More useless information from Mr. Mair. He ought to know that Klein's wife runs the show and Harper will have to deal with her. Klein is a buffoon and living proof that in politics no "brains" are required. It's no small wonder this country is in the toilet.

Here in BC our local idiot merely invented a new and improved shovel....

I've always felt a little sorry for Saskatchewan. All the dinosaur goop is on the other side of an artificial line.

Alberta should be able to keep all it's oil revenues as long as it covers the cost as well.

Those Kyoto CO2 credits that they will need to purchase will be mighty expensive, and oh, lets see, who generates electricity via renewable hydro ? Gee, that would be Quebec, I wonder if Ralph will aks for a discount ?

The tar sands oil extraction is a human and ecological disaster waiting to happen, and it is already happening. It takes huge amounts of irreplaceable water and energy to get the oil out and the pollution is also causing daily growing health problems to people and the environment.

The idiots think it is "efficient" because they don't have to pay for the water and the increasing health and other costs. There are virtually no energy gains from that oil, but it is profitable for some crooks.

The time may come when the people of Canada have to bail Alberta out of the mess they're creating. Sooner, or later it will become obvious even to the most brainwashed wealth creator, that wealth can not be created, only taken and the taking is causing irrepairable reactions. As we can see it in our daily lives with this criminal economic system killing the Earth and its people for the benefit of a few.

The Soviet communists have tried it, destroying large areas and the lives of millions with indiscriminate pollution and illness, now the stupid capitalists are falling into the same trap. Idiot twins under the skin.

This is how and why our medical systems are collapsing under the daily increasing loads caused by stress and pollution, yet our governments are fighting to increase the mess.

I have a grandaughter working in that oil patch and wish she would get the hell out of there before she kills herself with multiple cancers.

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

Alberta produces 5 trillion cubic feet annually equivalent to 68.5 SE 2's and burns up the equivalent of 17.8 SE 2's within Province. In BC we burn up the equivalent of 6.6 SE 2's.

In Alberta most of the large burn is because of tar sand natural gas production requirements, and about the only thing that stinks more is Rotten Ralph himself. - Go figure.

Ralph changed the royalty formula charged to oil companies and gave away two hundred and fifty billion dollars .
That is enough to put all of Canada
on an even keel with no deficit .
We could have invested it in clean res
ources solar,wind, and hydro .Amd been 100% self sufficient .
Instead big oil got a whole lot fatter and dirtier .
One third of Canadian C02 emmisions is caused by the oil sands .
Good luck dealing with ALberta Harpo. Your gonna need it .

"Well, he can't pull out, because it is a federal scheme through which "have" and "have not" provinces are determined and equalization payments calculated."

Whoops, Mr. Mair is quite wrong. Mr. Klein CAN pull out. Easily, too. He just has to follow the rules the Supreme Court of Canada established in the Quebec Reference. The Court stated that any province could renegotiate the terms of confederation if it held a referendum to that effect and achieved a clear majority on a clear question. So, Mr. Klein just has to put the issue to the people of Alberta. Does anyone think he'd lose a referendum to rengotiate the equalization provisions of the constituion???

The only thing that prevents this is public opinion, but mean spirited anti-Alberta reportage from other parts of Canada will only assist him.

Thats Haida Gwaii Rafe...Haida Gwaii.

Speaking of harper and oil, check out Afghanistan lately? I mean, ensuring that pipeline for bushco. is really why we're there isn't it?
And now thanks to bush a$$ kisser harpo the omnipotent, we're on the al-queda hit list.
Big-time.
Just today the US further infuriated the general populace when one of their convoys ran over a bunch of afghani civilians. Oh and don't forget the Iraqi version of the My-Lai massacre soon to be spread on front-pages world wide.
Yep harper and reynolds and the rest of their right-wing, fascist, fanatics did Canada proud hitching our wagon to the new nazi germany.
Also don't forget about abandoning Kyoto so their oil-cronies can continue lining their silk pockest for a few more years while the rest of the planet spirals into cataclysm after cataclysm.
Yet canwest goebel speaks of a majority!!!!
Well I guess bush got "reelected" even though he completely fcuked his country so I guess anythings possible.

Dunno Percy, seems to me there's more than a little mean-spiritedness on both side of this equation.

G.West. Please elaborate that is too cryptic for me .

Maybe part of the solution would be to charge Alberta appropriately relative to the contribution the province makes to the total load of CO2 that comes out of the province.

In 2005 it amounted to 224 million tonnes - more than any other single province and, as hannibal notes above, almost 1/3rd of the Canadian total.

Let Alberta pocket the royalties but have them pay back to the rest of the country the real cost of the pollution they're creating in order to generate the revenue. Distrubuted according to need to the other provinces it would amount to a kind of equalization that has the advantage of matching real costs with revenues from an economic point of view. And then Ralph wouldn't have so much money to worry about.

Rafe wrote:

The history lesson goes earlier than this...in 1870 (8 years earlier) Helmcken said that BC would be 'a cup from which the east would drink a hearty draft' returning only what all drinkers leave behind.

This unequal relationship is going to get worse unless the Provinces 'stand-up' to Ottawa. A resumption of the NEP, or anything like it, would be a loreli signal for Alberta separatists.

At one point, just after the last federal popularity contest, ahh, election; the BQ had some thoughts about running candidates in places other than Quebec. Something like an NEP ressurection would be a perfect rallying point for just such an action.

It is over items like these: NEP, Ontario's 'wealth' being tied up in old manufacturing plants, Quebect and the Maritime provinces always getting funds from the 'equalization', that I see the cracks in Canada's confederation. As these cracks deepen and widen the calls for dissolution will only grow.

Waiting with our heads in the sand will only make the pain of separation worse.

If only, in our own history, we had listend to the 'minority' report of Helmcken...

Percy says it's mean spirited for the rest of Canada to covet Alberta's oil revenue. I merely suggest it's equally mean-spirited for Alberta to ignore the fact that, until 1947, when Leduc came into production, Alberta got lots of benefits, including relief from Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec and the Maritimes that kept starving people across the drought-starved plains from dying.

Further, some of the problems that the whole country suffered from during the depression were created by the policies of R.B.Bennett, a Conservative Prime Minister from Calgary after whom the people of the prairies named the Bennett buggy. But you know about that.

God knows I sometimes wonder if pee wee will end up being as hated from one end of this country to the other as the last Prime Minister from Calgary was.

I knew it wouldn't take long for murdock to emerge from hiding once the issue of equalization and the future of the country itself was broached.
Welcome dude, I'm off for the day!

Call me crazy but I thought the NEP was a good thing. I think its intention was to limit and eventually eliminate foreign ownership of our natural resources especially oil.
Doesn't the U.S. do to us what Ontario did to the western provinces initially - that is take the natural resource - modify or refine it to a useful purpose and then sell it back to us?

Mulroney was the sellout.

Jesterjogger...

There's no use in Canada applying Kyoto standards when the biggest polluters in the world (U.S. and China) refuse to acknowledge the urgency of global warming.

Nationalize the oil patch!
Troops out of Kabul and into Calgary!

Canadian oil, also natural gas, are included in the NAFTA and have to go out without cutbacks, to the last drop, but Mexican oil isn't.

Figure out who are the stupid asses?

Ed Deak.

If each of us switches our homes to Geothermal heat/cooling, and then claims Carbon Credits, we can both eliminate a subsidy to the evil oil oligarchy, and profit by selling them carbon credits at a huge markup.

Get yer clean power source here:

http://waterfurnace.know-where.com/waterfurnace/cgi/index?mapid=CA&design=default&lang=en

Claim your carbon credits here:

http://www.cdmgoldstandard.org/index.php

Uh-oh!

It occured to me that those who still burn carbon fuels for heat and transportation will need to purchase CO2 credits as well.

Better switch to those electric bikes too!

Yea, that is insane. We cannot hold America hostage with our gas and oil as it is a part of NAFTA rules .
Yet they can screw us royally and totally on softwood lumber, cattle and anyhthing else they choose to phuque with .
The inequities of this program are vast and myriad .
Thanks to the Mulroney Conservatives for making Canada sencond rate into perpetuity .
I would like to see a governement for once stand up to the US and say"We are mad as hell.And we aren't gonna take it anymore"
If we shut the energy taps for one month we could bring the US to its knees to come begging for forgiveness .
With world markets like China coming on stream our traditional dependence on the US becomes less critical.After all there are one billion Chinese on the planet and only 280 million Yankees .
No, I think our Government of the future,the Liberals, should be selling to China all we can including natural resources .
The greatest indictment of the US is,is that they consume two thirds of the planets resources .
Time to scarap NAFTA and go it alone so we can charge world prices for all our goods and resources .

We are all Canadians. Why is it that instead of us all reaping the rewards of our windfalls it always turns out to be an us against them thing. We need to learn to share, Rember the words of Rodney King "Would you please stop hitting me!!"

Not the case. SK has a lot of oil deposits, but until recently, it hasn't been economical to extract it.

, from http://www.dobmagazine.nickles.com/columns/pulse.asp?article=magazine%2Fcolumns%2F060410%2FMAG_COL2006_AA0000.html

SK also has a very different political environment that is not as big-business friendly, hence the lack of development.

Rafe:

Davey Boy:

I found Davey-Boy's line while scrolling down after Ctrl-C'ing Rafe's bit about the National Policy and the Pacific Scandal. Now, there's a seamier side to the Pacific Scandal that's worth exploring: http://www.dickshovel.net/two.html and http://www.dickshovel.net/two2.html; it's too complicated to explain in full here. But the account/analysis on those pages helps explain why Ottawa was so damned violent over the attempts of residents of what is now Western Canada to establish their own country: the Ontarian economy did not have big enough markets, agricultural capacity or room for expansion to survive on its own; empire was the only solution. As for the machinations of the Pacific Scandal concerning MacDonald's diddling with the backers of CP's stateside rival, the Northern Pacific, you'll just have to read those articles. You'll never look at railway history quite the same way again.

The reason I copied Davey-boy's bit about SK down here is because it has to do with what Rafe is talking about; the systematic undermining of the potential of Western Canada to thrive on its own, i.e. without dependence on or domination by "the Canadas" (ON/QC), which is of course what happened in real-time.

So, just imagine if Riel's vision of a united Nord-Ouest (by whatever name; Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, etc) had come to pass, francophone-based or otherwise. That is, one big jurisdiction stretching from the Lakehead to the Rockies (the Lakehead was not originally Ontario's), larger in size than either of the current Big Two.

Now imagine if industrial development hadn't been held back by the National Policy and the Crow Rate and other methods used to suppress secondary and tertiary industry in the west. With more industry, would have come more population and more economic and political clout. If Quebeckers and Acadians had listened to Riel, a solid francophone identity could have been preserved and strategic immigration might have enhanced that, on top of the polyglot Western ethnic milieu that was and is so different from ON, QC and the Maritimes (I'm speaking pre-multiculturalism here).

So instead of three provinces, two of them very weak, there would have been one big one with its own resilient industrial base and a huge pool of oil underneath it. How much clout do you think Toronto or Montreal would have in the federal cabinet if Calgary or Winnipeg were equal or greater in size or power.

So, when Manitoba was created, it was a "postage stamp" province, a situation meant to keep it from having any say in the development of the rest of the Prairies. But just to make sure, it happens that the rules admitting Manitoba to Confederation required that all Manitoba legislation by reviewed and authorized by Ottawa before being enacted (that is to say, the Montreal and Toronto caucuses of the ruling party). In other words, Manitoba was not an "equal" to the other eastern provinces from day 1; BC barely was, and only because BC already had all its territory and because they would have turned down Confederation if those terms had been tried to be forced on them.

(cont.)

Well, not quite - BC had assumed, on entering Confederation, that it would receive a share in the recently conquered (and I do mean "conquered") Northwest Territories-cum-Saskatchewan Territory. The figured on having an eastern BC boundary that was, well, right about where the AB-SK boundary is now. Needless to say, Ottawa/TO/Mtl was having none of that, and also none of BC's desires to get London and Ottawa to step up immigration into the new province from the British Isles, in order to get the railway built.

Nope; there was no interest in the Canadas in seeing a populous, i.e. powerful, British Columbia, and until pushed to the wall on it the promised railway was just a con job and nothing more; "you want it built, we insist you do it on 1/3 rate Chinese labour, and we also want this guy Onderdonk to build it instead of any of you lot. And no, we don't want any scummy British labourers working here; they're too demanding".

Central Canada systematically held back growth, population and economic, in the West for over a century, in order to secure its own profitability and power. And now they want to pretend like Western Canada's had it too good and isn't supportive of the nation because they don't want to give up their resource rights, and because they don't kiss ass to Quebec sweetly enough. But Quebeckers, for all their claims they've gotten short shrift on the Constitution, just do not appreicate that other provinces have gotten structurally screwed and limited and otherwise constrained; and it didn't really even have to do with language, just power.

So between the division of the Prairies, the denail to BC of greater territory (be it the Yukon or what is now Alberta, never mind the 1846 copout which surrendered north bank of the Columbia River), the Crow Rate, the Pacific Scandal, and dickshovel's messiness with the Northern Pacific, there's a whole slew of constitutional and historical injustices that underlay the current situation, and while most people are not directly aware of them, they lie underneath the situations that have produced the long-standing and continuing resentment over Ottawa's policies concerning the West (which are almost always written, not for the benefit of the West, but for the benefit of ON/QC).

My two bits for now; but those little bits of history I hope will be fodder for y'all to consider the very real ways in which Confederation has discriminated against "the West", and kept it from having enough clout to keep from being bullied by TO and Mtl, as is (to me) currently the case. And I'm not even a fricking Tory.

Thats Haida Gwaii Rafe...Haida Gwaii.

No, it's the Queen Charlottes alright.

Thank you Skookum!!!!!!!!
Let's see what will happen when Ontario and Queer-bec get pushy with our resources.

being something of a western seperatist, and having zero love for the Canuckistani governing system, I look forward with glee to the centralists pushing us too far. Confederation ain't that great, and everyone knows it.
The liberals and NDP are greedy for an opportunity to steal our wealth more than they already do. And federal sellouts like those done on our softwood chap my butt! It galls me that the yanks get any of the duties paid out. But central canuckistan sold us on a bill of goods again...

It's that sacred capitalist "marketplace" thingy again. You know, every man/woman for himself/herself, and the devil take the hindmost. What's mine is mine, and what's your's is mine.?

And it comes at us in many strange and wonderous ways to behold that one would never imagine.

Though here, mixed up with it, is that "state's rights" thingy as well, though here it manifests itself as "provincial rights" over the right of the entire country. Which is US Empire ideology and their view of the nation divided brought into this country through our own Neocon US Empire Loyalists.

Doubtless you've heard as well of the old "power" adage, to divide and rule? Well, it works here too. You keep the country and populace divided and fragemented, they's too busy looking after their own little bit of home turf, quarreling amongst themselves, to ever get it together to take the ruling class interest on, which reaps the rewards of all those unwashed folks fighting amongst themselves over the scraps. They do the same thing with East versus West, north and south, Anglos versus Quebecers and First Nations, and even men versus women, and young versus old. They're always finding new ways to play us all one off against each other.

Which keeps the ruling class giggling secretly up its sleeve, all the way to the bank.

Capitalism is truly a marvelous thing. And it works for them

realist2 says

OK - BUT I'm not looking forward to Alberta playing the centralist cowboy in a separated West; just because you got a lot of oil in the ground doesn't mean you know how to run your economy and that Toryoid economic policies really work. Anything works if you've got Fort Knox in the basement, fer chrissake.

My lessons on Western history were just to show how different things could have been, and to remind people that the next time you hear an Easterner bleating that we "don't understand/accept Quebec", you can point out that Quebec had a hand in stunting the growth of the West, and that our population and economy would be bigger and stronger than ON and QC combined if we'd not been messed with

. And also that we have our own constitutional/structural grievances that were

.

I should add that I don't think much of the constitutional/political structure of BC, and think it's high time for all-round reform of it; the imbalance between Vancouver and its empire (BC) is much like Toronto's exploitation/vampirization of its empire (Canada), and needless to say our democratic system just AIN'T. Fixed election dates and reformed election systems aren't enough; the whole top-down nature of Premiership and the sweeping powers of the government, with no public recourse or objection having meaningful foothold (as with Eagle Bluffs and so many other places) serves to demonstrate that point.

Many commentators above have voiced the opinion that Canada is one community in which resources should be shared equally. But that runs into the democratic deficit. Namely, equalization beneficiaries are seriously overrepresented in Parliament, while contributors are seriously underrepresented. Why, for example, should Saskatchewan with fewer than a million people, have half as many seats as Alberta (which has more than triple its population). Alternatively, if Ontario were represented on the Saskatchewan formula, we'd have fifty more seats. How can the Dominion ask for equality of revenue sharing when it cannot offer equality of representation? Why should the "poor" provinces get to vote with their inflated representation seats to divy up the spoils of the underrepresented provinces?

whoops; quotes were meant to be italics; my winamp's hiding the buttons...

Percy wrote:

Because too many Canadian sheeple still believe that an artificial 'popularity contest' called an election has merit.

This is why the US, during their 1770's revolution did not really want 'no taxation without representation' because they knew that they would be totally outvoted in the London house of commons. Too bad our ancestors did not fully understand that no taxation without representation was strictly a slogan and not a methodology.

There are no reasons at all for the so-called 'poor' provinces to get anything for nothing from the other provinces. No reason other than our shared history. Once the myths about those 'shared' values are exposed the whole rotten structure will fall to pieces.

"Equal" is not equal when certain areas of the country (or of a province) predominate over others in population. Because there are eight million people in Quebec, they should own their "fair share" of what's underneath Alberta? Wait a minute - then shouldn't other provinces receive a fair share of the industrial profits made by Ontario and Quebec at the expense of other provinces' economies? Hmmmmm.

"Equal" is a euphemism, a movable goalpost that has no relation to the facts on the ground.

BTW re my history posting earlier; kinda seems like we should be asking for an apology and redress just like everyone else, huh?

Why should the big/rich/powerful provinces (ON/QC) get to vote with their huge seat holdings to divvy [sp.] up the spoils of the smaller/less populous/screwed-around provinces?

Representational imbalances are only part of the problem. Ontario's blind spot when it comes to its own suppression of development in other provinces is another.

If Canada is an artificial construct pitting provinces against each other then so are the provinces. How much oil is under Calgary? None. So why should they get a big share (including all the head offices) of all the wealth being generated hundreds of miles away. Shouldn't Fort McMurray separate from Alberta? Then again, why should the town of Fort McMurray get all the wealth when the oil is outside municipal boundaries..

Fact is we're either one country or we're not. If we're going to refuse to share then we should break up the country and provinces and become a thousand tiny little Basque-type regions who go to war with each other over a gallon of water every week.

Long live Cascadia! ;)

http://zapatopi.net/cascadia/

When it is said ... or implied ... that all Canadians should share it's difficult to counter except that until FTA and NAFTA, Central Canadian products were protected like a condom hence we paid enormous premiums on cars, dishwashers etc. The response given when we complained was, "don't forget we have to buy your raw materials at world prices.

Rafe....

Very good article and thanks greatly for the real info about transfer payments.

Well said, Frank.

If you can't be loyal to the country you have now...why would we trust you with any other artificial construct?....eg. Cascadia or whatever the new pie-in-the-sky construct be.

As Frank makes clear...why doesn't the outskirts of Fort Mac just say to heck with both Fort Mac and the rest of Alberta? They've, the outskirts, got the oil after all...what do they need anybody else for?

Well... that is... until all the oil runs out? Or all the water soon runs out? Or all the....

Eventually with this kind of self-centered, selfish, not to mention temporary take on life...you end up with one guy on a rock in the middle of the ocean...screaming "I am King of the World"...it's basically just self-delusional don't ya think?

should read "They've, (the outskirts) got all the oil after all...

Frank,case in point. Refinery row in Edmonton is outside the city limits in Strathcona county and the city gets zero taxes from all the refining activity .

Another gem from Frank and Lynn .
You sure paint funny word pics Lynn .

thanks, hannibal. :-) I made soooo many grammatical errors in that piece I was just thinking....yeeeech..is there an editor in the house?

Frank,case in point. Refinery row in Edmonton is outside the city limits in Strathcona county and the city gets zero taxes from all the refining activity .

Which to the limited degree there is some truth to this, and there is, is also true for Amerikkka, or even Europe. It is a problem with current democracy everywhere that arises from a capitalism base. And the problem arises out of control over the electoral system and its outcomes by ruling class wealth and ideas availability control and/or dominance.

