Nah

I think an apology was warranted. There's no need to taint and insult all Albertans and insinuate they don't have a right to govern because of where they are from, and that's what his comments indicated.

Liberal advisors stuck in the past.

Anyone outside of Alberta knows exactly what Trudeau meant and those inside think of it as political hay and nothing more. Unfortunately for Justin, the old dogs of the Liberal party are going to fight him tooth and nail as he attempts to modernize party ideology an policy.

I agree with the writer. Don't apologize unless you mean it.

What we need is a thorough

What we need is a thorough psychological examination, and research, on why certain societies are bound tight and determined to follow the same ideological or religious warp, not shared by others, often illogical and inhuman, yet accepted as "normal" ?

In any case there are no left and right "wings" only a "nut ladder" on which the different ideologies are located, on each side, the crazier, the higher.

Communists and capitalists are supposed to be at far distances from each other, at least according to established beliefs and propaganda, yet at the same time their brotherhood, intentions for enslavement and collectivization are the same, albeit with different methods, thumping the scriptures of different prophets.

Ed Deak.

I agree with Crawford.

We've had enough of these Alberta Conservatives. Just because they sit on oil we should dance to their tune. The guy who told all the oil shill MP's from Alberta to go back there should also have stuck to his guns. They are all puppets for the biggest oil company shill, Harper. The only change might be to tell them all to go back to China and not Alberta.

Funny how sensitive Albertans are but they see nothing wrong with demanding that their toxic stuff needs to be piped across other provinces and we dare not question their demand.

Like my father & his father

Like my father & his father before him I was born in the above mentioned promise but even if I live to be an old old man I will NEVER call Alberta my home. There is nothing more insulting to me than calling someone or something Albertan. It represents all that is ugly all than is poisonous.Justin should step it up, not apologize before the Albertan disease completly strangles this country. About the asame time two years ago as Justin made his comments Gywne Dyer said Canada no longer has a federal government, it has been hi-jacked by Albertans and their petro state aspirations. Yes there are progressives in that most evil of places and yes they are unfairly tainted by the stereotype but when you are drowning in filth its hard to look clean.

Harper's Agenda

I agree with everything you say in your column, except the point about the GST. The reduction in the GST is the only decision made by the Harper that I have ever agreed with. The GST, like the HST and the Carbon Tax, is a REGRESSIVE tax. All progressive voters should be advocating the removal of such taxes that work against the economic interests of lower income Canadians. Mulroney, no friend of lower income Canadians, introduced the tax. Cretien and Martin promised to get rid of it, but then went back on their promise. British Columbians, when they had a chance to vote on the HST, voted to abolish it. We should be strengthening the progressiveness of our tax system and dismantling any regressive taxes, such as the GST.

Don't let them spook you Justin.......

The Alberta Cons stamped their feet and Justin blinked. I don't believe Justin apologized because he was sorry for what he said I believe he apologized because he is a gentleman and did not want to upset the Albertans as a Province. The Albertans as a Province and a People know only what they are told by their governing party and they are told very little. Alberta is separated from B.C. by the Rocky Mountains on their West and from the rest Canada by Saskatchewan and Manitoba on their East. Because of their Oil and Gas, Albertans have been courted by a lot of Canadian Politicians as they look to this Provinces piggy bank and try to figure out how they can dip in and come away with as many dollars as possible. This has given the province and its citizens the false feeling that they are special and are, may I say better than the rest of the country. A country is made up of many parts and players and it is these parts and players working together that make it work. This does not mean that any and all that do not see eye to eye with everything Alberta thinks, must back down and say, "Sorry" every time this province does not agree with every sentiment that is revealed and spoken. Alberta has Oil and it also has everything that tags along with that product. One day the Oil will be gone, Oil patches come and go, then what? Will Alberta be prepared for that day and does Alberta know what a Province without its lifeblood will be like? The pollution, the destruction of its countryside, its water, and boom-towns looking for meaning will be the legacy and will there also be enough good points to make it all worthwhile. When we tie everything we have to the tail of a Hundred dollar bill we are taking a chance that is fleeting at best. B.C. will still have its unspoiled countryside and waters, "we will make sure of that", and the east will still have its culture, beautiful countryside and its coastal way of life. Money has a way of arriving fast and departing just as quickly, this is being demonstrated in today’s world and one must remain vigilant to assure that they do not get caught up in this trap. No, the rest of Canada does not and will not worship at the feet of Alberta; we must all remain a united country, as we do not know what tomorrow brings.

