highest % of seniors in the next 20 years in the entire western world.
Go for it and save us the transfer payments!!!

Someone born and raised in Alberta who doesn't make the usual silly statements that make the rest of Canada roll their eyes....

:D

I don't know the history but the fund had a few really bad years when the markets tanked.

Also, I believe that we have been net debt free for a few years now.

So why should we force AC to keep their offices there?

Maybe the wall is to keep the dinosaurs (political, social) in ;)

As long as that attitude exists Alberta will always punch below its weight nationally. Those who continually moan about things like the gun registry, well maybe it wouldn't have come about if Alberta sent more Liberals to Ottawa to represent their views. Instead they're content to send a contingent of yahoos continually to the opposition benches. (Not that Alberta has a lock on yahoos, see Randy White who probably helped cost Harper the election, and was embarassingly reelected in the Fraser Valley).

I have always found it somewhat ironic that it is dead dinosaurs that have kept the myth alive for the living ones who govern Alberta. Ralph's Houdini-like escapes from a disastrous energy deregulation, and now an auto insurance fiasco, are made possible by paying huge subsidies [bribes?] to voters and businesses. Same goes for handling of the Mad Cow fall out. Rather than biting the bullett and committing to testing each animal destined for export markets, his government would rather "tough it out". [Thus Australia and other producers are taking over the Asian market for what could have been Alberta beef.]

As I posted yesterday, Ralph is quite pleased with the results, because it helps him play on the anti-Alberta factor. Better for his re-election this fall to have Liberals in Ottawa than Conservatives. His remarks two weeks ago were very calculating, and fired a torpedo at the Harper campaign. [Didn't he also sabotage the Alliance Party by sending Stockwell Day over to them? Knowing Stock was a social Conservative thorn in his side, not to mention very popular as a challenger to the premiership among the rural base that keeps the provincial Tories in power, Ralph obliterated both problems in one fell swoop.]

Quebec's declining population has far more to do with demographics, pure and simple. It's own "pure laine" birthrate is the lowest in NAmerica, and immigration to the province among the lowest because there are so few "acceptable" sources of French-speaking migrants. The provincial government has recognized the problems that may result from huge immigration from either the French [read Black] Caribbean or African countries, and from North Africans of Islamic backgrounds. This is more than just caused by any economic shortcomings, or fall out from language policy.

Also of concern for the Conservatives should be their over representation from rural Canada, and ignorance of the issues of urban Canada. [This also applies to Ralph vis a vis Edmonton and the rest of the province.] Without an urban policy, the federal Conservatives could not possibly make the inroads they needed into Vancouver, Toronto, Hamilton, Montreal or even Halifax. While they did well in the suburbs of Vancouver, they couldn't make it in the core zone. In Toronto and the GTA, the stigma of abuse and neglect from the Harris years remained as a stench in the nostrals of voters that exceeded whatever stink remained of the Liberal's Quebec escapades. Harper intellectualized the urban issue, passing the buck to the provinces which themselves are the very political entities who stand to lose from any direct dealings with the major cities from Ottawa. Not to mention having created the problem by downloading services to the cities, while at the same time reducing their revenues.

Finally, industrial policy. Alberta has never managed to come up with one to handle things when the oil revenues finally come to an end. Other than the rapid and vapid expansion of gambling which floods coffers with hundreds of milllions of ill-got $s. And the federal Conservatives appear to have accepted the same dogma Ralph did a decade ago: cut all government grant programs to business.

Yes, I agree this is one of the most abused forms of federal spending, and needs to be addressed. But the policy the Conservatives put on the table was certainly not going to win them converts in the auto belt of Ontario -- Oakville comes to mind, can't imagine why -- or the aerospace rim on the west island of Montreal. Going cold turkey may sound like a good prescription, but it would mean the end of these two major regional industries in Canada. It would be paramount to an NEP on Central Canada. [I already hear cheers of "Go to it" from certain quarters. But do two wrongs make a right?] How can we deal with US states basically paying auto assembly plants to set up in their cheap labour hinterland? How do we counter the huge subsidies pumped into the American aerospace sector from the Pentagon and NASA, which get channelled into commercial projects?