It is this which needs to change, most obviously, before we can even really seriously begin to address this prohlem with "sheeple" and democracy you identify. Except I am almost certain that this is not exactly what you were talking about. :-) A little birdie tells me. :-)

Outside of that, the internal relations within the entire country should and needs to be "negotiable", without drawing hard and fast lines around it, and which arise out of simply capitalist marketplace greed and a desire to control the sources of real wealth, and the distribution of "paper wealth" loosely based on that. (Thinking Alberta. Our Texas mentality region.)

Unless, of course, and we certainly have these types here on Tyee, there is a desire to drive more and more fragmenting wedges into the country-, which effectively serves it up to The US Empire in digestible pieces.

I will choose the whole, first and foremost, while attempting to resolve within a fair and equitable framework the greed issues which capitalism both feeds and feeds into.

But then, I have no interest in seeing the country divided. My interest is in seeing it strong, independant, united around whatever form actually works, federal, confederal or otherwise, and reliant upon itself, not export or otherwise dependant. And I have no interest in seeing it handed up piecemeal, beholden to, seving or kissing the ass of another quite different set of continental "regional" interests.

And countries like people are united around equality and a sense of community, not inequality, narrow individualism and greed. Which explains my disdain for capitalism as well as what passes for current democracy.

Coyote writes:

This is just 'manifest destiny' all over again. It was the facile argument that was used to strong-arm Crown Colony BC representatives to come to Ottawa in 1870. Helmcken saw it for the lie that it was then...it is even more of a lie now.

Will the 'empire' come calling with troops?
No.
There is no need to so long as the US admin and co-opt the major institutions of politics in Canada. For example the connections that are drawn all the time to Harper, I need not repeat. Also the many connections to US policy and leadership that can be drawn to at least Igantieff, if not Dithers and Cretien...

Would they come calling with forces if there were 10 different places to have to deal with?
No.
They have enough troubles elsewhere on the planet, they would want to negotiate, especially if the formation of 10 (or more) new nations on the north side of the continent said no to the NAFTA.

NO way is this in keeping with the other views you have given Coyote. 'The whole' as you put it uses extortion techniques to extract $$$ from the west, then putting into their coffers in the east they then use portions of that money to ensure that 'their' candidates are the ones 'we' are forced to choose from. Where else would someone like Emerson come from?

The divisions are based on 'physical' limits. Nature has endowed certain places with natural resources and others with none- or very little. We have set unnatural boundaries and over the past century used redistribution techniques to disadvantage the western provinces to the advantage of Ottawa (I will not say Ontario as even Toronto is pissed at Ottawa over the redistribution formulae now).

Read 'Prosperity and Violence'

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393050386/002-3614018-7564022?v=glance&n=283155

The material about the concentration of power to the center and the means of control is very telling in the Canadian context.

Then why not separate from the mess in Ottawa and re-start with a new civil congress (like the citizen's assembly) to establish the first step in a separate BC?

First, you do not actually know this. And the historical experience we and the entire hemisphere have with US Manifest Destiny, in fact, says otherwise. To say nothing of even the entire current globe, starting with Palestine and going through Iraq etc.

Nothing, save that US Manifest Destiny, in its current form as the Neocon "Project for A New American Century, makes it clear that in fact, Amerkkka is even more determined and aggressive in its expansionist desires. Indeed their entire continental free trade push is daily more demonstrated to but a vehicle for its continental expansion ambitions.

So, simply put, you either hide from reality, consciously or unconsciously, or seek to deceive us.

If it is but this that determines a countries boundaries, then clearly Amerikkka is a failure-, not even considering Alaska or Hawaii. Clearly, their are some physical limits, but in the modern world they are as much at least determined, or pushed at their limits by human will, cultural and social issues.

Again, I will but suggest, as the Mrs insist I appear for supper, that you view flows out of a parochial, and narrow limited regional view, more related to the narrow "marketplace" value system as you yourself perceive it-, and even possibly as part of a hidden, I would say traitorous intent to harm the country.

And yet, I suspect, with my anti-capitalism, pro-egalitarian views, I will be perceived as the more dangerous. The divisive and individualist marketplace bias at work against the whole.

murdock
I'd never separate because you're a bigger piker than the turkeys you're always talking about in Ottawa.

You want to run your own little selfish magical mystery show out here on the west coast. Your attitude toward teachers and public schools is a dead giveaway. Canada certainly isn't perfect and it has made many mistakes but it's a damn sight better place than this little empire of BC would be with you and the corporate clowns currently running the rackets in Victoria would make it. I'd give it less than five years before you'd sell us down the river to the Yankees and tell us we'd gotten a great deal.

Your idea of values aren't values at all - they're dollar signs.

We all should know the jig is up. Canada, clearly, was set up as a group of Provinces, all with independence to sink or swim.
John A. MacDonald, was floundering in his political career when he enacted a " Softwood Lumber " like program that imposed huge import taxes on goods imported from the USA, thus encouraging huge monies for Ontario. This was the origin of our anti-Americanism.
The West was simply , wheat, lumber and beef.
There was no oil then.
But all Provinces have the legal right to create their own opportunities, and cash in on it.
Equalization ? Why ? If a Province can't find a way to make a decent living within Canada, you must be brain dead.
Canada rules.
If You can't make it here, you can't make it anywhere.
What a place to have a franchise ( Alta./BC ).

MURDOCK according to G West you have a big piker (wonder how did he come by such knowledge) I was wondering have you heard of Marta the Catholic girl, she submitted comments on the Talking To Lost Boys of Bountiful site ,I was wondering , as you have a large piker maybe she would be inter, oh never mind I was just thinking out loud.

is woody, is a big piker!
You trying to get me in trouble?

woody
a piker is a cautious or timid gambler; also a poor sport! It's colloquial. Also can mean a shirker, someone who doesn't do his share of work.

I used the term to label murdock because he's always promoting the destruction of the nation and because he's not willing to shoulder his part of the collective enterprise of making this great country work.

G West ,well you know the old saying “a secret is no longer a secret, once you tell someone”
shouldn’t have mention any thing about murdocks “big piker, like I mean , I wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t let it slip out, I mean let out , you know what I mean?

That's a good quote Coyote.

Lynn, thank you.

rafe, murdoch et al, None of us were alive in 1867. Most of us do not have ancestors who were BC'ers in 1867. There are no 300 year old ancestral homes in Surrey. In other words, this constant west versus east thing is nothing but bs. We're all either easterners or immigrants. None of us have any ancient claim to resources in the ground. Someone arriving at Vancouver airport 5 years ago is somehow supposed to feel that damn Ontario is trying to steal his resources? Look at the stats, look at BC's population in 1867 and look at it now. That wasn't all birth rate, it was immigration.

The people of Ontario and P.E.I. should have as much right to the oil in the ground in Alberta as the guy who moved to Alberta from who-knows-where 10 years ago.

Its not Canada I want to see end, its provinces. Other countries with bigger populations, such as Britain, manage without them. Our provinces are practically the equivalent of Spanish autonomous regions without the history.

The main wealth started out in Ontario because of a unfair setup.
If Alberta, now, has to give up monies to eastern Canada, I would call for mathematician's to do the math and calculate how much the West has been robbed up until now.
Canada is what it is. A loose group of franchises within a brilliant agreement to leave each other alone.

Sure, and then calculate how much the natives were robbed. And then how much Britain robbed us. And then how much the Normans took from the Saxons. And how much those johnny-come-latelys the Saxons took from the Celts.

Let's just roll the whole thing back to Arthur and make Central Asia start paying the piper.

And then calculate how much Alberta benefitted from the fact there are no Albertans, they all came from somewhere else and not very long ago either.

Then when that's settled let's divide Alberta in half so the north can hate the south and demand Calgary start paying back all the wealth it took from the north.

You won't find a farmer today that thought the crow rate subsidy was a bad thing. You also won't find anyone with common sense and knowledge of the markets and M & A's that will tell you that the NEP, a program that would have seen this country aim to own 50% of its oil and gas over 30 years, know that the canadian corp profits and taxation of those profits would have helped this country tremendously, compared to what we have now... an 85% plus U.S. owned oil and gas nation that watches its profits go south, collecting a pitance in oil royalties both from Alta and Canada, with Fed royalties virtually drying up as oil prices spike and peak, and a brainwashed view that Alta and Canada actually still "owns" its resources.

What blows my mind is just how well the NCC's propaganda campaign against the NEP actually worked in Alta, and all they had to do was play the East/West division card to disguise the facts. And what are those facts? Lost revenue of Canadian oil developed by U.S. corps. Lost royalties with Alta charging the second lowest royalty rate in the world until recently... its now 25% of corporate declared net profits, meaning Alta is now at a huge risk to corporate accounting shell games.
And, finally, the lie that Canada does not have enough "Capital" of its own to actually need 90% "foreign investment" to develope its own resources.

Its safe to say that there are reasons why Ralph Klein is one of the National Citizen Coalitions hero's (like Mulroney and John Crosbie), the same group Harper presided over as president from 97' to 01', the same NCC that wants to privatize every essential service in this country and open it up to U.S. markets. You know, healthcare, insurance, the wheatboard, the CBC, RCMP, penal systems, unions, well, everything.

The thing is, when we talk of nationalizing assets, we become U.S. public enemy number one, especially with the Republicans in power. What this means is military agression or coups. What is happening now in this country is a kind of "coup", or overthow of governments through a U.S. controlled media, (mainly canwest) and a U.S. controlled political party (the Cons).

The agenda is simple. Continue U.S. integration and ownership of Canada's resources and markets. This means propaganda that distorts the truths of what we really own in this country in terms of property rights and ownership, lies that create divisions within this country to further decentralize Canada's federal powers, and finally, the lack of accurate news and information surrounding directorships appointed to politicians who are corrupt enough to sell out to the U.S. empires plan.

And, if you all like whats being said at morefreedom.org
and like U.S. foriegn policies and their nation as a whole, vote for the western separatist/U.S. annexator, Stephen Harper.
Just vote Conservative.

Boy. That smacks of a desire to see democracy come to Canader...

That's because in Canada...we don't have democracy. We can't do anything about the BS that has been dished up by the eastern thugs that dominate and extract like mafia protection racket theives.
We don't have the right to recall lousy MPs. We don't have the right through initiative legislation to address each and every piece of dumbass policy or law passed by our so called representatives.
The BNA gave totally artificial weight to Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes (excluding Nfld). There is no doubt Those of us who reside here came from somewhere else.
So, it's time to revisit "CONFEDERATION" and fix the bloody thing. Barring that, separation is the only other recourse.
Rebuilding BC from zero wouldn't be a bad thing.

woody,

In case you had not already come to the conclusion that G West is not worth reading, let along discussing anything with, fret not as I do not see the frothings from this cheeze-doodled, puffy fingered poster from the dark, dank end of his single-wide.

He cannot frame any argument without recourse to 'ad-hominem' attack, so the merits or otherwise of his posts are lost.

Thank you, woody, for your kind thoughts and I have read the Bountiful storyline, but have no comment to put towards it.

Coyote,

not hidden at all.

break this lost country up, do it now.

The way I see it, the longer we wait and allow our leadership system to become further and further corrupted (and if you deny the corruption then you have a lot of ground to go back on with your views of Emerson's actions).

I believe I have asked you this before, "Define your view of what is the country."

Your response included much about the peoples and their worldviews, not much at all about artificial boundaries, that only exist on a map and have no physical boundary. By physical boundary I mean an ocean, a river, a mountain that goes higher than the treeline.

I say that by the very definition that you gave, that you do not see 'the country' the same way that the power-elites in Ottawa do.

We, collectively in Canada, must stop buying what they, the power-elites in Ottawa, are selling = especially at election time!

I recall hearing a Liberal senator speaking on Rafe's show when it was on CKNW (many years ago now). The senator and Rafe were discussing this very issue of 'western alienation'. The senator had a very english accent, I cannot recall his name, and point-blank said to Rafe something along the lines of: Constitutional democracies can only change as result of armed revolutions carried to their full conclusion.

The senator was implying that the Canadian government was going to remain the power of the country until some sort of armed revolution changed the status quo.

I say that no such armed action is needed.

Cut off the $$$ supply at source, then ignore their protestations. Start re-establishing the machinery of governance closer to the people to be so governed, in the way and manner that they agree to be govern'd.

freebc :

I AGREE

An open-line cross-country show held back in the '70's, People Talking Back, fielded groups of people across the country, with no politicians or pundits acting as "moderators" (ie. there to control the conversatin/subject, as they always do nowadays), were able to discuss the country's political/economic/cultural problems face-to-face through "the miracle of television". It was an amazing McLuhanesque kind of thing, and the tape is in the video library at SFU and well worth the watch (presumably in the main WAC Bennett library).

There was lots of meat in this discussion, the kind you'd NEVER hear on Newsworld's pundits and party hacks diet, that's for sure. Anyway, one guy in the Edmonton group made this point:

And he wasn't talking about US media in Canada; he was talking about the Ontario media clique's control of information, image, even national self-image, all regulated through M5W 1E6 (CBC's postal code) and (in those days) CTV. There was no reportage on western history/identity western perspectives - and I don't mean Reform-ite perspectives, but ANY perspectives; the Solidarity Crisis of 1983 was completely and deliberately mis-portrayed in the national media; if anything the media are culpable for boosting and celebrating Reform-ite thinking, trying to "sell" it to us. Oh sure, they'd show us cowboy hats and fishermen and totem poles and some loggers and big trees - about as helpful as the usual US image of Canadians as big guys in tartan shirts with double-bitted axes; but actually opening up the national debate to people who were not appropriately dressed and scrubbed and de-testiculated first? Forget it.

So anyway, that's the main point of my post here: that our national debate is incredibly controlled and stifled, and intentionally so. You think Harper actually is interested in democratic reform? No - only lip service; he's already shown he's more of an autocrat and power-monger than Pierre Trudeau ever bothered to be. Pierre at least accumulated/concentrated power to get things done; Harper is accumulating and concentrating power for it's own sake. You can see it in his eyes, in fact, I'd say.

And one parting shot at the media: this morning on Global's morning newscast their Chris Carter guy, from his book-lined office on the North Shore, was discussing the new influx of Chinese-made barbeques and bicycles. And how the Canadian bicycle industry is "going to have to find new ways to compete, including moving their manufacturing offshore". There were a bunch of other negatives he listed off, in carefully saran-wrapped language, and then he dropped the bombshell: "What all this means is lower prices for the consumer, which is how we have a strong and stable economy".

Really. Manufacturing jobs exported offshore so as to remain competitive with a sweatshop economy? Ah, the wonders of the level playing field, huh? What I don't understand, if competition for bicycles resulting in cheaper prices for the consumer means a "strong and stable economy", then why not cheaper prices for housing, too?

Oh, but the same guy will crow about how great it is that realty values are going up by 20% a month or a quarter or whatever it is.....

We got sold out a long time ago; and it just happens that our political system dates back to the 1860s-1870s and vests near-regal authority in the guys who can manage to get the largest minority of votes (let's not call it "plurality" anymore, OK; it's very misleading).......and if you oppose them, well, they own the media - the public media, as well as the private.

BTW instead of "People Talking Back", or something like it (say, a Mary Walsh-hosted show like Open Book, only not about books.....), we get Rex Murphy holding forth inanely on obviously trident right-wing opionions. Too often. Surely there are other commentators in this country, and not all from that stripe. But why does the newscast have to end with a pundit; why not with ten ordinary people discussing what they'd just seen.

Too scary for the government and the media cabals. When People Talking Back was made, it was because the CBC had been told "more public input" or their budget would be cut. They aired the show and nearly caused a revolution overnight; the next day their budget was doubled and they were told "never do it again".

BTW that PTB group in Edmonton wasNOT anything like the usual image of Albertans as sold to us, and as too many of them have come to believe is the way Albertans are; these were educated, liberal Edmontonians, and not oilpatch yahoos. The Reform-ite crowd, if not by that name yet, was not even dominant in the Calgary group. The Edmonton bunch were probably among the most liberal of the lot; the BC bunch were stiff, sterile and you could feel the tension between the different spokespeople selected there; BC's presentation was very formal, as was TO's and a few others; but Edmonton's, St. Johns' and others were obviously a bunch of people with ashtrays on the table (unthinkable nowadays) and probably a mickey or two under the table.

All this just to serve that the "western" perspective that the guy was complaining about not being in our media was not the type of right-wing shill that we've been associated with in the Eastern media. Even to begin discussing federal/confederal poltics with an Easterner, they assume we're all Alberta Harperites/Tories because the sell job has been so effective.

murdock,

Emerson, Birk and Vasi, as well as Bennett and Summers etc are all home-grown.

I think Canada's borders with the Arctic ocean, the Pacific ocean and the Atlantic ocean are a lot more real than BC's border's with the Yukon and Alberta.

And what evidence is there to show that the "power-elites" of Victoria or on Cambie are any different?

Isn't that how it works everywhere?

What protestations? Ontario is richer than we are.

We have that, it was called independence from London.

Just answer me this, how many miles away from your house should your gov't be before it becomes illegitimate? And how many months/years does it take for a DP to step off the boat before he can claim the central Cdn power-elites are oppressing him and that 10th generation Cdns aren't entitled to a share of what lies in the ground of his newly adopted country?

Good post Brain

By the way, the current group of central Canadian power-elites weren't foisted on us by Ontario. BC, Alberta and Sask did that. I'm sure many in Ontario would be as happy as a Massachusetts Democrat to see the right-wing west leave. Excepting of course all the Ontarians and Maritimers who have moved to BC and Alberta over the years/generations.

Bullshite. That was just the pattern of development and colonization of the country, from east to west. That was the direction from which the pattern of immigration and Euro-centric development evolved.

These US Empire Loyalists are merely back here, whining and effectively advocating for the breakup of the country. And if you don't know by now what "continental interest" is behind this drive, and who benefits from this "provincial and regional rights" view of the "whole Canada", hammering away at the divisive "wedge issues" that encourage the separation of the various regional elements of the country, then you haven't been paying attention to either the behaviours of the US Empire itself, or those traitorous conservative/fascist elements within our country that are acting to serve it.

On the real world, realpolitik balance scale, the evidence has been tipping since the demise of the old British Empire influence and hold on this country, towards dissolution and integration into the US Empire, aided by these heavily weighted "capitalist market forces" types and their "private market" ideological view of our country and the continent.

If your view is that this is all there is to the matter and the country-, fragmented regional "capitalist market forces", and us all warring to serve them and their individualistic ends, then by now, like IAMC and Co. you know what side of the fence your interest lies on.

But if, on the other hand, you place more value on the historical development experience of this country and its people, and the social model they and we have created, even though these traitorous necons are working mightily to undo it, and even though the work of the "independant economic and political development of the entire country" is clearly incomplete, along with its model of democracy, likewise dominated by these "free market" denizens, then you really do need to begin to line up right now in the camp opposing these US Empire Loyalists. For we have both a country yet to completely win and entirely secure, and a social revolution to complete, that makes a final break with the US dominant interest, and our own ruling class centred, "private market forces" allied with them.

That we thought it was already complete and secure is but a measure of our national naivete and complacency to here. We have powerful enemies without, working to dismantle what our ancestors attempted to lay the foundations down for here, and to draw us ever more tightly into the orbit of The US Empire, and we have those traitors within, who would and are serving them-, and right now they are in formal power in Ottawa, in BC, and in Alberta. And they are rooted in ruling class "Business Power" within the entire country.

Continued next post...

From previous post...

Which says to me, that what needs to be created is a greater counterposing power that arises out of "the common man and woman" in this country, for it is the only potentially greater power there is within society.

For if we are waiting for this Business Power to create a country in which we can be proud, that husbands the natural wealth of the nation, that is more profoundly democratic in all its economic and political spheres, and wherein our social relations have that quality of equality out of which social harmony and unity arises, then we will wait forever-, and it will not be found in the US Empire or even a separate BC or Alberta either. This latter is the supreme delusion in fact. For this Business Power, here or in the US, is about quite another agenda serving quite different and more self-serving interests. (I mean, really look at Amerikkka. It is coming unglued right now before our very eyes. We should want to join that? They are themselves fleeing in great numbers for this country. Get fuking real.)

Like them, this Business Power and our Neocons who act for it, though our aims and objectives may be entirely different, there is a particular commonality, by way of a trait we have to share: you have to be prepared to reach out and take, by force if necessary, what you find important and want. These people have to be driven out from our midst, and sent packing like the old British Empire Loyalists, only back to Amerikkka.

murdock
You know, fella, the pot ought not to call the kettle black. Your lack of patience for anyone who doesn't happen to fall in line behind your pet (some would say obsessive) theories has been well and duly noted. If the worst thing you ever called someone was 'a piker' I wouldn't be posting this right now.