Trudeuu was right

Crawford is dead on in identifying the treasonous handful of hard right Alberta MP's who are hellbent on disrupting the fabric of Canadian democracy.

When Redford prattles on about no need for divisive politics, she need look no farther than her own backyard to see who is doing the most grievous harm.

Preston Manning should hang his skinny neck in shame and apologize to all Canadians for thrusting his narrow minded vision onto the national discourse.

Manning's only accomplishment was to saddle Canada with the evil that is harper and the Manning Institute is his disgraceful legacy that teaches the harpercons how to lie, cheat, steal and use whatever means they deem necessary to subvert democracy and push forward their perverted hard right non inclusive agenda.

Politics of division indeed, Ms. Redford.

Now that the harpercons and the manning cultists have laid waste truth, honesty and fairness, then we too must said aside our cherished principles and sense of honour in order to rid ourselves of this pernicious pestilence before this still localised Alberta disease infects and destroys the entire country.

Great column, Crawford Kilian.

"....the only thing Conservatives understand is a punch in the mouth., Courtesy is wasted on them; they sure don't waste it on the rest of us."

Exactly, and no doubt the best way to deal with a bully.

Why afford any respect to the bully at our helm?

He deserves none. None.

He betrays, He divides our country. Intentionally.

He is making us all servants and slaves in our own house.

He must be openly challenged at every opportunity and revealed for the narcissistic bully and traitor that he is.

"We wish nothing more, but we will accept nothing less. Masters in our own house we must be, but our house is the whole of Canada." - Pierre Trudeau

Trudeau

So Crawford is recommending american-style demonization politics for Canada. How has that worked out south of the border?

stver

Except.....the reduction of the GST reduced government revenues which gave Harper the excuse he was looking for to run up a record deficit. He just used the so-called "recession" as an excuse to hide his fiscal incompetence.

Knock-out Punch:

"Instead of apologizing, Justin Trudeau should have said: 'Yes, I said Albertans, and these are the Albertans I' was talking about: Stephen Harper, Preston Manning, Jason Kenney, Rona Ambrose, Rob Anders and a host of others. Compared with them and their accomplices, Quebec is far more in tune with real Canadian values. Want to make something out of it?' "

Bravo, Crawford.

Ah, the truth is an exhilarating and powerful thing....

It just needs to be spoken out loud...and defended.

Right on lynn!

If Albertans, courtesy of the Harper gang, isolate themselves from the rest of Canada, what does their future look like. Harper is giving Albertans a bad name with his slavish adherence to corporate interests of the oil industry. Does he not realize that Alberta is surrounded by other provinces, territories and states and that this demanding that everyone buy into his globalization strategy is not going to work. I think Ed Deak is right about this guy. He is going to divide for the sake of his corporate buddies.

Justin Trudeau, Withdraw Your Apology!

I so enjoy those who take the high road on discourse! This article admits of none. For example, the author interprets Mr. Trudeau's words. That is isn't discourse. And can there be discourse when anything from the so-called right is vehemently disputed. Where are the Left discoursers. Those who talk about discourse and offer none are minds fleeing from reality.

prokop

Is that suppose to be the "high road" on discourse?

Albertan's false indignation

Why does it seem acceptable for so many Albertans (judged by comments in forums) to continuously bad mouth eastern Canada, especially Quebec, but it’s not allowed for a few Easterners (or British Columbians) to dis Alberta?

I find the snarkyness of many Albertans amusing -- the cant about "their" tar sands and oil deposits, that they are "paying for the rest of Canada", most especially that ungrateful "welfare basket case" they think Quebec is. It's as if these Albertans think they are making out like bandits, personally pocketing all that petro wealth, and it's not the petro corporations who are in fact taking the bulk of it for themselves, leaving Albertans with chump change. It's not the "rest of Canada" sucking heavily at the petro teat.