Ralph discovered that when he shut down the Alberta Motion Picture Development Corp which provided less than $4 million a year in seed development and interim financing, the $100 million a year film industry collapsed. It has only now returned because the province reinstituted a tax credit program which costs the province far less than it has generated in new taxes being paid by those working in the industry. As long as the federal Conservatives fail to understand the implications of their moves, the voters will tell them. And the other day, they certainly did.

As for social conservatism and those issues, we won't go there right now. That just brings in a level of emotion to the debate that Harper rightly tried to disassociate himself and the party from. However, it will be curious to see how these same Conservatives respond when the first parapalegic enters the House, and major changes are required to both the physical structure of the Parliament Buildings, and to Parliamentary procedure to service this fellow [who knocked off Glen Murray, former mayor of Winterpeg].

If only the world were as simple as doctrinaire neoCons think it is. No, urban Ontarians had felt the problems wrought by the provincial Conservatives, and recognized the provincial Liberals have been victims only partially of their own makings. Even those in the 905 donut had come to the realization that all the promises delivered by Harris and his boys [who troughed at the tit of Ontario Hydro for long enough to ruin that public utility] were not worth the problems that have now arisen. They were not going to repeat it on the national level, and the Liberals shrewdly recognized this was the achilles heel to the possible takeover by Conservatives of this riding rich territory. A picture or two of Harris, spiced with the beloved Muldoon, said more than a thousand words of any Red Book!

And because the Conservative War Room was populated by western Canadians and Harris-ites, virtually all men, they never saw it coming.

I dont know how long it will take for the 'Harper boys' to realize that the votes to win in this country are in the middle of the road...always have been. Mulroney won because he took the middle of the road and attracted hundreds of thousands of Liberal voters in Ontario to go with him. This time those 'Red Tories' who were angered by the money takeover (dont give me this merger nonsense) of their party by the Alliance turned and voted Liberal in Atlantic Canada, in Ontario, and in B.C. The propaganda earlier was that the Conservatives could win if 'we unite the right.' Well, the right was united and got 24 seats out of 106 in Ontario....and less popular vote than the two old parties -- Alliance and PC -- got combined together in 2000. And Westerners please stop complaining when people in Ontario exercise their democratic right to choose --- you choose, thats fine. We can too. And the old story of Quebec dominating (when it was all Liberal) is no good any more. The West has something like 92 seats combined -- the Conservatives got a lot of them but so did Liberals and NDP. So quit blaming Easterners....has it ever occurred to Western supporters of Harper that maybe a lot of the rest of the country just doesnt buy in to his policies and people? Nothing against the West, it's just a matter of choice.

^ ^

Hey, upper Fraser Valley ridings are still among my "Hitler" ridings (you can run Hitler there as a right winger and he'd win)! :p Can't say the same thing about the north shore which appears to becoming more like urban ridings.

Maybe you are right, Charest might end up in a mental hospital... :D

Ref polls, if you believe that national unity is running high in quebec, you are the one who needs a reality check...

Thanks for your friendly input, I feel even more confident in my convictions :cool:

Good stuff;you stick with those convictions and Quebec will continue to be the highest tax juristiction in North America with the lowest per capita earning base and with a net outflow of jobs,lowest birth rate no immigration to brag about,etc,etc.
Ontario and other provinces are already much richer thanks to the ultranationalistic policies that you like and the movement of money out of Quebec. Your former locally owned food and department store chains are now owned by outsiders who take all the profits away with them.
You be proud now and we applaud you for sticking to your principles. :rolleyes:
Vive le Quebec Libre :(

I really love reading your comments... :)

Please please, keep writing :D