What a hypocrite! Like most people of the neo conman persuasion you can dish it out just fine but you're not too happy when you're on the receiving end of a justified insult. You might perhaps remember that your insult toward people who happen to live in trailers will bite Truman Green a little more savagely than you, with your finely honed sense of critical proportion, may have recognized.

You are such a phony.

Murdock:

I'm with Coyote, Frank, G West and anyone else who see's the real dangers for what it is. Canada is at huge risk, and for some time now, of losing its identity to U.S. integration. We lose our social programs, our universality, our media identity, our fiscal strength replaced by federal debt, and clearly, someone like yourself and especially Harper, will tell us all after the decentralization of federal powers, "might as well join the U.S.! Besides... what's the difference between us and them now anyways."

Your plan for BC to separate from Canada fits well into U.S. integration/annexation. (Geez, I almost sound like I'm talking to a child, now) For whatever reason, you haven't worn the shoes of the leaders behind the U.S. empire's expansionist plan to see where Canada's (and all of its beloved provinces) lie. In that plan, you will find in loud, bold print...

Divide and Conquer

No, instead, individuals like yourself would suggest wholesale, that fractioned bits and pieces of balkanized states who fought bitterly over wealth and greed, are a stronger force than a full grown nation with centralized powers and an international voice known for peace and moral high ground (until lately), a nation with an intact governing system that is already strong enough to withstand the advances of U.S. domination in all aspects, except one...

The publicly elected officals we entrust in steward to guide Canada through its challanges and struggles.

The difference between Quebec separatists and the western separatist Murdocks of the world are clear. There isn't any. And if or when any province should be dumb enough to separate, the ultimate end will be far worse than the beginning... poorer nations, at total risk and exposure to the same U.S. empirical game plan to own it all, with, as Frank points out, the same corrupt homegrown politicians gravitating to power to watch the U.S. paying us a pitance to keep and maintain what is theirs, as it is already with Canadian oil and gas now. And, that is assuming that separation will be a transaction that will be peaceful. A poor assumption.

So lets put it to you in this way, Murdock. I definitely will not be peaceful concerning the breakup of this country and those who chirp loudly with instigation and celebration of separation will be the easiest to spot. Would I bleed and die for Canada? a Canada that includes BC? Yup. Would you do the same for your beloved BC only, if at all? I highly doubt it. You should consider yourself lucky that people like myself don't take you seriously, likened to think that you're just another misguided self-centered separatist blowhard who wants to be a hero of his own nation until it all emplodes, and is then nowhere to be found, other than to blame illogical goals, ill will, and shitty plans on someone else other than yourself.

If, Murdock, you guessed that I don't much like separatists of any province, you guessed right. And aside from all of this pompous vocal posturing (even nowso on my part), if you really want BC to separate, than vote for the western separatist in power now, with the eastern separatists backing him up. I'm certain you know who I won't vote for.

The Brain responds:

good then off to battle in a double-dozen places for you once the madness that is 'equalization' starts to unravel and more and more citizens see that they are being used to feed others mouths.

Be ready to stand your lines in Newfoundland once they get their oil & gas fields operating and decide that Ottawa deserves none of the proceeds as it was Ottawa and thier bizzare fisheries ministry that can be blamed for the destruction of the cod stocks and the devastation of the east coast economy.

Be ready to bleed like you never thought you could in Quebec, because if the BQ and PQ get their acts together the Libs stand no chance at all. Oh and while you are at it you better not shovel any money off the back of the trucks into the advertising industry in Quebec during the referendum, because that trick will not work again.

Be ready to stand defensive lines around the major cities of the west like Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton and Calgary once the break-up starts because the native populations are tired to laying down. The metis are well aware of what waiting and seeing does. Ask the followers of Riel...

The peace will be shattered in BC, unless we have the will to start to answer the challenges of now. Answer them with different solutions than have ever been tried in the 250 years of 'nations'.

Yes, were such a force arrayed against me and mine as I should have no other choice.

As I totally doubt your statements earlier.

I have already served 9 years in the regular force, 15 days short of a CD including Cadet and Reserve time. I have been a peacekeeper in deadlier places than I care to see my children be. Your doubt of my resolve only needs to be tested in reality, then you may see whether I know the working end of a bayonette or not.

to be continued ...

continued for the Brain:

This is the price of nation-building, but then I am not interested in nation-building.

The stupidity of borders and the military forces that attach to them are where the immature leaders think they can find the means to either re-draw those borders, like Saddam; or to make them forever secure, like Bush. Neither thing can be done, ever.

Now those borders are becoming ever more meaningless in a planet criss-crossed by instant telecommunications. A place where ideas can be discussed and shared, like we are now, without restrictions.

A place like you describe, where no one is allowed any dissent. They must subscribe to the tyranny of the majority or die.

Sounds like a dictatorship to me.

I wish a pox on you and all your methods.

Waste of time to put more energy into the meaningless popularity contests called elections. Better would be to invest time and energy in being well informed of the nature of the changes facing the area/region you live in. Be ready to depart once the conditions become untenable, such as independant thinkers like me being attacked physically by mobs of 'canada first' vigilantes like you.

Alcibiades posted:

takes one to know one.

:-P

Frank, your earlier post, in response to something someone else posted:

And then calculate how much Alberta benefitted from the fact there are no Albertans, they all came from somewhere else and not very long ago either.

Then when that's settled let's divide Alberta in half so the north can hate the south and demand Calgary start paying back all the wealth it took from the north.

I have no interest in reparations, nor in any paybacks or penalties or anything of that nature. I want to see a better way of managing our 'national' interest. The confederation method is not working any more, it is broke in my mind and it is high time to fix it.

I do not see a solution in our being controlled by some national congress that has been corrupted over 135 years.

I say that each region (for sake of argument, province) must start to lay down its own solutions, independantly. For without independance first there can be no inter-dependance.

Whether you think this can be done peacefully is anohter item.

What do you think would happen if tomorrow:

Mr. Klein ordered all the RCMP out of Alberta and established an Alberta police force (within the current confederation this is allowed!), established an Alberta bank - totally separate from the Bank of Canada and began issuing an Alberta currency(within the current confederation this is allowed!).
Less than twenty minutes later the announcement that all 'citizens' of Alberta need not pay any more Canadian income taxes, upon the swearing of an oath to Alberta and repudiation of the Canadian citizenship.

What I see happening is a panic in Ottawa, then 24 hours later all the other provinces doing the same thing.

Not a shot fired in anger.

The Brain
Utter waste of time to put any more energy into responding to someone as utterly compromised and self-absorbed as Murdock is Brain.
He's busy running his own popularity contest of, and for himself. As I said above, anyone who resorts to the pretense murdock does obviously has a problem relating to the real world and real peoples' concerns. He prefers to belittle the folks he’d like marching heel and toe in his own private army.

I expect it is a little slow at the 'ole home school this morning. These former members of the military find the free time troubling. They really miss someone telling both what to do and what to think.

Murdock has adopted a handful of avatars, one in the education community whose name escapes me at the moment and another, from what he posts, is the good doctor Helmcken and the third, as I recall is Ayn Rand.

He seems to live in a strange objectivist world of his own creation from which he throws 'olympian' barbs of dubious wisdom.

What I would guess is that well over half of ALbertans would demand that Canada save them from dictatorship. I would guess that well over half of Albertans are loyal to Canada and not some artifice carved out of Rupert's Land.

Even if the rest of Canada didn't give a damn and cheerily waved Alberta good-bye and brought the troops home from CFB Edmonton it would mean diddly-squat to them or us. It wouldn't change my day to day life in the slightest and Albertans would be no better off.

In other words there would be no point to it because there isn't any such thing as an "Albertan" and therefore unlike the Basques there would be nothing gained.

In fact I bet most Albertans would happily rejoin Canada rather than be bought off by a $400 rebate cheque.

Alcibiades wrote:

And your comments include little in the way of solutions nor of objective analysis, which is why you feel it necessary to attack my analysis consistently with only personal observations and ad-hominem, the last resort of all whom cannot form logical opinion.

Test what I have said against the laws and ways of people. Given the choice to continue paying insane taxes they are already moving to Alberta from BC, made worse during the last years of the NDP. Now that has slowed and 'good times' are the mantra of the BC Libs, but watch what happens as Alberta finds more and more ways to escape the domination of Ottawa. When the scales really tip there will be a mad rush away from anywhere that wants to take more in taxes than the people are willing to accept.

Extracting taxes is like pulling feathers from a goose, the best tax collector pulls the most feathers with the least squaking.

I see a time coming when the squaking is going to get very loud indeed.

Frank writes:

All I can take from this is that you, Frank, have well-arranged your affairs so that you either pay no federal income taxes or very little.

Not all are so well organized and many would see a real increase in their day-to-day funds available.

murdock, what?

No they wouldn't.

But I note you have reduced the argument over Canada to a comparison of tax-rates? So people will be happy if they pay x amount of taxes and will rebel if they pay x+5%?

No they won't. Albertans, most of whom are only first or second generation, are not going to cut all the ties that bind us and swear allegiance to the west side of Rupert's Land over the equalization formula.

murdock
I'm actually quite sanguine about the taxes I pay. So long as none of those taxes go to your selfish and self-centred projects I will continue to be sanguine about them. I consider it an investment in doing my part in trying to create an equitable world in which all people have a reasonable chance of being happy. I am pleased that I've been fortunate enough to be able to pay taxes on the income I earn from real work of an honourable kind.
I clip no coupons and invest in no corporations who take advantage of the rest of us far more than Ottawa, compromised and imperfect as it is, does.

My solution begins with recognizing the wonderful country and the noble countrymen I have the honour to share it with. Unlike you, I am concerned with improving that country, not destroying it.

Murdock:

Your rants are full of contradiction. You'd die for your country of BC, and yet refuse to acknowledge its origins or evolution from and by its mother, Canada. You also seem to ignore Canada's truest threat which is U.S. empirical rule, from south of the 49th and within our federal government, of which I have no idea why you would think it would go away with balkanized Canadian pieces, other than the fact that you don't like Canada, so who cares! Intellectual arrogance such as yours is so common. "We can to it better than anyone else ever has in the past! We have a better system, called the minority rules, or else" Its like I told you. If you want to separate, vote for the Cons. They are just as arrogant as yourself.

Only in your mind, dude. Sorry to break it to you, but just someone says its broken doesn't mean it is, but there will always be those who want to break it before hand and then declare it broken. Its the separatist way.

A place like you describe, where no one is allowed any dissent. They must subscribe to the tyranny of the majority or die.
Sounds like a dictatorship to me.
I wish a pox on you and all your methods.

I take it that when true majorities rule, that democracies mean nothing to you then... When majorities rule, its called a democracy and when minorities rule, they are usually called dictorships. (geez, why do I still feel like I'm talking to a child?) But then, we all know how you feel about elections being a waste of time. Trust me, if anyone is expecting someone to take the first shot, it'll be wise guys like yourself. Just letting you know it won't come without a challenge and bayonets? Sorry, dude. My personality doesn't need to get off on verbatum and looks of death up close and personal when the time comes.

Oh and while you are at it you better not shovel any money off the back of the trucks into the advertising industry in Quebec during the referendum, because that trick will not work again.

Are you really so slow as to not see the full picture of Montgomery? Did you not know that
Separatists were outspending the Can government by more than 10 to 1 in the last election? And adscam? Try looking at how much money disappeared from Quebecs provincial side of things. Rigid... Authoritarian... views with blinders... man, your a load. Typical separatist with a typical self centered view. (yawn)

Frank:

They have not been given that choice.

I disagree and were such a choice available, I am certain of the outcome.

No the equalization is just a little drip in the ongoing bucket of things that may cause Albertans to decide confederation is not worth the effort. A new NEP (or its equivalent) would definately be a major ralling point.

A change in the equalization formulation may be the very place that Harper is looking to solve the NEP quagmire, and Klein has pre-empted such an action by bringing it to light.

murdock, would it be fair of me to say that you see Albertans as a "people"? A group that in the mists of history decided to join Canada and have now decided they're being oppressed by a far-away central gov't? That like Quebec they have fond nationalist memories of a time when they were a people and had a country of their own?

In other words that you fundamentally disagree with my point that Albertans are nothing more than Canadians and immigrants that decided to move to a part of Canada that Canada itself drew a line around and called Alberta? That it was Canada that in many of the early cases actually gave them the deed to the land they moved onto?

I've said before, I lived in Edmonton for awhile. I didn't find any of the "entitled to my oil royalties" attitude that is so often displayed by Alberta politicians. Quite the opposite, most considered themselves Canadians, not Albertans, and considered the oil money nothing but luck and had no wish to break away and form a Kuwait type state. Which I would expect by the way since most of them either weren't even born there or if they were they were the first generation of their family that was.

Alcibiades posted:

too late, as there are too many and I am absolutely certain that you have no way of tracking them all. The Auditor-General cannot even do that.

good for you, now imagine how much more might have been built here in BC in the past 130 years had we NOT been forced to co-operate with the Ottawa crowd?

these compromises and imperfections will drip-drip like a chineese water torture or filling a bucket, eventally you will either give in to the torture or overflow.

my bucket has already overflowed and I shall never give in to their torture again.

good luck with that

:)

Yes they have. There have been attempts to form Alberta versions of the PQ. The old Western Canada Concept for one. They all failed miserably.

And Alchibiades:

Do you really think you are above belittling others to build yourself up, as you stand accusing others of doing so? Try re-reading your own posts. I'm detecting a little projection, here. And this military thing. You are way off, dude. Murdock should be apply reminded of what does happen in traditional cases of separation. Its called war, either delayed or otherwise, and its not peaceful. But then, when you are used to using force as a method to achieve peace, you end up thinking like Murdock does.

The cost of dismantling a working, functional system to appease the intellectual vanity of individuals like Murdock deserve a reality check and for what its worth, you deserve one yourself. My purpose on this site isn't to "puff myself up" but to learn and become a better writer in the hopes that someday, I might write something worth publishing. I'm not there now. These things take time and I know I won't be right on every point, but there's no harm in trying. Someone who has chosen the name "Alchibiades" should know this, or be consciously looking to know the will and purpose behind what people do and say, should they not? Look harder.

Coyote wrote:

yes, yes I do value the historical development - but moreso I can readily see the losses that BC has faced because of being part of 'the Canada'.

I saw greedy 'old conservatives' at work in subverting the process by which BC was penciled into confederation, out of reaction and fear of the US.

Now the same non-sensical arguments are being posted about the 'new' manifest destiny or whatever you want to call it.

I still do not agree that the US military is interested in testing our resolve again, moreover we, Canada and US citizens have become family in many ways (my own family is living proof that we blend).

Whenever I visit Stanley Park I always make a point of visiting the Airforce Memorial gardens (and clean the markers) and I try to stop by the fountain that celebrates the brotherhood of US and Canada. On my last visit I was very sad to see the water drained and the entire sculpture looking very much worse for wear. It made me think of the way the relations between us have been strained. I will not visit the US gladly now, nor will I allow my sons to travel there unescorted. With the direction and nature of the US admin, I suspect that by the time the eldest is 16 I will advise him not to go there, lest he be drafted by a press-gang.

The original creation of the Crown Colony of BC involved neither Ottawa, nor Quebec.

If you value these historical precedents as you say, why are you still supporting the federalist cause?

One that sees only the 'two founding nations' that recognizes only the supremacy of Ottawa?

G'day, all:
Got a busy one, myself. (Day off, finally) I'm trying to ween myself off from the news these days, buts its hard. Take for example our warmongering O'Connors 8 Billion plus demand for a defence cheque to be later debated and voted on in the commons this week. 8 billion. I wonder how many defence corp directorships warmongering Harper, O'Connor and Co will get out of this one? And I wonder how many Canadians will have to die because of it.

The Conservatives estimate savings of 10 million annually to get rid of the long gun registry. 10 million. All that loud smoke and mirrors for a paultry 10 million in efficiency savings. Oh, but that is so "efficient" compared to 8 billion in defence spending.

And this Harperized "fiscal imbalance"... we've got Duceppe speaking like Harper now, voting his way to correct Quebecs fiscal imbalance. Watch Duceppe vote for 8 billion in military spending, or 30 liberals to do the same thing, a move Quebecers would never support, in the aim to correct our countries "fiscal imbalance".

Maybe if Quebec elected politicians that weren't so corrupt, they'd have a province that doesn't have a staggering 117 billion in debt the way they have now. The bloc's powerhold in Quebec, with whom they support, is at an end with their support of Harper. People often forget that Quebec has its share of federalists and peace loving people.

Who was it that made his stand and got slaughtered for it, him and his friends who snubbed the empire of the day and said "money is at the root of all evil"? Old JC, I believe it was. Greed has swept through the world, ignited by the fervor of capitalism, the belief that the individual can own any and as much as the individual wants... at any and everyone elses expense. And the criminal mind continues to rant, "I won't get caught" believing that the waste and pollution of "consumption" won't ever catch up to them or anything else they hold dear, like children and life and such. And the wars behind such ownership... the "disconnects"... the "separation" of the profound issues that effect us all...

Interesting how Teresen is ending up. Being bought out by Morgan and Kindle (did I get the name right?) who is going private with major shareholders buying out the remaining stock, major shareholders including CARLYLE and Goldman Sachs. Remember CARLYLE? Bush's favorite defence contractor? they own our natural gas services in BC now... Thanks, David Emerson, for making it happen. Hope your directorship with Teresen was worth the sellout... at everyone elses expense. While all us British Columbians pay our natural gas bills, we can remind ourselves that we are now helping U.S. war mongers get richer in the process, along with guys like Emerson.

Selfishness? Welcome to the road to self destruction. Selflessness? Same thing. Welcome to the road to self destruction. Ultimately, to avoid self destruction, we need to consider everyone, including ourselves, in everything that we do. You know, whats best for the micro and the macro. And who does? Who can see the macro and the micro both? Who is not deluded from vanity, from ego run a muck? Who is pure as the driven snow, there 24 hrs. a day? Who is so perfect? And still, is the practice of forgiveness, the practice of love, of compassion, of peace, too far beyond our potential to even try? For when we are not found trying for one, we are found trying for the other. Few sit on a fence for long and on that note, I've got to get my butt in gear. G'day, all.

Frank wrote:

Not in the context of the PQ.

WCC was far too religious based for many, myself included - as are the others that are 'western separation' minded. Their constitions and bylaws all begin with the supremacy of the bible which may have been good 30 years ago, but will attract less now.

I recognize that the separatist movements will be attended to only slowly and subverted by the powers that be by appeasement of their demands, like the BQ or outright arrest, like the FLQ.

Rafe is very right in pointing out that this issue will be a hot one, as a resumption of Ottawa dominion over all may not be taken so lightly.

The publicly elected officals we entrust in steward to guide Canada through its challanges and struggles.

I'm sorry. I don't think I read that right.
Are you putting any amount of faith or trust in those buffoons we send to Ottawa??????
OMG!!!!!!

Murdock, I'm feeling left out. You aren't the only one advocating separation.
The ones that really give me a giggle are the dolts that think when BC goes her own way, will immeadiately get swallowed up by imperialist USA.
That's furthest from the truth.
As much as canuckistani loyalists would like to chime on about the near to fall sky, The US wouldn't swaller us up. I suppose they could... But if BC was to become a banking haven like the Caymans as an example, that would not happen. Because the only thing that can separate an american from good sense is his money. Separate the two and you got problems.
And, those that really run things there, just like here, are folks with money.
BC happens to be right on the way to their favorite pilgrimage point, Alaska.
Bc is a great place to sneak some dough into to hide from the IRS.
Not only that... But the US will defend our newly formed country as good neighbours. Why???? Because we is hidin' their money fo' them.
BC can do it. Quebec can't. Why can't they?
1. They are french speaking and won't stop.
2. They whine too much.
3. The US already has enough trobles with Spanish language issues. They sure won't add French.

A few more minutes of thought could probably bring more reasons but those ones just leap to mind.

I can't think of one single benefit for BC to stay in confederation. NOT ONE!

LOL. My, my. I am much enjoying this-, watching our BC/Rupert's Land separatist, would be traitorous neocon destroyer of Canada twist in the wind of my comrades' rebukes and his own contradictions.