And many Albertans seem to act as if God granted the petro resources exclusively to their ancestors along about the time they were walking with the dinosaurs -- so seems the attitude of Harper and his reform-a-tory rump, subsuming Canada's interests to those of Alberta. In fact, the jurisdiction of natural resources was transferred to the prairie provinces by acts of the Parliament ONLY in 1930. (What Ottawa giveth, perhaps in another day, Ottawa could taketh away?)

And, unlike other provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba were not pre-existing legal entities (albeit dependent upon Britain) that created or joined together to form Confederation, but were created almost whole cloth by acts of Parliament in 1905 (1870 for Manitoba) from the former North-Western Territory and Rupert's Land. So they are not full partners in Confederation in the same sense that the "real" provinces (BC, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, PEI and Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador) rightfully are, but are the step-children of Confederation.

So there! I'm a Vancouver Islander living (happily) in Montreal for over 25 years. I remember the "Yellow Peril" in BC in the early ’80s when so many Albertans were wildly buying up property and inflating real estate prices in southern BC and the Island in droves, literally -- Alberta had yellow license plates then. Thankfully, that all ended when "their" oil patch boom crashed. And it wasn't Trudeau's and Lalonde's National Energy Program that caused the crash, as Alberta's second most popular creation myth reads, but the drop in world oil prices. Following the 1970s energy crisis, world oil prices peaked, so, when in the ’80s demand for crude fell, world oil prices fell too!. It wasn't NEP that tanked Alberta's days of whine and roses, however much many Albertans like to think -- and blame.

It seems many Albertans think Canada and Canadians should aspire to be no more than "hewers of wood, drawers oil" -- drawers of water, coming soon to a river or lake near you. And not a whiff of care for the growing global havoc caused in part by their strip and ship carbon fetish.

Fort Mac is the capitol to Newfoundland.

Don't knock Alberta. All the wages from Alberta going back to the other provinces is keeping this country going. The only place there is work at good pay. BC would die without the work in Alberta. Same with Ontario.

McCarthy, anyone?

I understand that some of the conservatives have suggested that Trudeau and McGuinty be called in front of a commons committee to explain their remarks.

Ignore the bastard!

At least that young punk has managed to get his name in print.

Great post nikkobaud!

Now that is high discourse and a good response to woodworker.

Trudeau's apology

Crawford: The Conservative party of Canada got 48% of the popular Vote West of Quebec, and 49% of the popular vote West of Ontario. With the additional 30 extra seat's going West of Quebec I believe Harper will win another Majority in the next election. And what's with the "Don't get me started on Afghanistan bit" The Liberals sent us to Afghanistan, not the Conservatives. Typical of the left wing press, it's perfectly acceptable to be bigoted towards the West, and Alberta in particular. Just look at Trudeau, and the chattering classes of Toronto, and Montreal.

woodworker

Fort Mac hires only 1% of the workforce in Canada. The average tar sands salary is $1900/wk, while the average Canuck salary is $900/week. In other words, while tar sands workers make double the money, with only 1% of the Canuck workforce, it doesn't come out to all that much...........

There was a front page

There was a front page article in the Edmonton Journal on Nov,14, about Environment Canada scientists having discovered a list of deadly poisons, neurotoxins, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons etc. in the lakes 5o km from the tar sands, they didn't know about before.

Needless to say the scientists be fired and the budget of EC will be cut more by Harper.

Meanwhile what do those poisons do to the workers and people in the neighbouring areas ?

We'll see in a few years time.

Ed Deak.

IN the isolated world of Alberta...

...Harper can do no wrong. I would predict that after the next election Harper will have scared off all those who floated over to him last time. Then he was not as scary as he is now. Now we know what he is all about. So people like Covey59 keep deluding yourselves. Bigoted? Hardly! But if you think that because you sit on oil, the rest of us should accept all the risk in helping you to transport it out of the country, then you are somewhat bigoted. We are not all that dumb so don't treat us like that and if we respond to suggest that no apology is necessary when a politician tells Canadian MP's from Calgary to stop acting like shills for the oil industry, maybe you should look at what these clowns are say that makes them sound like oil company shills.

Harper is a mental case who's

Harper is a mental case who's going to go crazier with his powers and will be forced out of office within about a year, or so.

Could be by his own party, when they see their numbers in the pits.

Ed Deak.