It is a complex time you wingnuts are taking us into, and it it is highly likely here in due course, you may not very much like the reactions you are about to elicit. Because it is that way with you, you thought it was all about tapping into your precious market forces and playing your personal/regional "greed card" for everyone. Well, it is not that way.

Nationalism and nation building can be a powerful trump card when it is appropriately played at the right time, as you nutters are about to find out I expect. Indeed, it can elicit quite a ferocious response.

Watch out you US Empire Loyalists in our midst. You may be just about to get bit on the arse by real world developments, you and your wannabe love interest, and by your own countrymen. You may just want to pay close attention here. 8-D LOL

Good writing, brothers and sisters. There is a certain attractive "intensity" that is refreshing when one's ideas are in sync with one's actual "feelings", and what one truly "values".

A desirable life is more than just about $$$, which is the area of ignorance of our Empire Neoconazis here, or even being intellectually "cute", which is the mirror they are always primping before.Though, at best, it merely makes them appear facile.

murdock, did you miss my post asking you if you see Albertans as a "people"?

Anyway, the thing is, warts or not, the people living in Alberta have had democratic outlets to do with separation and have chosen not to go there. At all. I have yet to even see booing of the national anthem or a demand for a Team Alberta at the Olympics.

The Brain wrote:

no cost at all, as I pointed out, the functions can be taken on in smaller portions (representative of the need locally) and paid for within the ability of those communities.

as for 'functional' I shall review your posts about Emerson, Gomery, Gun Registry, Court Reform, Electoral Fraud, Auditor General reports and others before I get into dismantling how 'funtional' it all has appeared to you before...

The Brain
You've been away for awhile. Perhaps you should look a little closer at Mr Murdock's posts.

Murdock is not capable of having a rational discussion without calling people down for who they are and where they live.

Check it out! Murdock's military background and his distaste for actual discussion is pretty evident. You might want to scroll back up here to a little exchange between him and his close friend woody. If you're really interested, look back at some of the things he's said about teachers and unions in the archives. The truth is out there.

When you've done that, if you still feel the way you do about what I've posted, I'll tone it down.

Since brain isn't here..

Red herring murdock. There has never been an instance of a democratic state that didn't have the odd scandal or misappropriation. By god its even happened here in BC.

you go freebc, as I have my boys to attend to, nap time is over.

I should like to finish with a statement that I can see a BC, free from Ottawa domination, co-operating in a positive way with an independant Alberta, Yukon and NWT as well as re-negotiating better trade relations with our US neighbors, without influence from Ottawa or the Bay Street crowd or their interests.

go get em freebc!

murdock, so that's it? You don't respond to direct questions, you don't provide any evidence of what you claim is a large separatist element nor evidence of why a province created by Canada would be better governed than Canada itself when history demonstrates the opposite?

Instead its all just rhetoric that somehow the "people" of BC and Alberta want to join you in your sympathy toward America and antipathy toward Ontario, in a new state.

You gotta do better than that if you want to convince anyone.

Especially in BC. That's why there needs to be a change to democracy.

All in all though, the picture painted by the canuckistani loyalists is that of total separation from family and friends who may still choose to reside back east. There is some thought that just like the old iron curtain in Europe, the same thing will happen here too.
And that is clearly a lie!

We will still have the ability to hop into the car and drive to the country to the east or south. and in fact, once separation takes hold, the canuck-buck will drop like a rock in value making it way better to holiday in Ontario than it ever has been.

Will there be guards and razor wire set up the next day? No.
Will the sun come up the next day? Yup.
Will the west be better off? Yup.
Will the east be better off without us and our material wealth, access to eastern and southern markets, ability to sell our grains on the open market instead of through Ottawa mandated marketing boards??? Who cares? Not me.

For the record, my family was among the very first settlers on what is now Younge St in Toronto. But just like Canada, it has become the mother of whores thieves and thugs.
Queer-bec will have the be the grandmother.

I guess that has to make me one of her ungrateful bastard kids then doesn't it. Oh well. If the shoe fits...

Frank:
You are definitely more reasonable (and pleasant) than I am today. Now thats the kind of stuff I wish I could write. You tell it most like it is.

We're coming to an age where the ones who yell the loudest aren't always right, but rather, are looked upon as having a problem with cause and effect established separately from the message. And then again, we are not.

Generation after generation continue to repeat the same mistakes, not knowing that the most fundamental questions of life have already been asked and that, like chess, there are only so many patterns of play that turn out successful while all others fail. When it comes to life and its questions, no stone has been left unturned. For all who seek, there are well worn paths to follow. But what can appease intellectual vanity when all of the relevant questions and answers and have been asked and given?

Where is the bragging rights for the ego who relinquishs "originality" with the acceptance that one must follow the paths of our anscestors to acquire the knowledge already given, and the final acceptance that knowing in its own right, isn't enough? That applying what we do know, especially the fulfillment of a well designed plan takes more than knowledge?

What of will? What of goals... What of humility itself? Oh, the humanity.

Why it is that we don't look at history more closely to defend the systems that serve us against those who wish to destroy them, I do not know for history, the past, is truly our greatest teacher. Perhaps, as history also teaches, "we don't know what we've got, til its gone." can be avoided when we remember the same sacrifices and hardships of our ancestors and forefathers who built this nation with the same hope and faith in our young that our children will have it better than we have it today... if that is our will and goal... oh, the humanity.

Do you have any stats at all you could point me to?

I quoted myself above. Pretty cool eh, too bad it was an accident. I blame Ottawa for it.

Frank Frank Frank Frank Frank...
The ONLY reason the people in the west haven't gone already is a fear of becoming 'mericans.
For some reason (which escapes me) there is a thought that the 'merican option is worse than staying within CONfederation.
If ever, the people find out that there is an option to confederation which does not include assimilation into the US structure, I believe we are outta here.

Perhaps you can come up with a few really good reasons for staying within the confederation model. Where is the benefit to BC and Alberta?????? As I said in an earlier post, I can't think of one.
What can Canada offer BC that BC can't have on it's own?
Dig deep, you will have to.

So they didn't vote for WCC because they thought it make them Americans? Didn't the WCC say otherwise? I remember them being pretty clear on the subject, sorta, in a non-committal way.

Thank you for putting "I believe" in front of that statement, you can't guess how much I appreciate that.

As for why would I want to stay in Canada? Because I'm Canadian and so were my ancestors for the last 247 years. Why would I want to separate? To save a few bucks somewhere? You can't put a price on your country.

Brain, your last post was waxing very peotic.

Which systems serve BC/Alberta ? Perhaps you can point a few out to me and Murdock who seem to be standing alone against you loyalists.

Sorry. I don't have the place I read it right handy. It came from a conservative think-tank of some sort. And I cannot remember which one.

The WCC didn't get votes because of their leader. Anybody remember Doug Christie? How 'bout Ernst Zundle?
Doug Christie is a bottom feeding lawyer working out of Victoria that defends morons who think that there were no death camps run by Nazis.
That's why that loon never got votes.

Still here, Frank. Yes, Alchibiades, I agree with you fully on that one, more or less should tone down myself as well, simply misunderstood an earlier comment yourself somehow comparing me to him and in hindsight, you would have been correct, sort of. Anyways, as you were. :-)

Freebc:

You are, infact, misreading the quote. The system is functional. Some might want to tweak the system and improve it, and there's room for it. After all, there isn't one good plan out there that isn't flexable, adapting to changing environments. The system is functional, except for one thing.

The publicly elected officals we entrust in steward to guide Canada through its challanges and struggles.

I suppose, to offer greater clarity, I could add to the statement, "until they betray service to the public trust by serving their own selfish wants."?

Ultimately, as good as a system of democracy truly is, it will fail if:

1) Only the minority of eligable voters vote. In such case, a guaranteed minority will rule the majority and democracy fails. (like BC's last election)

2) Voters only vote for their own self interests. In such a case, democracies also fail. Ultimately, voters need to vote for what is best for the nation if its federal, province if its provincial, municipality if its municiple. Often, voters vote only whats best for themselves and in such cases, democracy fails.

3) Media spins out propaganda and misleading issues that are misplaced from most to least. In my opinion, it should be the economy, international affairs, management of essential services as the first three to look at. Things like gun control and same sex marrages are a secondary issue as they are also more social. The media did distort the issues in terms of importance in the last election, especially in the last few weeks of the campaign and knowing that Canwest is American influenced as well as the Con party, it comes as no surprise.

I hope lots and lots of you folks out there, many of whom never post here but follow things, are paying attention to these BC/Ruperts Land separatist neocons here, and what they are up to with your country.

This is the most effectively we have ever flushed this unholy Conservative wingnut crew out into the open, such that one cannot say that they failed to realize these people are about the destruction of our country.

Now, just draw the appropriate conclusions.

I am delighted. They are out in the open, lined up like ducks in our scope, made bold as brass and proud as peacocks by the success of Harper and his US advisors, University of Calgary crew.

Good point Fiat...

Supposedly the tar sands are being cleaned up and trees replanted but there is the water pollution.

Thanks, the Brain. Murdock has, I see, taken his usual cop out and fled the neighbourhood - a pretty common occurence when the going gets a little too tough. He has no case, other than selfishness and a rampant ego. I wish I weren't so busy today but this has to be it - in my opinion he and freebc are one of a piece. They should buy a small island in the Maldives and set up their own country. Later.

I would say that the people of BC and Alberta should appreciate the fact that they can live on this land while still being part of the great country of Canada. Prior to Canada there was no BC to speak of and Alberta didn't exist at all. It was Canadians who built both provinces. Both provinces have enjoyed the benefit of that and being part of one of the best countries in the world.

Now, freebc, when you were a lad did your dad tell you that he chose to live in Canada because the economic benefit to him was 2% better than the next best?

Its one of the reasons yet as we know from electoral history you can be charged with a crime and still get a hell of a lot of votes. I believe the fact that Christie was also espousing a cause that most found distasteful is another reason for him not enjoying as much success at the ballot box as a conservative smuggler.

That is just a wee bit self serving. You never flushed us out... We've been here all along. You just don't know which end of the scope to look down.
See if you look down one end, the target comes clearly into focus. If you look down the other end, you get tunnel vision and the target looks out of reach. In fact thanks to how the long gun is made, you can't reach the trigger. Or you would have blasted your own ass.
No, those that know me also know I have no love for the screwing the west has been getting.
In fact, I embarassed my wife at Barkerville a couple years ago when the actors were going on about whether BC should join Canada or not.

I shouted out, "Don't do it! I'm from the future and you'll be sorry you did!"

Some folks didn't see any humour in it. can't imagine why though...

Perhaps one of you scolarly types who think there is any hope for confederation can answer my request for some reasons why the west should remain? What does canuckistan have to offer us that we cannot have on our own? And at less cost?
We won't have official bilingualism...
We won't have the welfare bum provinces from Quebec east. (does not include the newfies either)
We won't have easterners gouging us on 'equalization'.
We can do with our resources as we want without having some jerk from Queer-bec negotiate with others in ways rthat are good for eastern canuckistan to our hurt...

Give me some reasons.

I would add one small point, not germane to the issue at hand but still somehow important.

Yesterday I heard a radio interview with a medical administrator, from McGill University Medical Centre I believe. He was saying quite emphatically that the situation with respect to surgery waiting times, which had been a serious problem in the province of Quebec, has now, in a very real way already been improved to such an extent that many procedures for which a patient might have waited several months heretofore are now available within no more than a week or ten days. Cataract procedures, in fact, are now being done there on nearly an as needed basis.

One needs to remember that the picture painted by these, as Coyote would aptly put it, neocon a**holes, is often far from accurate and truthful. We need always to have good accurate and current data to refute the dead fish these fellows seem to live on.

I nearly gag reading that! In 1867, there was no Canada.
Prior to that, there was imports from all over the world. The natives were over run and the people still didn't care for the yanks. That's why if you check your history, that at the same time the yanks were kicking the Mexican butts in the south, loyalists were kicking American butts back across the 49th.
Neither Murdock or I are advocating becoming American.
We just can't see playing stupid games of semantics with easterners.

Without going into the you should be grateful rubbish again, tell me why the west should stay in confederation.
Try to be specific now. What do we have to gain in that we can't do better for less than we could outside of confederation?

freebc:
I understand your sentiments, yet try to imagine BC as a state, run by by those idiots in Victoria!
We would have "developers" in from every crooked country in the world coming here to exploit us!
As is, there are at least a few Federal jusridictions that Gordo cannot fool around with.
What this country need is educated voters and a free press!

I don't care about Quebec!
They have anything at all it's because I believe the west paid for it somehow.

Now. Answer my questions.

So that's what it boils down to? You think that Canadians who moved here found resources in the ground and that those who didn't move here shouldn't get any unless they drive over here now and buy a house. Meaning, an immigrant who just stepped off the plane in Calgary has more right to a share of the oil wealth in northern Alberta than let's say a 10th generation Canadian from Nove Scotia?

People speaking french is a big problem?

Being as BC is also a net beneficiary of Alberta and Ontario and even Saskatchewan largesse I assume we're a welfare province too?

In other words what have my parents done for me lately? The land is already Canadian, the people are Canadian, the system is Canadian. There is no "we" because almost all of us here see ourselves as part of Canada.

But we didn't. Your whole argument is built on something that isn't true.

I believe if you "check your history" you will find the people of eastern Canada repelled the Yankee invasion in a war that lasted from 1812 to 1814. The Americans were not invading Mexico until 1847 I believe.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. The point is, there never was an independent Alberta or, realistically, an independent BC. There is no "we" versus "them".

freebc:

Please. I just ate.
One of the things that comes with the forming of the legal new state, is a constitution. There is little doubt that the current system installed by the old BNA would be replaced with something different. Politicians fear this because it would be the end of their ride as we currently know it. A hopefully better form of democracy would be installed in it's stead. It sure as hell can't be any worse than what we already have!

That is an understatement.
If I thought for one minute that there was any real possibility of the politicians of this country relinquishing the powers granted them under BNA, AND[B] representative democracy actually being installed and of course the triple E senate demands the west has made for decades... I don't think I'd have as many problems as I do now about this goofy ass nation.

But we know that Ontario and Quebec will NEVER consent to their powers being diminished even one iota.
So, there we go.

Oh good. Lucky us. There is now!!!

Look freebc I assume from your handle and past discussions you've given this a lot of thought. But I don't see the evidence of that here today. Do you have any concrete? Perhaps a poll saying 65% of BC'ers don't consider themselves Canadian first? Or a book showing BC'ers used to have their own language and culture? Perhaps a treatise on the ancient kingdom of Alberta? Perhaps even stats showing Nova Scotians are probably all criminals out to steal our wealth?

In fact, if we didn't have oil and other resources and the Maritimes did would you still want to separate?

Did I say that?

No. Speak what ever language you want. Considering how long Chinese and Ukrainian people have been here, maybe we should adopt full multilingualism.

I'm merely suggesting that official biligualism is expensive.

You are absolutley right. I was wrong in my dates.

There is now then.

I see no evidence of that. Most of your "we" consider themselves to be "them"s.

That of course is a hypothetical question.

History being what it is, is subject to who views it.
The natives are making claims based entirely on their view points and sunsequently on what they feel they can gain by it.

My perception of the nations history is from a western perspective, and demands answers as to what we have to gain by staying in. The nationalist view is what do canadians lose by our leaving confederation, and what is it worth to entice us to stay put?
To my mind there is no gain (let alone break even) to our staying in.
I 'feel' abused, taken advantage of, and ignored by central and eastern Canada.

Tell me why BC and Alberta should feel so obliged as to stay within confederation.
You can't give me the concrete reasons why we should stay outside of the warm fuzzy traditions we share reason.

BC and Alberta have been the milk cow for central canuckistan for so long my nipples hurt from the rough milking.

We have given and had our stuff taken. I'm tired of it.
Reasons for us to stay put please. And hold the fuzzies.

I see no evidence of that. Most of your "we" consider themselves to be "them"s.

No one thought the Conservatives would get into power either.
The voters who weren't noticed still voted.

No, that is not the "nationalist" view. The nationalist view is simply that we see ourselves Canadians and wouldn't separate from each other in the same way we wouldn't separate ourselves from our families.

The "nationalist" view is not based on enticements.

And my view is that you shouldn't treat your country like a pro and con list.

Have you visited there? I doubt you would feel that way if you met them. Maritimers and Ontarians don't hate us.

No they haven't, you're in error. We do share a little of the bounty from our resources that we found here when we moved here but unless you think the people of BC and Alberta put the oil in the ground there's no reason to feel oppressed.

Because we all want to. Its as simple as that. We all feel Canadian and don't want to be part of a different country. If we did, we would.

Yes but I'd appreciate it if you'd answer it since I do my best to answer yours.

bpither1:

So Alberta is in effect, subsidizing Big Oil, especially in light of the simple fact that Norwegian government receives some $21/bbl, while Alberta govt. receives some $4/bbl., and the feds take somewhere between $4 & $5. And Norwegian oil and Alberta oil both sell for the same price. So who makes the difference?

How do you answer that? Despite our oil, there are a number of other things in our favour that easterners take advantage of.
Besides oil, we are the grain belt/bread basket for the world.
We have timber and mineral resources up the ying yang and we have geographic location. In real estate, it's all about location location location.
When we were being washed out and raped by the BNA,(I say we in spite of not being a twinkle in my yet unborn father's eye) who knew that the orient was going to play such a huge role in Canda's economy? Who knew about oil? No one.

But then, fishing was such a good business, who knew about the devastation of over fishing? And Maple syrup is nice. Are there still enough trees to make some?

Hardwood furniture and beaver pelt hats. Oh they don't do that much anymore...
Nobody cared about BC and Alberta and their rights to something to offset central Canada's populations then. The Americans did for their small populations.

No, we have been screwed right from the get go. But noone back east cared then, and they don't care now.

I went back to read some more. What the hell do we get from Ontario that we can't get anywhere else from at least the same amount of money, and maybe even less?
I say nothing.
Ontario owes the west much if not everything. Time to buck up and give us what is due to us.

http://growupharper.net/
Some fun .
Tell Harpo how 'ya feel.

freebc:

Bulltwaddle. Aside from the very pointed fact the ones who voted in Vancouver Kensington didn't get paid attention to at all, the election of the Conservative was "media-rigged", with a little help from the RCMP's onslaught on Ralph Goodale (what ever came of that, anyway? Will it be like what they pulled on Glen Clark, and he's acquitted AFTER the political neutron of the associated scandal bomb cleaned out the cabinet room and replaced it with, well, you know - "those kind of people".

Across Canada, many people who voted Tory weren't voting FOR the Tories, as even a schoolkid knows, but true enough for anyone who voted for the Grits or NDP also. The real meal deal here is that media coverage was manipulated - and the point of advertising (which is what a newscast REALLY is) is sales; selling something that's not worth the money. And people buy, even when they know better.

But where the hell was the "None of the Above" option anyway?

During the recent campaign the media could only talk to the Top Tory; now that he's in power, they can only talk to him under his terms, or that's the way he wants it; remniscent of Mulroney abandoning the cardigan-and-charm and smoothtalk of the campaign for the pinstripe suit and shillelagh of power. Or Miniwac talking small-r "restraint" with the idea of governing with moderation and without radical measures, but R*E*S*T*R*A*I*N*T.

The Tories are not "we"; they pretend to be, but I'll tell you right now - they consider the rest of us to be "them".

For all intents and purposes Canada is 10, separate entities(Provineces) as well as three territories .
The fiscal imbalance is a total red herring as each jurisdiction sets its own rate of taxation.
When you have outlandish social programs like Quebec does.
Lowest tuition fees for universities. Welfare and high unemployment eroding your tax base That is your problem .
Funnily enough Quebec universities are amongst the lowest rated in Canada .
"Harper's entire "fiscal imbalance" policy is superficial. It's a solution to a non-existent problem."

Quoted: Richard Gwyn

freebc,

They did so and still do. What evidence is there to show they mistreated BC and Alberta?

And the same the other way around, what does Ontario get that it couldn't get for the same price somewhere else?

This is like an argument as to whether to leave your wife for something younger.

Look freebc, don't set sucked into this east vs west thing. Its nothing but a distraction. If you feel you would have more money in your pocket by Alta and BC separating then no doubt some other guy in Alta is thinking he should separate from BC. And some guy in Fort McMurray will then be thinking about dumping the rest of Alta.

Again, if its a few extra dollars a week you think you're being short changed your time would be better spent attacking the corporations and foreigners who own us. Not the easterners because they aren't getting the profits.

Canada's border with the Arctic Ocean is really only theoretical, as the Americans and the Danes keep on reminding us, and eventually someone else will too. Unless we have the ability to defend that coastline (without US help) we're going to lose it (to the US if no one else). Don't flatter yourselves because you were raised with the Canada Dry map of the country in your head, like it was Manifest Destiny or something.

Besides, in strict geopolitical terms oceans aren't borders, which are implicitly terrestrial until the Law of the Sea conferences started drawing them across water. And BC's border with Alberta, other than that annoying straight line through the Peace River country, is a perfectly natural boundary and like many BCers I sympathized with the Rhino Party's campaign to have the passes walled off.

But as for the Yukon boundary; well, let's not get all WAC over this, but the BC government has had its eye on the Yukon since the days of Douglas quit his job with the fur trade to govern full-time; it wasn't BC who drew that boundary to keep BC from being bigger and richer (a lot richer) - it was Ottawa, which wanted the territorial resources for its own revenue base (because of all that separation of powers stuff with the provinces). So you were definitely pointing at two very wrong examples (the Yukon/BC border) and not quite on the ball with the oceanic "borders".

If the "natural borders" of BC do not exist (with AB or the YT, according to you), and the logic then leads to the "organic" boundaries of "Canada" being more natural.....that's a creepy argument. Y'know why? Because the 49th Parallel is a VERY un-natural boundary and by the logic which says "therefore we should belong to XXX" (because of our natural borders), XXX should equal a continentalized USA or a unified North America. Talking such logic is a slippery slope, to be sure....

skookum, you quoted me and as you can see for yourself I wasn't being absolute, I was being relative. I said the oceans are a "lot more real" than the other borders. One can test my theory by starting in Tofino and walking due west. That border feels more like a border to me than the one I need a big sign to tell me about.

Yeah, sure, OK. But those farmers are interested in their farms, and in wonderful institutions like dumping (to keep prices high in bumper years). Farmers are not the best credential here, and the FOOLS didn't understand that shipping wheat west was just as profitable, and with bigger markets, than shipping it east (China, Japan, etc). They got "sold" by the politicians that the Crow Rate was a good thing; but that just means they're suckers. And farmers are much like loggers used to be - they want their kids being farmers (if potentially well-educated ones) just as loggers would rather their kids not go to university but lead the "proper kind of life" in the resource boomtowns (without the education some farmers prize, though). What I'm getting at is that farmers are only interested in farming; not in anyone else's business except when it affects their own. Manufacturing? Cities? Who cares? (in their eyes).

And that farmers liked it, even if they were right, doesn't mean that the Crow Rate was good for the western provinces. Far from it; the flip side of the Crow Rate, which didn't affect the farmers except when they wanted to buy a combine or tractor, was that manufactured goods were too expensive to produce in the west because shipping to the eastern markets was too expensive; And of course you couldn't buy from across the line easily, or without hefty tariffs in place to protect Canadian (=Ontario/Quebec) industry; and so manufacturing in Calgary, Vancouver, Winnipeg never got established in the way it's entrenched itself in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence.

Then there's that federal largesse game, which goes WAY back and always involves pork barrel and patronage. Can't remember the year - 1919 I think - but it was when the then-feds threw their weight behind a guy in Quebec named deHavilland and ignored a guy in BC named Boeing that the latter pulled up shop and moved to Seattle. Countless such examples exist.

As with the political machinations with subdividing the west into relatively powerless (if immense) chunklets, the same idea applies with policies like the Crow (and it wasn't the only such policy); all designed to keep the western parts of the country a captive market and a captive resource colony at the same time.

The Crow stank; and excuses for it stink just as much.

See preceding paragraphs, Frank.

Bullshite. That was just the pattern of development and colonization of the country, from east to west. Frank or, er, Murdoch (can't find where I ctrl-c'd)

"Just the pattern and colonization of the country? Duh. Didn't I just finish explaining to you that that pattern of development and colonization was engineered to prevent the development of a self-sufficient nation in the West, and to "lock down" the West's markets for ON-QC manufacturers and (last not anything but least) banks.

"From East to West" is part of the Central(ist) Canadian mythology which pervades our school curriculum as well as our media and even our discourse. But it's false. The West has 200 years of non-native history and identity before Canada sent in the troops to seize it, OK? And let's ditch that term the Riel "Rebellions", and call them the Metis Wars, which is what they were. Wars of annexation and repression and colonization.

BC had only its brief existence as a separate colony on the yonder side of the mountains, but it too already existed before Canada "developed" and hornswoggled it (with a con-job railway deal that wasn't a deal and which they broke anyway); and as noted Ottawa wasn't interested in populating/settling BC for the first forty years or so; and in the Prairies it was only because they wanted the land occupied in case the then-still-feisty Americans made a snatch-and-grab (the immigration boom was on the heels of the Spanish-American War, remember).

I think one of the biggest problems in this kind of debate is that Easterners, and Westerners unfamiliar with their own history (because of the control of the curriculum/education by eastern ideologies/mythologies), get badgered by the mythologies like "from East to West" and "we're all one country" and other pseudo-patrotic cowpatties; all designed in word and mindframe to shore up the ON/QC hegemony known as Confederation.

This ties in with one of the my other posts where someone in another webzine somewhere was bitching that Albertans (as if I were an Albertan, or think like one), went on about how unappreciative Westerners are and how they'd better smarten up and learn to kiss ass to Quebec or else the country will break up, and how the West has had it so good. That, again, is all part of this mythology and mindset which precludes ANYTHING from being said against it, on grounds of being "un-Canadian".

Fine, I'm British Columbian, then, and I’ll leave it at that - if I have to be Canadian by being emotionally/politically blackmailed, I want no part of it. And I’m not a right-winger, despite the mythology that says someone from here who is against Confederation/Quebec/Canada-is-neato is a redneck rightwinter, and probably a closet American. Again, this is part of that same mythology, which like any untruth relies on denial of any truth which contradicts it.

And yeah, that's what I'm doing too. But why should I embrace Ontario's truth, which I know too well, and listen to those who tell me I shouldn't listen to BC's truth, which I know well and they almost nothing of? Because I was born here and should just salute and strut and wave the maple leaf like everyone else?

We get forcefed Central Canadian history, and denied anything about our own except what a bunch of bastards we were to the coloured people and how ungrateful we are to Canada etc. Do Central Canadians learn anything about us that's in our own terms; or is it all through their jaundiced, self-serving lenses - as is the case with that Barman history, The West Beyond The West, which is incredibly off-base on nearly every page but is touted as a great work, and has now entered the post-secondary curriculum - another example of a credentialed someone getting published despite not really knowing his/her subject matter. (IMO Bowering's not much better, and is way too glib, even when he's right).

Gloomy wrote:

Amen.

So Gloomy join freebc and me here and start some education and what free'r press can you imagine than the one that we are printing here with our own words!

Frank wrote:

hate to shatter your vision of the great canada, but from the lakehead east there is a vision of the 'two founding nations' (upper and lower canada) from the lakehead west there is a vision of 10 equal partners.

those differences were exemplified by Joe Who's (Clark) comments about aysemmetrical federalism.

continued claptrap like those comments is now flowing from the merged Conservative-Reform-Alliance Party (CRAP) and it stinks like crap that it is.

Rafe has started all these thoughts by pointing out, quite correctly, that the western alienation feelings are not gone.

Laughter is so refreshing. And now the atmosphere is as a fresh spring glade rippling with daffodils and nutbars in blossom ... as

freeBC sings out: Brain, your last post was waxing very peotic.

Frank asks:

absolutely, as the 'deal' made that brought BC into confederation was broken long ago. The lies about the railway prosperity should have ended it right then and there, but the 'manifest destiny' crowd had their way.

Frank wrote:

Frank, in the future, these enticements to change will become immense.

In the past there were subsidies and UI paid to Maritimers to keep them in place, but that did not work out as the fish stocks never came back. The enticement of living a better life than 'on the pogy' became a mantra for those who wanted that better life.

Why else would Stompin' Tom come up with a song like Alberta Bound?

Once the factory workers of Ontario start having more and more of their largesse cut back due to sourcing of manufacturing elsewhere, the pressure to Robin Hood other wealthy parts of the nation will become immense.

Why should BC have to pay for the mistakes that have been made? Bad enough our 'leaders' in 1870 got tricked, then continued in a bad deal once the situation about the import of goods got nasty. Not to mention the use of NWMP in domination of the gold fields - to the benefit of the eastern banks. The list is simply immense and as I have said before I am not looking for compensation - just out!

Frank wrote:

Guess what?

Every new voter in the age cohort from 18-35 is doing exactly that. As the actions of elected officials like Stronach and Emerson continue these younger voters will turn away from their representation. Possibly in droves.

Most I know in that group are sick of the nausea that comes out of Ottawa, and these are folks from Halifax to Victoria, spread all over the country. The dissafected younger voters who know that medicare, EI, and CPP will NEVER be there for them in their old age and are becoming less and less interested in supporting these programs.

Every time these programs are trumpeted as the 'great works' of the canada this group starts looking for a bucket to upchuk into.

As better options start to grow, and they will, these youth will have to choose, stay and get fleeced - or - leave for a better life elsewhere.

Until we start to wake-up and see how much better a life we could make for ourselves without Ottawa and all that the canada is soaking us for the future option is looking like - leave.

With that kind of attitude why would anyone care what YOU think.

Just makes no sense to start an argument from such a self-defeating point of view.

How be I said I don't care about you!

Hasn't got us very far has it.

This is nothing more than a lot of subjective emotionalism from disgruntled people who'd be busy complaining about something else if BC suddenly turned into murdockville tomorrow.

I haven't seen a single claim advanced on anything but facile and inconclusive grounds...certainly nothing to worry those who love this country and want to improve it rather than chop it into a bunch of tiny republics of the discontented.

skookum

What? A rant against the Crow and a non-sourced referral to Boeing? I read the Boeing history online and they don't mention it.

But if you want to talk dollars, who built the port of Vancouver and port of Prince Rupert and Esquimalt and the Trans-Canada and the rails?

BC'ers? It was Canadians.

Oh, so Jaques Cartier sailed up the Georgia Strait? I missed that. Here I thought North America was discovered in the east and people gradually moved west. Was it only in Canada this occurred or was the US also colonized west to east?

It was already claimed land by a company that was recently sold to the US. Canada didn't conquer some special western civilization.

Right, please list all of BC's many accomplishments before they were subjected to Canadian domination. And I'm sure they were all in tune with nature and the natives as they built their cities and ports, leading an idyllic existence before the Cdn army came over the passes.

Why would they need to since there was already a great thriving BC civilization here? Besides, there wasn't exactly a shortage of land back east.

So in other words Canada saved the Prairies from US takeover...

The point murdock, is that all of your "we" still thinks of themselves as Canadians.

Joe who only speaks for himself.

The thing is murdock no one but you cares about that. We all moved here afterwards, our ancestors were on the "other" side of the deal.

If you're not looking for bucks you disagree with freebc. I'm fine with your wanting to leave. But the thing is all of us easterners have now moved here and taken the place over and we're not going. My daughter is the 4th generation of my family born in this part of Canada and we like it and we're staying.

You've completely changed the argument, now its social programs you don't like? What has that got to do with separatism?

As for the young do you have a link?

.

Ya right, you met a few lads at a games convention. Polling does not back you. Most would love to have those programs remain strong.

I keep saying, you seem pretty driven by this, you must have given it some thought, where is it? Where's your numbers, your essays and books etc and don't point me to a US libertarian.

murdock
Head out tomorrow, as I said earlier, I think there is land available in the Maldives. I'd hate to see you go though, you do manage to be entertaining.

Just one question before you buy that ticket though. Exactly what is it that caused you to get the wind up so strongly against Canadians? Problem learning French? Difficulty with a promotion in the military?

There's usually, in my experience, some deep subjective reason for your kind of misanthropy.

What'll happen if you find the folks in the Republic of murdockville are just as mean, nasty, and disinclined to let you have your own way all the time as Canadians are?

The reality is that we are all Canadians. To change that, these extremist right wingers here, most of whom were plumping for Harper in the last election, it should be noted, are first of all going to have to fragment the country. And in that, whether it is their intent or not, they serve the corporatist US Empire interest on the continent-, create it an environment in which it can cherry pick and play one part of Canada off against the other. All of which they are working on and plumping for here.

These are true fifth columnists worming and working within the body politic of Canada. They seek to be the advance guard for The US Empire itself, whether they are formally sent to us or not. One should have no doubt about that.

And which, though the entire country and the economies of all parts are already much under the control of US corporations, rather than the West being under the control of a fictional East, and they know it, including BC and Alberta it is to be noted, is yet harder even than it sounds to actually finally conclude. Indeed the betrayal becomes harder the more advanced it gets, for the resistance and the alarm accumulate. For this has even been tried by pro-US business, continental integration market forces elements within this country before and failed, from the time of confederation onward.

And, though one is at this point largely engaged in intelligent guessing, of course, both this traitorous right wing element and ourselves on the left, the likelihood that they would ever achieve an elected majority large enough to secure it is even less likely than what we have already observed in Quebec, where there is actually the best nationalist case for it, and it failed even there.

So first, it is largely a fantasy of theirs that is not on in any likely realistic scenario, as a full frontal engagement. And finally, they have to know unless they really are complete fools, which I don't think they are, within each part that moves in that direction, these dicks have to know that there are going to also be sufficient elements arrayed against them that there would almost certainly have to be a violent civil war clash to decide it.

So the best they can hope to do here is, to continue to sow the seeds of regional, racial , and national chauvanist conflict within Canada, to hobble the unity of the country, to maintain current ruling class "market forces" control, and steal the country away by stealth in the continuing direction of the US Empire.

That is the best they can hope for. And they are having some considerable successes at it, in that the wealthy corporate ruling class interests they serve, again consciously or otherwise, is actually far along the road of integrating the economics and politics, including the social policy of Canada into that of the US. So there is a large level at which it is already occurring, indeed has occurred, if only much due to the ignorance of the fact, and hesitation to act, of the Canadian people as a whole.

Now they have to be hoping against hope that they can get it far enough along that there will only be a whimper at the moment of final defeat for Canadian nationalist forces at the end. And there is that real possibility. It won't even come to a vote. It will simply be as is already underway, a done deal by accumulating degree and stealth. And that is the more real likelihood of their traitorous collaborations.

On the other hand, they have to also be hoping and praying that the left and other progressive nationalist Canadians fail to muster any significant backlash to their neoconazi treachery in time. And upon that the evidence is still not in, and we shall have to see, to be really certain or conclusive about it. Short of that, both camps here are but in the preliminary stages of testing their analyses, and developing them, seeing to what effect they are received, and what responses they elicit, if any, where e'er we fly our kites. :-)

Continued next post...

From previous post...

And they have to know as I do as well, that the last one now can be later to win, when the times they are a changing. :-) And it's true.

And when and if there is that backlash, that I personally at least am unashamedly agitating for to sooner rather than later occur, these dudes are in serious trouble in more ways than but one. We're going to want to be flushing these fuks out into the open from their corners of treachery, as one does with any traitors to their people and country, and send them hightailing it as fast as their little leggies will move them up and outta here, to anywhere but here.

That's not a threat. It's just the way these things work when and if you loose this kind of deeply serious nationalist political contest.

And boys, your Amerikkka love interest isn't going to be coming out of the Middle East in too good a shape or too healthy. It's going to be looking even less attractive than what it already does-, and that ain't too good. So the prize you might have hoped to win the country as a whole or its regions to is going to look a lot more like a big ball and chain, and bits and pieces of them may in fact come approaching us looking for a place in our Canadian arrangement, is the fact of the matter. The Empire is in decline and coming down fast, bloated developmentally, internally fractious itself, huge racial, class and poverty issues, over populated and so friggin' in debt to the world we'd be damned fools to join them, or take them in as a charity case, which is about as likely. Check it out. It's meat that's fast rotting, its shelf life long expired.

But, in any case, when, if and as this current moment of glory for yourselves all comes undone , and the odds are it will. so I'm betting, because it is contrary to the mass of the peoples' interest, which there is historical evidence they will only put up with for so long, you better have some hidey holes in mind yourselves, like Sadaam, 'cause some of us just might be looking for ya.

And its all still in a high state of flux and a tad premature I know. So it's easy to sound half-cocked and a bit over boastful, you and us. But I am, and so I'm sure are others here, thinking about it, and about you.

Frank posted:

ok right, here are some simple resources that I have gleaned in 2 minutes search on the web.

you say that there are no separatist options that are popular, then point to one that has little support.

I am now pointing to a new one that is only forming, so it has not had a national election to use its fight against.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Canada_Independence_Party

My point here is that these sort of groups are forming all over the place, they may not gain any traction since the big game of Ottawa is played in the boardrooms of Bay Street. You may not think so but ask yourself who was paying the way for Mulroney, Cretien, Martin and now Harper?

further you ask for other sources, a ton of discussion about this very topic can be found:

http://www.canadawebpages.com/pc-editorial.asp?Key=470&editorPrimeKeyword=WesternSeparation&editorType=Article

This is not, met a few lads. I have been across Canada in my military career for training in locations from Halifax to Toronto, to Winnipeg and many locations all over Alberta and BC and made friends outside of the military. I still converse with many of them.

After rows, like the one ongoing here, I ask them for their viewpoint - to see if I am still in keeping with what I have observed. I do not own a polling company and do not have the $$$ to start such actions - moreover on that front I know that the target group 18-35 do not answer most polls now.

The answers I got back I have formulated into my opinion expressed above.

It is wrong in blogging to quote others, not on the page, without their permission; this is one part of blogging I shall respect.

It is fine that you think the Canada is great the way it is.

I think otherwise.

Since we still are living in a 'free country' I shall continue with my program and wish you well with yours.

Once again murdock, you fail to actually answer a simple, direct question. What is that turned you into a curmudgeon? Surely not your reading of Ayn Rand, Dr Helmcken or John Tayor Gatto. You must have an idea that is your own and not something picked up on the internet. What is it? What's the source of your bitterness?

Considering that its us lefties who have never once formed a national gov't I would think the only people wanting to separate would be us. Yet Cdn nationalists tend to be lefties. Go figure.

I'm off to read your links. Thanks

By the way, for the sake of argument can you please respond to my previous questions? How far away can a gov't be from your house before you deem it illegitimate? And do you actually have to be one of the aggrieved parties to feel oppressed? In other words, because I do not know if your, freebc's and skookum's ancestors were living in BC pre-1871.

Alcibiades requests:

only after you are gone

mais non, parcque j'ai etudient pour lengtemps il'y'a en avant d'mon entrant au militare du canada. ensuite j'ai en partise metis, jusq'ue jai navez'acceptient les ordres du sacre au Catholique.

No promotion difficulty at all, I was warned about the 'regular' force attitude while in the reserves, then discovered it for myself. On more than one occasion I was asked by Officers I respected 'why are you here?' (meaning the military) and implied that I had talents that could take me further elsewhere. I discovered some of those talents and once it was made plain that the military was going to get slagged by the Cretien government, I just stopped trying to extend my contract. Finished the agreed time and moved on.

You seem to keep sticking me in some sort of role as republic maker, I recognize that such a construct can never survive in that form. The dissolution of powers that is coming, I have no doubt, will devolve below the 'provincial' level but be larger than the 'municipal' one that we see now. Folks that do not like living in a particular area, beacuse there are large factories or there are laws that say you cannot smoke in public or there are no laws at all about cannabis or whathaveyou, they will leave - since the others around them do not agree.

If they cannot leave - as you have demanded I do - they have no other choice but to accept the place that they live for what it is, or work to change it.

In the future I see many such mini-countries or regions or maybe there will be other names. I see moves towards this all the time. Take, for example, the tax arguments that were being made about the kootenays or the attempt by the BC Libs to force Wal-Mart in Alberta to hand over their BC based reciepts for taxations. Actions and events like that are going to expand in the future, and folks will have to choose how they will respond to them.

In a conversational atmosphere like here I am presenting an option to the status-quo, which I see to be to the disadvantage of those whom call BC home.

Too bad that you do not like it, but then in Alcibiadesistan you will be imprisoned or killed for speaking your mind I suppose.

I like the sounds of that Western Canada Block Party. (ref Wikipedia, thx murdo).

When are you planning to hold it? Is it BYOB? Will we all grill steaks together? DO you plan street dancing too?

Maybe everyonce can have one in his or her own block. What a good idea.

The party is going nowhere with a web site called AlbertaRepublicans and a flag consisting of stars and a stripe.

Somebody should be looking at electability...

Coyote:
A most excellent piece. Emotional, funny, but most of all, true. I'd cut and paste pieces to compliment them all, but I'd be out of room except to say that I sometimes regret not complimenting your works more often.

And there is also, no doubt that we have columnists here in Canada that ARE the advance guard of this country we call home. As for myself, I'm currently working on a 35 to 40 page report on every relevant heading there is just off the top of my head:

Accountability. (the elimination of future awarded CEO appointments and directorships to MP's and MLA's for life, as a starting place.)

Property rights. (currently, the Cons want to entrench rights far more strongly to corporate advantages in crown and native lands through the advancement of individual rights that can be argued as corporate in the courts.)

Management of crowns, private monopolies and future crown proposals with essential services and geothermal development in strategic areas of Canada where feisable.

An energy program that sponsors the home contruction of geothermal loops and heat to water to air convection furnaces through grants and loans. Objective: effeciency and meeting Kyoto requirements.

A full guarantee of 10% bio gas and diesel blends to assist farmers through high currencies and tough world markets, as well as meeting Kyoto targets. Its a win, win.

Laws that require owners of the media to be or become citizens of this country, or put up the for sale sign for those who can meet this one requirement.

Move towards a multilingual country that is required to honor the most common language in its regions, including cities as separate regions by themselves.

I could go on here, but its still in the rough and I've given you tidbits. Each heading is much more indepth that what you've read.

The objective is to email every MP in this country with a report on every and all issues, including royalties and taxation both corporate and personal, the handling and development of commodities, currencies, banking, the works, and wait for feedback and in two weeks, email every media outlet with the report, the MP response, and the conclusion to the response with noted predictions to come.

In other words, every MP, if they read their own emails, is about to get a major heads up on how to steal and sell out this country, how to blow it, how to see the other theives and traitors in government, the direction this current government is taking us, and the direction we should instead be headed. Its authorship is coming under another name, and submitted by wireless through laptops so that it will be hard if not impossible to trace the origin. And if they don't read their emails... :-( they won't like what comes next. :-)

Maybe I'm wasting my time, and maybe not. Time will tell! But by the end, there won't be an MP found without excuse.

Frank asked:

How far away?

This is like asking how long is a piece of string?

I suppose only as far away as the peoples supporting it will accept, in the context here it has been 1/2 a continent, so far. I still say that there are many reasons for the departure and little to motivate remaining other than it will take less effort to change than to stay, like most things with people it will take more sting (more feathers taken from their geese) before inertia will be overcome.

I have not said that the federal government is illegitimate, only that BC's participation in that government has been subverted from the start.

All whom have lived west of the lakehead since 1880 have had some sort of 'oppressions' put on them by the power elites in Ottawa. It was the NWMP that started the 'law and order', since the Queens cowboys answered to the soverign thru the GG, and the GG was in Ottawa then that is where the treasure, bounty, or tribute was paid to.

My paternal grandfather came into the prairies in Saskatchewan, where he was born. The earlier ancestors on that side for me extend into the US midwest and from there to central europe. My maternal grandmother was born in BC and her parentage is where my Metis connections come from, extending to before Hudson's Bay Co's claims on any of the territory.

I do not know why this should matter but there it is. Now G West and others can use this to latch onto and make more ad-hominem attacks about me.

Murdo, you need to get your facts straight. It was Costco and not Walmart. The higher value purchases at Costco seemed a reasonable prize for the tax collectors – further, tracing individual small purchases at Walmart would be far too labour-intensive. Basic economics. By the way, the legal obligation for BC citizens to remit tax on all their out-of –province purchases is nothing new – check it out. Guess we’re all law breakers – but that doesn’t make us separatists.

I've never said you have to leave. Just implied that you're so unhappy with the status quo that you'd obviously be better off if you did. Because, as Coyote and Frank point out, the rest of us certainly think your campaign is quixotic, at best.

I think you need to check your French grammar by the way. I don’t think you ever did answer the question about where you were born though – can I assume Manitoba?

So, you're disgruntled by your time in the military. Hardly surprising, lots of people are.

If society falls apart, as well it may, some other form of social organization may take the place of current political organizations. Alas, my studies of history lead me to conclude that such a pass would bode ill for us all, you included.

The Brain
Apropos of MLAs and MPs and their lives post elected public service, there is some interesting information you might want to look at posted on a couple of threads here from the weekend. Look for references to John Reynolds.

Your project sounds interesting.

I think it matters a great deal if people feel they're oppressed for things that happened before any of their family arrived on the scene. It would be like me moving to Armenia now and demanding that the Turks pay me compensation. And yes I noted you're not looking for compensation, only freebc is.

Murdo
However, it's perfectly fine for you to insult every person who reads your posts and happens to live in a trailer.

Perfectly ok for you to play nudge-nudge wink-wink with a creature called woody at someone else's expense.

You are a little too sensitive my friend to be making those kinds of remarks and then claiming others abuse you unkindly.

Stick to the issues that are important to you, drop the aggressive and critical references to things others care about and believe in deeply and you'll have no problem here. Not with me, and I'd wager, not with G West either.

Let's face it, most of us here, left and right, think society is going to get worse before it gets better, if it gets better.

murdock, if the claims made by the global warming scientists and the peak oil people are true I would say a sprawling country like Canada has more to fear from those than it does from new versions of the WCC.

I think Canada may become ungovernable if the worst case scenarios were to come true. As would the USA etc. But until then the only movement I see to smaller units is based on real cultural groups who have been forced into someone else's empire. Like the Basque's, the Irish etc. Even Quebec. I can understand their nationalism. But BC and Alberta are as Canadian as Nova Scotia.

Alcibiades asks:

I have analyzed this with your direct question.

I suspect it stems from my feeling tricked by the first Quebec referendum and many of the things that went on before it; then learning of the madness that was done during it after the fact with the Gomery report(s).

Before: I had many vehement arguments with a close friend whom advocated at the time (1995) that PQ should just go, and 3 days later BC should be next. He re-introduced me to Helmcken and much of BC early history; something my father tried to do in a series of trips across the province in my youth. I was not convinced as, at the time, I was very much a federalist.
Joe Clark put forward many good arguments, that I have since come to see as total junk and quite possibly fabrications on his part.
One member of a crew I was on was a vehment separtist and he got himself in dutch, just short of being formally charged, by making anti-anglophone comments in the presence of other francophone senior officers.
While the vote process was building, I was informed to watch over the franco- junior officers in my care as there were 35 officers in training at Kingston that had recieved formal letters from a PQ national assembly member whom was to become the new Quebec Minister for Defence and of those 35, 22 were found to have their bags packed and their acceptance letters already written on the morning of the vote. Tensions were high before the referendum and they did not ever abate, IMHO, any time afterwards.

to be continued ...

continued:

As I said, before the Gomery report I would have been solidly on the federalist side of the equation.

Then came more scandals from Darth Cretinous and his gang of thugs. I saw what impact they had on the military and was told of the things that were starting to happen in other ministries where I had some friends that still were working for the federal government. My desire to see the whole of canada governed by the one place, Ottawa, declined bit by bit.

More dissapointment came in when Mr. Dithers took over as PM. Gomery deliverd the knockout blow and I went back to the friend that I had argued with in 1995 and said he was right, moreover that BC should not wait for PQ, but make their own separation.

Further study of this topic has led me further to the conclusion that BC DOES NOT NEED ANYTHING from 'the canada'.

The deals made in 1870 have been broken, and from that perspective can be made to stick.

I have dumped on the last few years of the NDP government in Victoria, one thing that was contemplated that was a step in the right direction, but was dropped (no reason given) was to resurrect the BC Constabulary.

One has to wonder why PQ and Ont have their own police forces and are less troubled by Ottawa, while the rest of the country (save Newfoundland) does not have any provincial police, but are willing to accept contracting out this vital service to Ottawa's company and are seeing their future potential taken away.

None of this came at once, and these are only a quick reflection coming at your request, but I still say that BC has zero reasons to stay in confederation and I can see loads of advantages that can come from, if not outright separation, at least exercising all the rights and priveliges extended to provinces by the original articles of confederation.

These are things like establishing our own banks, provincial police forces, medical coverage under our direct authority with no more money penalties or gifts under the stupid canada health act (which even the supreme court has questioned). The original taxation powers were supposed to be temporary, they have come to be made permanent - perhaps a more independant province with its own police forces could declare an end to income taxations and be able to stop the feds from trying to exact those from 'citizens' of such a dominion.

Just as Italy is experienceing similar stresses that will tear it apart from north to south, so will canada face them from east to west.

Will it happen tomorrow?

no.

will it happen within the lifetime of my children?

I definately think so.

Alcibiades asks:

nope, BC

and since I am so forthcoming, how about a little bio about you?

murdock that's all just politics. Of course Gomery was bad. But you don't break up a country over it. Men from Ontario, the Maritimes, Quebec the prairies and BC are buried together on numerous battlefieds. Do you think people in BC when they hear a Cdn soldier was killed in Afghanistan think he's probably a foreigner? Or that the people of Ontario don't give a rat's ass about the deaths of guys from the west at Dieppe? Of course not, the ties that bind are stronger than a corrupt Liberal political party. Or at least they are to most of us.

born on the prairie, Saskatchewan. Lived in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and BC. Would love to live in Atlantic Canada and I go back to Montreal every chance I get.

Alcibiades requests:

see I do that most of the time, but G West decided a few weeks ago to make a series of 'ad-hominem' attacks against me and my discussion points, just as you have (and just for the record I have never quoted Ayn Rand on this site, I do not have any of her books, I have read them a very loong time ago but they carry little or no weight with me - it was G West that ascribed them to me) with others that took great delight in slagging me and my supposed character in these pages.

so I have no compunction about returning fire every now and then.

as far as items others care about deeply and not being critical of them - that is the worst sort of 'politically correct' crap I have yet read from you ever.

I have reviewed the nettiquette regarding blogs and have yet to be censored on the Tyee, I know that others whom have disagreed with me in the past have been censored.

I care deeply about not seeing my fellow BC'ers being robbed blind of a very bright future by an indifferent Ottawa - and I see a way by which that future could be secured.

You may not see this, but then that is wht the conversation is continuing, yes?

p.s. yes it was costco, I was trying to remember and came up with wal-mart by default.

And you know the funny thing is, the only place I ever lived where I was truly unhappy was Calgary, go figure - even Ottawa with it's awful climate was better.

Me too, was introduced to it while in the army. Beautiful place, lovely towns like Yarmouth and great people. I've promised my daughter a trip to Anne of Green Gables land by train one day.

And I care deeply about fighting to my last drop of blood to keep this country together for reasons that are as valid to me as anything you've posted.

I read that exchange between you and G West. I disagree with your interpretation. I think he suggested that some of your views reminded him a lot of Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy and you replied that you admired her for the way she had stood up to a Congressional committee. Nothing ad hominem there, imo.

Frank tries and misses:

This is the crock of garbage that I was expecting to have poured into this argument.
I have a great-uncle buried on one of those battlefields in Italy and my grandfather had a chest of medals from WWII, it was from that same grandfather that the questioning about what good BC, the west (as he knew it from Manitoba west) was getting from continuing in the mess that was canada today. He was asking these questions as Mr Dithers was accepting his coronation from the LIEberals.

Yes they don't. Many young 'canadians' don't even know what is meant by Dieppe, nor could they place the event in time or locate it on a map without help.

WRONG! totally wrong.

I have been talking with a friend in Winnipeg and Dartmouth tonight, and both replied with LOL! (laugh out loud) to the concept that there are any ties binding them together at all! The one in Dartmouth even said that the only tie he could think of was the new email contact he had with my other friend in Winnipeg as it was the first he had in canada west of Chicago.

not at all ... as my experience in the military showed me when confronted with PQ'ist junior officers ready to fight (no really physically fight to injury) with anglo's from Ontario to Alberta over a language issue slight (I never learned what was the spark, but it amazed me at the time).

The spilled blood in foreign wars is forgotten now, the Somme is also such a far away time and place as it might as well be on the moon.

now in Quebec, Abraham is very much alive and well and well 'je me souviens'...

Murdock writes:

What the hell are you talking about? You can go on for ages about how stupid anyone is to think that there could be anything worthwhile about this country and its future and you expect me not to say that's offensive. It is offensive. I'm sorry you're so turned off about the country but I expect, if we should ever have the bad luck to see it break up, that you'd soon find that whatever took its place would end up being at least as bad, if not worse than what it replaced. In British Columbia, particularly, I think we'd all soon find ourselves in the greedy hands of a few Howe street millionaires and their friends in the lumber, mining and real estate industry. I fear it would be far worse that any sufferings we go through now. Do you really think, for example, that there would be any impetus to settle, for example, questions of native title if the province were not somehow backed by the federal crown. The fact I fear for what Mr Harper is currently about in this file notwithstanding.

How much social housing do you think Gordon Campbell would build? What do you think would happen to university tuition and infrastructure outside of the lower mainland?

I just don't think you've thought it out very clearly. Among other things.

By the way, that's the first time in my life anyone's ever accused me of being politically correct. I consider that an ad hominem attack of the most horrendous proportions. (That's a joke murdock!) you can laugh if you want.

murdock
What is it about former military types around your age that leads to this strange ennui about the country and such a deracinated view of your own place in the world?

I see the same sort of thing, expressed a little differently in nightbloom’s posts and also, from time to time in Colin's. I don't mean this to be critical, but what have they done to you that you should be this fundamentally unhappy and dissatisfied with yourselves and your country at such a young age?

I'm mystified. My experience and my acquaintances are far more typical of Frank's.

My Dad spent almost 5 years overseas during the war and his two best friends were a Quebecer from the Gatineau and a Vancouverite. They all got through the hell of Italy, France, Holland and Belgium alive and stayed the best of friends forever.

Yes, we should have all the men buried in provincial plots instead of Canadian ones. Fact is murdock, a lot of nation building went on in those wars, your unwillingness to acknowledge it doesn't change that. But then I can see why you'd think your oft cited "minority report" is more important than shared experience in battle.

And young BC'ers are different? You're mixing two things. You're saying easterners don't care about the sacrifices made by western Canadians and your proof is that young people can't locate Dieppe on a map.

Since this is your argument allow me to say young people haven't read your "minority report". Nor do they spend any time looking in the past for real or imagined grievances.

You seem pretty sure. Shouting? Yet your only response was that a guy in Dartmouth doesn't know many people west of Chicago. I don't know anyone in Dartmouth, guess I better break up the country? Your answer seems a little shallow for such a vehement initial response.

Many of us have military experience and I served with Quebecers too. I thought they were fine people to converse with.

Language issues are important to them.

The Somme was not a big Cdn battle. We look to actions like Vimy and Ypres as our markers.

Yet you claim everyone doesn't read history... So young people read about 1759 but not 1917 or 1944? That's not been my experience.

Alcibiades:

try search (at the top left of the page):

jolly good! G West

the nasty words extend from there, and it was there that I figured out G West's approach to argument and discussion and why I feel no restrictions in my comments towards G West.

Murdock:

Hey, your bright, sensitive, idealistic (a most admireable trait, I think), but there is one thing missing. The refusal to realize that corrupt governments will happen regardless of any system set in place, no matter how perfect, no matter what location or origin.

People who are out to serve themselves, out for power, end up in public office. Its that simple. There are a lot of good liars out there and when the eggs hit the face, its never the voters fault. You know what I mean. Its why you are so idealistic with independant MP's. You believe that independant MP's have less chances of becoming corrupt. But as Ed Deak points out, POWER CORRUPTS.

There are essentially three kinds of criminals. There is the predator. David Emerson is one of the best examples I can think of as a politician. A premeditated man. Then there is the opportunist. The opportunist wasn't thinking about it until the opportunity came. The call comes in and presents itself and the opportunist bends to the opportunity itself. An offer of a bribe is often all it takes. Finally, there is the one timer. The one who knows better and blows it, letting it eat them up for life, because he or she actually has a conscionce.

And you know that the feds responsible for Montgomery were all elected from Quebec, save one. It was localized, albeit on a a federal level. You know that Adscam was a one sided affair, with 10 times the money spent by the PQ, but there was no fingerpointing on where that money was spent. And did Quebec ever blame their own? Nope. It was the Canadian Federal Liberals that were corrupt. You know how the scape goat goes. And the media lies and everyone sets themselves up for the ultimate humility for guilt is everywhere.

And you also know that it doesn't matter how large or small the lands and people be, or how you can change it, governments will be corrupt now, and in the future for PEOPLE are corrupt! Its not the system thats flawed. ITS US!!! Whether it happens in Ottawa, or Regina, or Victoria or Halifax, a certain percentage (and some could aptly argue 100%) of PEOPLE ARE CORRUPT! The question is how much so. To what degrees...

Will we look the other way at a Clinton BJ? How about a Haliburton bribe? What bothers you more? Corruption at the jobsite, or corruption at home? Where do we draw the line? What can we do to change it? How does the voter and politician become accountable and responsible for their own actions? How can a voter and politician be trained or screened to do whats best for the whole, a whole that happens to include all its parts? How?

You know how. By setting an example worthy of others to follow. You know how it is, for we are products of our own environment... born into it, so to speak. Until then... division and separation are the counter to togetherness and connection. These principles and ideals can't be messed with, except for the idiot fool who morgages his own future for the day. There are but a few from the many who know how and theres a catch there as well. Knowing is not enough. And you know the rest.

Frank, you still seem to be missing my point so I shall say it plainly.

Persons living inside the canadian borders of the ages 14-35 do not give a fig about blood spilt last week, let alone 50+ years ago.

They do not see the sacrifice that you are talking about, I have seen it, I have served so I can respect your position.

Regarding the Quebec experience, vehement francophone families, especially Catholic ones have been teaching their children all about General Woolfe, The Two Battles of the Plains of Abraham and the nasty times that their ancestors had to go through at the hands of 'les anglos'.

The history runs deep in their families and is part of where the armed revolts in quebec have come from (the latest of major memory is the FLQ, but they are not the first). To ignore this is to completly misunderstand the 'two founding nations' argument.

I have been on both sides of this argument. I know the points to be put forth by the federalists, they are meaningless in the context of today. Of now. Of tomorrow and the youth today are seeing this like never before.

I have served in the defence and sworn an oath that I kept until my service time was ended.

I have seen both sides and have decided that the indepenance side is the right one to stand on.

Moreover I see that there is no need to spill more blood to solve the puzzle as there are parts of the original confederation that have not been used in 30+ years. Why? Because the Ottawa elites and the bureaucracy do not want them to ever be used again, as they will weaken their hold on power.

Should Klein do as he is proposing and get into conflict with Ottawa, he would do himself and all of Alberta a favor by first sending the RCMP packing and replace them with an Alberta force. Follow it up with a provincial bank and thumb his nose at Ottawa and their useless position.

Up the revolution!

I would, some things I just don't need to see.

finnaly from Alcibiades:

Possibly, but not definately.

Ignore what G West and other may have said about The SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL and read it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684832720/002-3614018-7564022?v=glance&n=283155

If you are as much a student of history as you say, and have displayed that you are, once you read this text you may come to some different observations about the next epoch of mankind.

The transition will be bloody, no way around that, but that does not mean the other end must continue to be so nasty either.

carpe diem

I don't think I'm the one that's misunderstanding. You see you're looking for reasons, any reasons, to declare Canada dead. The fact that Quebec was conquered by people they considered real enemies puts them in a different drawer than someone whose family moved to BC and decided to adopt all the grievances that happened before their time.

For the most part that's true but they are aware of the shared experience and the resulting nation-building that took place. They know the Saskatchewan Army didn't invade one beach while the Ontario Army was assigned the nicer beach with the prettier girls by a Quebec politician for example.

Yet your argument which excludes Cdn history as a reason to stay together is all over every little thing you can find to support your position. Vimy? Means nothing to you but your "minority report" is brandished as if every 18 year old is reading it on his lunch break.

You think kids are all watching C-span and becoming as angry as you over Gomery? Nope. I bet most of them have forgotten about it.

The only context you can speak with any authority on is your own. As I've said before you have no evidence whatsoever that young Canadians are anti-Canada.

The brain:

Thank you for finally accepting that a difference of opinion does not mean that you or others must rush to the barricades and slaughter the offender.

I agree that, in the absece of societal control, power corrupts. The larger the organization, or the more resources it controls then the more nasty the corruption.

I have just recommended The SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL and now I do it again.

Ignore whatever bias you may have for the authors and really read it.

Then compare their predictions from 12 years ago to what is really happening in the world. If even 10% of what the authors forecast comes to pass in the next 10 years then I really want to see BC (and any other province or region that does not want to be overcome by the reactionary forces of this-or-that pursation) take at least some baby-steps towards independance, or at least an arms-length relationship with the Ottawa based power structure and all that goes with it.

you ask:

in a word, encryption.

to understand why, read The SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL, the authors will take you through it step-by-step.

Frank asks:

nope, but they know that they were tricked and robbed.

The PQ'ers were tricked.

The rest were robbed.

That much they do know, how who or why is of less importance.

Those same youth are looking for ways to trick and rob Ottawa back for it all (in this I am not just talking about Gomery etc). Watch the underground economy grow by leaps and bounds over the next decade and watch your taxes skyrocket because of the dropping funds.

It is for this reason that I advocate escape as a province now, because the cost later will be more.

Geez murdock, I asked you not to bring out the US libertarians. You gave me one link to a new WCC on Wiki and another to a conversation and now you're trying to sell that book again. Haven't you read anything else in the past year since you started flogging it? No books about BC separatism, just US libertarianism..sigh

Yes, go and invent an encryption scheme that will stump all governments but which you and your buddies can share. It'll happen, sure it will.

Murdock:

There was once a doctor, a doctor Herring, who came out with Herrings law a hundred years ago. On the first day of being trained in the medical profession, Herring is mentioned by professors who know their stuff, before would be doctors become side tracked with prestige, the goals of money and the push for corporate profits, you know, the root of all evil for shares are not exactly to be confused with sharing. And the blind lead the blind... Herrings law is simple.

We heal from the top down, and from within, outside in this order.

Herring was no ordinary man, and neither was his law for the mind is the builder, but there is more to this law than meets the eye. I offer you no red Herring. Healers know the blueprint of turning wrongs into rights through personal experience. Most often, a healer is born out of the fulfilled need to heal themselves. Their will is exceptional, their goals admirable, and the blueprint to their plan is always the same. "To restore what once was back to its natural intended state." Some know it as "destiny".

Environments play huge with this, as you likely already, once again, know. Tell me, what environment breeds success without truth, without courage, faith, wisdom, without love?

And when we heal a government, does it heal from the bottom up, from outside, within? Nope. And some things are already in their natural state. We always knew that knowing was not enough, did we not? That some things just can't be taught. Why? You know why. Because they must be given. You know... shared.

Frank posts:

Really?

OK, so at the next community picnic or event or any other such event that you happen to find yourself at, look around you when the nation anthem is being sung and see how many of the 20-35 year old males are singing, or even looking towards the flag.

Try to read faces, see how many have a look of utter disgust and contempt.

So there won't be any taxes or underground economy in BC?

No, they've probably forgotten that too if they ever knew it. Some probably think it was Harper and Duceppe who did it.

You know that the other books written by Rees-Mogg predicting great crisis 10 years ago etc don't make their new theories look too credible don't ya?

I go to hockey games and haven't seen it. If someone was singing O Canada at a picnic I think I'd have a look of disgust on my face too. Besides, I meet many 18-35's through my eldest. They haven't got a clue about politics but they're certainly pro-Canada.

The brain,

so what you are saying is that we must 'heal' the canada by going from the top down?

in the current popularity contest elections methodology this will be impossible.

for an example of just such an attempt look at the original Reform party.

much of thier platform got grabbed when needed by the LIEberals, then corrupted once it was managed within the system.

No, this is not the way.

In this sense I agree with the liberal senator that mused about governments lasting until a revolution takes them out of power. I am just advocating a quieter revolution that cuts off Ottawa at the source, the money.

yes Frank, I forgot to specifically exclude hockey games, since that is the only place that any nationalism is likely to come out like a flare.

regarding underground economy in BC, yes it is everywhere that repressive taxation pushes it into.

what a low opinion you have of much of the youth today

;-)

g'nite

Thats what I see as well, Frank. They don't care much for the latest war unless its their buddies funeral that they're headed to, its true, but they love Canada.

Murdock, it happpens to be a thingy to do with timelines. From infancy to elder, people have responsiblities at different times of their lives. People don't become interested in politics really, until about the age of 35 or 40, its true, but usually its because of an accumulation of experience and a vested personal interest from paying those taxes and seeing how the money is spent, or seeing the deterioration of essential services and such. Over time, everyone tunes into politics or drops out in frustration becuase they can't connect to it, or feel like its corrupt, or, in some cases and appropriately so, know when its beyond them.

Tell me, who has the time to write to MLA's and MP's? the young? People working for a living? And who can actually write stuff worth reading? Speaking of which, I have to work tommarrow, so goodnight and get along, and Murdock, I'm still a patriot and in the end, I do see separatists of any kind as not appreciating what they do have, or once did and can have again if they so choose but won't because it just didn't go their way.

Can't help it, but I do generalize in seeing separatists as self centered with a cult like puritan proud attitude, "our way is better than all the rest" or "our way is the only way" and that old but ugly unfavorite, "us first." Like "America first" or "middle class first" or "whites first" or "BC first" or "Quebec first". In truth, it bores me quick. (course, I never did see myself as perfect, with room for improvement but thats how I see it regardless, with my own self admitted flaws and all)

G'night.

Its late, Murdock. You missed the Herrings law post jest of what I meant, so I'll ask you to read it again and I gotta crash, guys. Work tomarrow.

Just tell me murdock you didn't lose your shirt following Rees-Mogg's previous advice about the 90's being the time of another great depression.

So in other words with Ottawa or without it nothing will change. There's a flag we can all rally around.

Just tell me where all these picnics are going on where people are chanting "We hate Canada", "We don't know nuttin about history" and "We've all read Helmcken's report and the Sovereign Individual"

g'nite :-)

murdock
This is, unfortunately, exactly the same stuff you were pushing when G West dealt with you some months ago.

And no, I don't think there was anything wrong with what G West wrote then either. You had no sense of humour then and you have no sense of humour now.

You need to lighten up. You seem to think it's perfectly all right to say anything you like about union leaders, teachers and politicians and the ordinary citizens of a country "you" don't respect or agree with any longer but you’re not prepared to deal with those who fight back as determinedly for things, principles and institutions they are equally passionate about.

In fact, If you wish you can read back over your own intemperate statements for yourself, along with your opinions of Davidson and Rees-Mogg's little book - which you've also mentioned - along with, as I recall, some apparently fallacious claims about it being 'banned' in the United States. I'd wager you've posted that title and your exaggerated claims about the book more than a dozen times in Tyee discussions. You’ve said this stuff so often people just glaze over at any mention of it now.

I have no problem with you pushing your views, it’s a free country after all; but, in my view you do your cause no good by repeating exactly the same thing dozens of times. You need to look more critically, again in my opinion, at where your actual views come from – within your own personal experience – and, spend some time developing a rational case for the kinds of cathartic change you’re promoting. To this point you don’t seem to have addressed the practical problems of your proposals in any kind of an objective way.

My opinions only. Have a good day!

It's not as if Alberta got rich through hard work. They just happened to dig up a buried treasure. I grew up in Alberta, under Social Credit and Lougheed Conservative governments, and for a long time could not understand Albertans' antipathy to all other Canadians (if you think they diss Ontario you should hear them talk about their Saskatchewan neighbours). Nor could I understand how their relative wealth only made them not happy but paranoid. But now I think I understand. Alberta is Golum and oil is the Ring. The environmental and social poisons of tar sands development may be killing them but Albertans, Klein followers at least, will die gasping, "me Precious, me Precious..."

I think it is very presumptious to attempt to speak on behalf of about 25% of the Canadian population.

However, in this case it is utterly stupid to suggest millions of Canadians are uncaring about the current and previous wars that shaped the modern world.

It sounds like self-important old farts dismissing an entire segment of society they are out of touch with.

How ironic then, that most of the anti-war rallies I see involve this same group of people.

Maybe we need to abolish seniors discounts, and seniors-only housing as unconstitutional, so that you won't attempt greater separation.

Mrs Coyote gets testy if I stay up too late, clickety-clackety at the keyboard keys, and don't join her in bed-, so I obviously missed this discussion from below my last post. And many good points coming from all.

Well, I certainly don't think you are wasting your time, bro-, or maybe a sister. :-) Though I think I hear a male voice. :-)

And thank you for the compliment.

Many excellent points with which I am much in agreement in the short piece from which I extracted the above quote from Frank, and I urge everyone to read it carefully. I think it may be the strongest piece out of all the comments made to here in fact, on this subject.

But it's this above quote I most want to comment on, because it's an observation I've noted here myself, some considerable time ago now.

To me, it's the most strange and startling element in the entire relationship, especially between the further, often claimed the more extreme ends of the right and left-, and the further away from the centre both are, the more obvious it is I think. And that is the typical, common starting point for both, before they diverge so dramatically, towards the antagonistic, exact polar opposites.

We both typically, more or less, accurately see what is happening to status quo society and what is coming. And we do both see that society as we know it is approaching a time of deep and profound crisis-, that the social order is unravelling, and the global order built around this particular version of that social order is likewise starting to fall apart. (Sounds like the current world, doesn't it?) At which point, we immediately see and proceed to opposing explanations, or driving causes for that emerging crisis-, typically for reasons of the different "class interest" lenses through which we look at the developing problem.

The right, revealing the class bias into which it has bought, sees the problem and the solution in a need to return to the past, Murdock to an extreme colonial even past, and "conservative" values-, and the deeper the crisis, the further back they seem to want to turn things in search of a time when what is, and its arrangement of society, actually worked more or less successfully. And if we, of the Great Unwashed, can't be convinced of it, they would don jackboots and lash us back anyway if need be. (Though that is certainly a last resort, generally.)

The left, on the other hand, starting from the same observation that society is unravelling, but more revealing its lower class(es) bias, starts from the conclusion that the social order has finally come up against the limits of its progressive development potential, and is increasingly in need of "transformation", a fundamental rearrangement and elimination of the old social order class, economic, and political assumptions.

Continued next post...

From previous post...

Each then, as perhaps the "natural order" of things intends, certainly as they are driven in any case, there being no "Social God" presumably :-), but arising out of the internal contradictions of the old social order, become locked in and engage in a conflict to hopefully resolve the conflict and contradictions of the old social order that is increasingly in crisis. It is our lot, both of us, right and left. We are destined to it out of the nature of ever evolving social and economic reality: the right attempting to hold onto the past and its ruling values, and the left to move society forward again to other, broader, more all encompassing and democratic values.

It is in the nature of the beast, you think? it seems to me.

The compromising fence sitters at the centre, on the third hand, :-) merely attempt to constantly resolve these polar opposites, to keep society at a fixed point that is not actually fixable-, and therefore do so, as often inappropriately as appropriately. Especially in those times as I suggest we are approaching, when it is likely, nay absolutely necessary that the conflict be engaged in, until there is a clear victor and as clear a vanquished.

True enough that the gatling positions at the top of the passes into the Yukon were there to "protect Canadian territory from American annexation" (i.e. protect the gold on behalf of the banks and the Empire), as well as to strip the Klondike-bound of their hand weapons.

My previous point about the Yukon territory being created to keep it from being part of BC is also relevant here. If BC hadn't already chartered for itself the Stikine Territory and the Peace District prior to 1870, Canada would have (if given the chance) made that Northwest Territories; in other words taken direct control over it to bypass provincial powers over resources. The 60th Parallel was already established as the boundary when the Klondike rush began; even more to the chagrin of BC powerbrokers a few years later when the Alaska Boundary Settlement abandoned British/Canadian claims that would have seen Skagway and Haines as BC ports, and in control of access to the famous goldfields beyond.

On the other hand, the RNWMP were brought into the area of the Wild Horse Creek (now Fort Steele) gold rush in the East Kootenay to prevent the escalation of conflict between the Ktunaxa, American miners and Chinese (the area was too remote for Governor Douglas to send marines from the Coast, so a request was made the governor of Rupert's Land via the HBC).

What's kind of amusing here is guys like murdo strutting around saying we don't know how good we got it, and we should be grateful. But out here in BC we also know the feds turned their back over the fishery, even tolerating American seizures of Canadian fishing and tourism vessels during the Salmon War without so much as a diplomatic peep. The driftnet fishery was tolerated and finally condoned (by being shoved aside from the public limelight), because Hyundai (the largest owner of driftnet vessels) agreed to open an auto plant in Sherbrooke.

Easterners treat us like our grievances prove we're not good, little obedient Canadians and we should put up with Ottawa's lack of concern on the one hand, and its meddling on the other. Even the location of Vancouver was chosen to benefit eastern interests and hurt British Columbian ones (which is why none of Victoria, Port Moody, or New Westminster became the railhead, as all land there was already owned).

Somewhere above, in reply to me, someone (Murdoch?) re-invokes the "East to West" claptrap. The legacy of Cartier's discovery has NO RELEVANCE to the discovery, claim and early settlement of British Columbia, and until the early 1880s the route to get to the place went via San Francisco or Hong Kong and Bombay. We have a completely different orientation on the world as a result and do not share the "East to West" perspective, except when it's shoved down our throats as the way we're supposed to think (as here).

Similarly, Rupert's Land's (the Prairies') orientation was towards Hudson Bay on the one hand, and to the Great Plains on the other. And yes, being conquered by Canada probably would have resulted in American annexation (but not necessarily, as also the case with a BC that went its own way after 1870, or after the railway deal was trashed anyway) BUT the operating word there is still "conquered"; whereas Canada's officially bowdlerized history, a la "Heritage Minutes", is that the Mounties were sent in to "maintain order" (the same justification is used the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, come to think of it), and the word "war" is scrupulously avoided.

It's clear that the pan-Canadian nationalists posting here have no deep knowledge of the immediate histories of the western provinces other than how it pertains to how they became part of Canada, and what knowledge they do have is heavily influenced by the heavily emended and controlled curriculum (K-12 and post-sec) that I was talking about.

8-D LOL What an absolutely delightful set of observations. I much enjoyed this.

Skookum1
Don't assume that because one doesn't choose to be ruled by the past and spend one's time moaning over a particular interpretation of what 'might have been' that this implies a lack of knowledge of history.

Speculative conclusions come in all colours and it is perfectly possible to entertain them as hypothetical constructs until the cows come home: for ideologues from both the left and the right. Without settlers from the east, at bottom, there would have been no western culture – other than native culture – to even argue over.

This debate is, however, about the nation's future. One should be aware of the past but hardly hamstrung by it.

Personally, while I don't disagree with everything you've posted about the 18th and 19th century, I do find it interesting that you've not made much of a case for returning the whole kit and kaboodle to the natives from which it was originally, at least arguably, stolen.

As for that settlement business, it had nothing to do with migrating Canadians to British Columbia post-Confederation (Canadians were looked upon as freeloaders in BC due to their boorish manners in the bar and their prissy values - as well as their more racist attitude towards the natives). What it had to do with was BC's ambition to become a populous colony by importing kindred folks from Scotland, Ireland and other parts of the Isles to build the railway; Ottawa didn't want a more populous BC (which would mean more powerful) and had never been serious about the railway deal anyway; and London wanted to cut costs so backed up Ottawa over hiring Chinese workers from companies in southern China rather than transporting a new Anglo-Celt mass overseas (they were already having enough trouble with the populous ex-convicts of you-know-where, never mind those rebel colonies from a while before).

So Ottawa, by the way, and London, forced the use of Chinese labour to build the railway, despite and in disdain of British Columbia's objections. Canadian histories like to point the finger at British Columbians for exploiting the Chinese, but it was Chinese companies hired by an American contractor, Onderdonk, at the behest and necessity of policies brought down by Ottawa, not Victoria, that were the actual culprits, and while Ottawa assured BC that the workers would only be in the province temporarily, there was no enforcement of this, and the contractor (Onderdonk) washed his hands of the whole affair, with thousands of Chinese left in the Fraser Canyon and elsewhere without a way home, living in caves around Spences Bridge and earth-houses at North Bend and Keefer's.

All this was Ottawa's fault, not BC's; but guess who gets the blame, and the racist-allegation finger-pointing of the kind so popular with the guilt-tripping Canadian intelligentsia? Not toady-white Ottawa, that's sure sure, "Who, me?"

(source for much of the above, but not all, is J. Morton's In The Sea Of Sterile Mountains)

Oh C'mon Skookum, and immigration from the Old Country didn't come from east of British Columbia? Where the Hell so you think London is?

I know all about Onderdonk, I also know about what happened to Chinese labour on the ground and what happened when the Komogato Maru came into port and the Asiatic Exclusion League got about their dismal business. British Columbia is no purer than Ottawa and the residents of Victoria were as prejudiced then toward minorities as any settlement in India under the Raj. A lot of them still are.

And you still haven't mentioned the natives, btw.

Sir Guy finally confirms his suspicions about humanity by filling a vat with shit and urine, throwing a few quid on top and watching as a crowd of city gents immerse themselves in the mire to get their hands on the cash.

Anybody remember Terry Southerns "Magic Christian" ?

That's not what I'm getting at; and because of the centralist control of the history curriculum that same lack of knowledge of their own history is shared by most British Columbians, particularly those arrived in the last few decades. The universities barely cover BC history studies, and what they do is confined to the narrow Orwellian parameters of "the new history" (gender, ethnic and class analysis at the expense of general contexts and narrative understanding).

My point in bringing all this up is to demonstrate ways in which Ottawa/Ontario/QC have manipulated development in the West, specifically holding it back and stunting it. And also not made decisions concerning that region for its own benefit rather than the regions; such as the railway contracts, the Alaska boundary, the Crow Rate, the prevention of the Prairies from being a single province, the leashing of the Manitoba government by Ontario's, the moving of the aerospace centre project from Winnipeg to Montreal, the thing with the fisheries I mentioned and so much more.

The deliberate stunting of the western economy, which thereby deliberately stunted western political power, is entirely one of those faults in our system and our heritage and, in my view, is equal to the grievances of Quebec (at least, and not without remembering that Quebec is the reason many of the policies hindering the West were for Quebec's benefit).

Without Easterners learning about how they screwed over the West from day one (and I don't mean the NEP), they'll keep on and on about how lucky the west is to have it so good, and how we'd better smarten up about federal politics and toe the nationalist line. Or else we're unpatriotic, or helping the US annex us, or whatever wheedling excuse is made to keep from examining (and reforming) the structural injustices built into Confederation.

It's not a what-if scenario that I'm talking about here; I'm pointing to specific examples where Eastern Canada's control of the national polity has hurt the potential for a more populous, more prosperous and more politically powerful west.

The rationale used by ON/QC that their greater numbers validate greater infrastructure and other pork barrel spending there as well as "one man, one vote" control over federal affairs in all other nine jurisdictions, no matter how people in those jurisdictions voted or what those jurisdictions' governments want.

And it continues to this day, day in, day out, and will continue into the future until the unfair structure of Confederation is undone and rebuilt. Canadian nationalists are also inherently centralists, i.e. intent on a strong central power to keep regional interests from expressing themselves. Yeah, right. Sounds like empire to me.

About the low-population-can't survive argument, Norway similar in geographic size and population as BC and refused participation in the EU and they're doing just fine, thank you.

Skookum
So it is really all about payback then. I must assume, in consequence, that you are a member of a First Nations tribe - In which case I support your desire to take back the land that was stolen from you.

If you aren't, then you are a self-described hypocrite, in my humble opinion.

Gotta go, I leave 'em to you Coyote and bob the cat.

Fer chrissake G West, do you think people got to BC overland from Canada prior to the opening of the CPR? BC's original perspective on the world - which left its residual sense of awareness and connection to this day - was connected to California, Panama, Chile and the Orient. Even after 1886, many Brits in BC arrived here via India and China and Australia, rather than ever seeing the port of Montreal.

That you are unaware of this perspective is a case in point about the domination of the curriculum; I'll even get you academic cites which explain the above if you insist on some. Canada's infatuation with itself, with its role in supposedly populating the West, really only applies to the Prairies. In fact, I seem to recall something recently that even after the railway opened, many British migrants to BC still chose the route via the Orient. And well into the 1960s, most people of British origin who were not born here came directly from the British Isles and never lived in Eastern Canada, despite having to pass through it (usually with disdain; in other words, you got the type that like Ontario and Quebec, we got the ones who didn't).

If you consult Census Canada's tables, you'll find that BC has the highest proportion of British-ethnics who do not have "Canadian roots"; and 40 years ago and more, their sense of the world was the British Empire, not Confederation, as was their sense of identity and purpose. Tokyo was closer than Toronto, and Hong Kong and Bombay and Sydney were looked upon as no more far away than "the Canadas". The only difference is that one was overland, the others were by sea; but this was a maritime province, and it was a maritime age until the post-war era gave birth to widespread passenger air travel. When I was young, I knew people who'd lived in Baghdad and Bombay and New Guinea, and no one from Ontario of Quebec (other than my mother, but she got here by way of California).

This usually shocks Eastern-rooted historians, and they always bemoan the fact that you could buy The Guardian or the London Times in Vancouver easier than could one of the "national papers", and that the British maintained their culture here and had stronger ties to Britain than to Canada. Awww.

Another point about the topic of the previous post has to do with this orientation-of-the-West thing. My point has to do with the Upper vs Lower Canada thing, the French-English thing and the associated Confederational divorce-pending thing that's been going on since the dawn of time, at the expense of all other policies (and potential reform), is rooted in the UELer vs. pur laine "Two Nations" mindsets.

But out here, whether it's the Prairies or BC, a much larger proportion of people have ties directly to the Old Country, rather than to Canada, and they have no reason to really give a s**t about Lundy's Lane or the Plains of Abraham; it's not part of their history. If you bitch that "then they should learn because after all they're Canadian" I could say the same back to you about incidents like the Fraser Canyon War or the machinations of the unfair boundary settlements and more, which are ALSO part of Canadian history but treated as "regional history". In other words, what happened in Ontario and Quebec is national history, what happened anywhere else isn't.

It doesn't have to do with how people got here so much, but where their connections were. And predominatly, out here in BC, the connections were to Britain, the Orient, Australia and California as well as European home-countries of the many kinds of "invisible minority" ethnics here. This is the case as much now as before, in fact, except for those Vancouverites-cum-British Columbians who are busily trying to turn the place into Little Yorkville).

Ditto for the Prairies, where again the dominant Briton stock tends to be straight from the Isles, taking time in Central Canada only to switch from ship to train at Gare Windsor in Montreal, and Sifton's efforts to settle the landscape imported the polyglot European cultures of the Prairie social landscape, in about 80 varieties, too.

The idea that there was a "pre-multicultural Canada/British Columbia", which I've seen here and there lately, completely belies the historical reality, and the point that Western Canada's view on the world has never been through the lens of Central Canada's obsession with its own importance, but rather through personal, family and business ties directly to Europe and Asia. So this "pre-multicultural Canada" concept can only refer to the whitebread wastelands of Ontario and the Maritimes (Montreal's English community was inherently multi-ethnic, especially because of the Jewish and Irish populations who found lives there).

Again, what I'm trying to do is demonstrate the degree to which your own conceptions of Canadian history - of Canadian manifest destiny (this "from East to West" thing) are skewed because you've been raised inside that perspective. It's much like American chauvinism, and increasingly it's also starting to sound like it (with people voicing regional grievances being branded "traitors" and "unpatriotic" etc.).

What I mean here is "national history" in the sense of national constitutional politics and identity-mongering, not events per se which would of course include Riel, the Halifax Explosion, the Komagata Maru and so on.

If you aren't, then you are a self-described hypocrite, in my humble opinion.

And you sir, are ignorant, in my humble opinion, and locked in a historical mindset and a political vocabularly which is inherently biased in favour of the Central Canadian viewpoint on the West (which is exploitive, jaundiced, and patronizing).

And no, I'm not First Nations. I happen to be one of the remaining non-native people who have knowledge of the Chinook Jargon, which is part of BC's old identity and still part of frontier culture as well as our local dialect. Oh - you didn't know there was a BC dialect? That's because Central Canadian-dominated academics have obsessed over a supposed standard "Canadian English" and aver that the only dialects in Canada are Maritime and Newfoundlander English. Y'see? D'yer get it? There's a different identity, a different perspective on the world, a different heritage, that by rights should be celebrated as part of Canadian history and identity; instead it's shrugged off and even forgotten by the cultural engineering effort to create a "Canadian nationality" through homogenization and dimestore flagwaving (as a p.r. campaign systematically launched by Copps but rooted in the Pearson era and Expo '67).

So you support the First Nations' desire to get back what was taken from them, and to seek redress. And I recall you support (as I do) redress for Japanese Canadians evicted from their homes in World War II. So why do you not support redress for the economic and political damage done by the deliberate prevention of economic and population expansion by Central Canada's abuse of its power over the lesser-populated (and constitutionally-hindered) provinces? What's good for the goose....or is it because we're supposed to set our provincial identities aside and embrace the rights of Ontario and Quebec populations to force their political will (and endless constitutional squabbling) down our throats?

I'm not a hypocrite, I'm a straight shooter; what I hear from you, on the other hand, are weasel words. Or, in the Chinook Jargon, klimmin wawa (smooth talk, lies).

By the way, it's not "Skookum". It's "Skookum-one", like a CB handle; most ISPs already had a skookum username, so at one time I took Skookum1 and liked it; in Chinook you'd pronounce it skookumixt (between skookumikt and skookumiht), as with Emily Carr's Kleewyck - laughing one (kleefrom glee, wyck a variant form of the Chinook for "one", as in "that person").

As for what-ifs, my favourite one for BC is if the colonial assembly had gone forward with the debate on making Chinook a second official language. Part of the purpose of that motion, by the way, was to entrench a separate identity for BC, and to make it harder for carpetbaggers from the impending union with Canada to take over the about-to-be province, as well as to make a big distinction from the American states across the line in the event of independence (there natives had been slaughtered and the Jargon was used by few whites, despite the borrowing of words like skookum, saltchuck etc).

Point again is that we should be hearing about this as much as we have to watch docs on Maritime culture or Ontario farm antiques.

Skookum
Sorry, no dice. I do know about BC's pre-Confederation history and about Chinook. I was merely trying to establish the obvious point that your kind of historical special pleading is no more relevant than anyone else's - unless you were a person of First Nations background. Hence my question. This hatred of central Canada and federal institutions is a strange kind of self-loathing that borders on strange - to put it politely.

Either your distant ancestors were born here prior to European settlement or they weren't, period. Your case for returning to a utopian past based on who writes the history book you happen to be reading at the moment is no more valid than anyone else's - in my opinion. Although I'll try to say it a little less offensively than you have.

I prefer to live in the present and I care for the country I grew up in. I'm sorry you feel so disengaged and deracinated that you want to roll back the clock to a time that was no better, and in many ways a hell of a lot worse than the arrangement we have today - especially for minorities.

What if, for example, folks like you and murdock and freebc came in from the cold and put your considerable talents to building something better rather than tearing down something that's pretty damn good?

About G West's insult again; typical of pan-Canadian zealots of course, but because I support devolution and redress for injustice ("province's rights" does not mean I am a hypocrite without being First Nations does not make me a hypocrite. I'm the consistent one, with G West refusing even to consider that non-First Nations westerners have grievances worth talking about, or a history that isn't derived "from East to West". I'm not the hypocrite. And as for native rights, I'm supportive of the local-devolution model of government advanced by the UBCIC, endorsed by the UBCM, and which reared its head in the Spicer and Charest Commission from various parts of the country.

Which is: something along the lines of with local voting control over local matters; as with Switzerlandincome taxes should go to the cities directly, with property and other taxes going to the feds and provinces as deserved. The federal assembly would be composed of representatives from across the "community of communities" (which is one of the names for this model of governance, a version of which works rather well in Switzerland as the cantonal system, and which also has been applied within Spanish regions and elsewhere in the EU). In other words, each place in the country would have a voice; not a party hack serving as a bagman for party backers in cabinet and caucus for pork barrel contracts and patronage-peddling, which is our current competely screwed-up system.

Sure, this would mean a patchwork, but the Nisga'a and the Ganienkehaka (Mohawk Nation) would have seats as well as Greater Vancouver and Moose Jaw, and country's various minority regions and localities could happily have their "sovereignty" but still be part of a united Canada. It just wouldn't be a Canada with a "strong central government" and a cabinet and parliament dominated entirely by two provinces, with no change in sight.

I should add that it was my interest in and awareness of native political arguments that influenced by perspectives on how other local governments and communities within the Canadian Empire have been treated by The Centre; again, I'm being consistent, not a hypocrite like those who get all weepy Canadian-conciliation over First Nations and Asian Canadians, but turn their noses up at anyone else's grievances (unless it's Quebec, that is).

There's a big difference between being in Canada and being a Canadian citizen, and being expected by dint of that to support centralist consolidation and an ongoing set of policies and mindset that are clearly NOT WORKING. It's like the Americans who denounce others for not supporting the War In Iraq as being "un-Canadian" etc.

The tone of pan-Canadian nationalists, often enough, is downright McCarthyite. Have you ever been, or have your ever, quailed from the idea of a strong central parliament or cabinet?? TRAITOR!!!! etc

skookum, I appreciate your passion for the subject of BC's early history and you make some good points.

And I absolutely agree with you here. As would many people from Ontario and New Brunswick.

But, many of us who live here now were in fact the beneficiaries of the policies you're still upset over. To repeat what I said above, a Turk can't now move to Armenia and demand compensation for what happened to the Armenians in 1915. Because although not every one of our 4 million plus population came from east of the Rockies, a large portion of it did and much of the rest came from another country altogether post-1945.

As for Canada, we don't have a strong central gov't, as Richard Gwynn points out over and over, we're one of the most decentralized countries on the face of the globe already.

As for Chinook. Hey, I'm all for it. Chinook, Cree, Huron, Micmac and French. We'll dumnp english and no longer fear US cultural domination. I'm in.

I meant, in that last line, "and if you say 'yes', they scream TRAITOR" etc.

Coyote, thanks for that. Its why I like hearing from many of the righties more than the mushy centrists. At least we agree there's problems.

The reality which the wingy-dingies from this particular right wing strain we are dealing with here now don't get is, while even we may know the ancient history of the founding of Canada and all its built in contradictions, such as exist in every land, as well as they, it is precisely that, more ancient history to us, which serves no good purpose to the present, let alone moving into the future. While the definition of a conservative is to always be caught walking backwards into the future, we lefties are more inclined, while mindful of the past, to actually seek to move forward where we are looking-, into the future.

Our Western Separatists are obsessed upon it, irrationally we think, because they, along with the social order arrangement to which they are tied, see no future and fear it. Society only moves from this point backward-, as defined by them of course.

Unless as GWest points out, they are of a sudden mind to go back as well and correct the great historical injustices all to First Nations, returning even all control over the land and its resources to them-, and us join into the "melting pot" of their culture as well, as we currently expect of immigrants, say we or not. Of which you will not see one jit of evidence from this crew. Indeed, it is anathema to them everytime the issue of First Nations come up here. Yet First Nations have a far stronger, prior and even more "legal" claim than either the Quebecois or ye Johnny Come Lately, Western Separatists.

But that is not what they are about really, addressing the wrongs of the past.

They are quite good at seeing the contradictions in other's positions, even where none in fact exist, yet see not their glaring own.

Oh as I look up the posts one can see that you and murdock and freeBC were not wallflowers when it came to calling others a few names.

Besides, our shared history since 1867 and our 100,000+ casualties in the 20th century is simply more important to the country than some ancient skirmishes or an argument over whether the Crow hurt the west more than it helped. I see Cdn nationalism as being higher now than it was when I was a kid.

Ah yes, those in the branch-office and trans-shipment business upon which Vancouver's non-real estate/construction economic backbone is constructed. Or are you thinking of the Tim Horton's franchises?

Vancouver was the CPR's city, don't forget, and in all histories of BC it's observed that the city was inherently more "Canadian" than elsewhere in the province, even than the Valley, and was created to serve Canada's interests. So point is, yes, a lot of jobs in Vancouver are tied to the policies that created it as it is; but if those policies hadn't been in place, the city would have been the size and industrial capacity of Ontario and Quebec; and the numbers which qualify federal largesse like the 3 zillion to highs-speed the passenger rail corridor between Windsor and Quebec City might be viable (engineeringpermitting) between Vancouver and Calgary or prince George.

That's what I mean - the jurisdictions with political and economic clout amassed wealth and populations that qualify them to keep a lockdown on the politcal process, which implicitly includes government spending programs as well as policies designed to further protect that area. BC never had that chance, never mind the Prairies, and we were hobbled from day one.

About Gwynn Dyer's comment: true enough, but the point is the thrust of federalism in Canada is a stronger and stronger central government, which implicitly means a stronger and stronger PMO. And the PMO is rarely selected by or from British Columbia; and obviously the current holder of that office doesn't actually care what BC voters think (re the Emerson affair), because he doesn't need them to form a government.

Ironically, it's also over the long run become a hotbed of regionalist sentiment; because you don't have to live out here very long to develop a disregard for Central Canada's colonialist attitude and treatment of BC. Which is why many latecomers to BC, within a decade or two, learn to revile the East and wonder why Confederation has to be such a damned hassle.

Before Trudeau and Pearson, the powerful presence in anyone's immediate polity were the provinces; there was a shift after the British Empire's transformation into the Commonwealth in which the Canadian federal government started using the "Confederation" buzzword, implying stronger federalism and less power for the longer-powerful provinces; WAC Bennett is famous for resisting this and being a BC separatist to the core (and he was from New Brunswick). Point here is that pan-Canadian nationalism, especially the flagwaving, strutting kind, is a product of the '60s and '70s and was not around before then. Loyalty to Crown and Empire was, however, and perhaps moreso in BC, as was a sense of proud local identity as distinct from the frozen wastelands to the east.

Every time the CBC or CTV starts talking in hockey or frozen-pond metaphors, and how the common Canadian experience is to have your ass frozen off for seven months a year, I know I'm not in the same country or share the same culture. And I feel like I'm having someone else's shoved down my throat, as well as being told (from outside) how I should be thinking about it; or else there's something wrong with me, I'll be told, for not agreeing to think like everybody else.

And THAT is f**king, annoyingly, obnoxiouly Canadian, to the core.

So this, isn't insulting,

sez Skookum

You really do only see one side of the ledger my man!

Vancouver, that is; this was meant to follow a preceding paragraph and got bumped down when I inserted a tangential line of thought (as I so often do...)

Duh. I was turning your words back against your sarcastically. You, in your humble opinion, called me a name; so I, in my humble opinion, called you one back. Stooping to your level, as it were.

That's Richard Gwynn, Skookum, not Gwynne Dyer. They are very different beasts. The Richard hails from that den of iniquity Toronto and writes for equally dreaded Toronto Star while the Gwynne fellow is a Newfoundlander, now domiciled in London who is an independent journalist.

This was the same point I was trying to make last night with murdock. Cdn nationalism wasn't around to the same extent when I was a kid. But it certainly did grow through the two world wars and I agree, it was about 40 years ago when it really started taking off. Its a hell of a lot stronger now than it was in 1914.

I mean all of it. BC in its present state was created by the immigrants from east of the Rockies and elsewhere. The four million plus here now hold no loyalty to a pre-1871 BC except out of a sense of interest or nostalgia. As interesting as I might find early BC history for summer reading (and some great books are now out there), it remains simply a part of Cdn history to me.

A mightily confused Gordon O'Conner.

Sheesh what in the hell does this idiot think we are doing in Afghanistan ?
Blowing buildings and people to simthereens isn't war.
Oh, I get it,its another''police ' action .

Just to add, the Canadiana section of bookstores used to be non-existent. Nowadays its huge. The BC book section is also growing.

Skookum
I called you no name. I applied what I took to be an accurate description of you if you were not native, period.

How am I insulting you by calling you what you demonstrably are - relative to your position vis a vis native 'rights'?
I don't think so.

Unless you're a product of spontaneous generation or possibly a virgin birth your ancestors are not of North American heritage.
Therefore you are, nominally, from exactly the same lineage as those you criticise so extravagantly.

I believe Chief Bill Wilson calls us all stinky boat people.

Skookum
Further, if you're such a supporter of First Nation's rights initiatives and devolution of the land back to its rightful owners I assume you're currently petitioning the federal government to stop reneging on the commitment to the Kelowna accord and lobbying Premier Campbell to carry through with his own new found affection for First Nations aspirations.

Look freebc, don't set sucked into this east vs west thing. Its nothing but a distraction. If you feel you would have more money in your pocket by Alta and BC separating then no doubt some other guy in Alta is thinking he should separate from BC. And some guy in Fort McMurray will then be thinking about dumping the rest of Alta.

Again, if its a few extra dollars a week you think you're being short changed your time would be better spent attacking the corporations and foreigners who own us. Not the easterners because they aren't getting the profits.

I don't care what Ontario thinks or wants.
I care only about BC.
If east vs west is only a distraction, well it worked. I'm distracted.

Sez freebc!

Don't worry, we didn't mistake you for someone not consumed by greed envy and bitterness.

Why don't you tell us what you really think of your fellow Canadians?

Not surprised you'd be distracted, one trick ponies usually are.

freebc, you may not care what Ontario thinks or wants. Fine. But foreigners own more of BC and Alberta business and resources than all the people of Ontario combined. Why not join us on the nationalist left and work on the big problem? Foreign takeovers of Canadian companies and resources is rampant and is a real issue (especially since Mulroney scrapped FIRA and signed the FTA) unlike west versus east arguing over the tidbits that the foreigners left behind.

Ooh Frank. That's a reach. Even for you...

Coyote. This is the kind of BS that gets you ignored.
I'm doing it now.

Somebody please quit calling me Canadian. That's as bad as calling me a Nazi.

Really? I thought it was pretty mild compared to using the word Canuckistan all the time... and calling Canadians worse than Nazis...

Considering what some people have been banned for around here I don't think you should follow this line of discussion any further.

You're not a Canadian? Then why come here? We do get the odd person from outside the country but it seems pretty strange a non-Canadian would be advocating for BC separation. Where are you? Oregon?

Then by all means, presumably you being a right wing US citizen, do ignore me. That's the beauty of threads such as this. All you have to do is refuse to read and ignore those one finds not worth the effort.

I pass over you all the time.

Canada from Sea to Sea (From Bruce Hutchison The Fraser)

"The emergence of two names. One name is new- Amor de Cosmos. The other, Manifest Destiny, has long haunted the American border. The collision between de Cosmos and Manifest Destiny will greatly affect the future political shape of America.
Amor de Cosmos was born plain Smith. Such a name was too commonplace for this arrogant, daring and able man. To proclaim his dream, which ranged far across land and sea, he called himself the Lover of the Universe- a man of long, narrow, bearded face, fierce eye and striking beauty. Though forgotten by most Canadians and unknown to most Americans, few men have served Canada better or, on a limited local stage, contended more successfully with American power.
It is de Cosmos who first fights the ogliarchy of Douglas at Victoria, with its clique of Hudson`s Bay men and civil servants. In this obscure settlement is repeated in miniature scale, but with the same objective, the struggle for responsible government which produced the American Revolution, which flamed briefly in the Canadian Rebellion of 1837.
Standing in the way of Manifest Destiny is a new nation, the Confederation of Canada, a political embryo, scarce born yet in the union of five eastern colonies, under the B.N.A. Act of 1867. Such a group of settlements straggling along the St. Lawrence and bisected by the jungles of New Brunswick is no match for the military collossus produced by the Civil War. Sir John A. MacDonald, the chief architect of the Canadian union, its first prime minister and one of the most practical politicians of the New World, sees this fact without illusion.
" It is quite evident to me," he writes, "that the United States Government are resolved to do all they can short of war to get possession of the western territory and we must take immediate and vigorous steps to counteract them."
De Cosmos already is at work. Rebuffed by the governor, he stumps the country, forms the Confederation League on a policy of union with Canada, and calls a convention. Significantly enough, it is held at Yale, on the Fraser. DeCosmos already has seen that if there is to be a union with Canada its only practical avenue lies along the river.
The tiny spark of Canadian sentiment on the west coast Sir John knows how to fan the flame.
He is playing a game for high stakes, for control of half a continent, for the last great expansion of power in the final phase of British Imperialism.
The instructions of the British Government, written in terms more elegant than those used by Sir John but meaning the same thing:

"Her Majesty`s government anticipate that the interests of every province of British North America would be more advanced by enabling the wealth, credit and intelligence of the whole to be brought to bear on every part than by encouraging each in the constricted policy of taking care of itself, possibly at the expense of its neighbour."

Amor DeCosmos was from Nova Scotia.

Duh. I was turning your words back against your sarcastically. You, in your humble opinion, called me a name; so I, in my humble opinion, called you one back. Stooping to your level, as it were.

As if a letter to Campbell does any good. One of the non-useless ways I support First Nations culture and people is by copious participation in [Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America] project; see also my start on a history of the Lillooet people at http://www.cayoosh.net/native.html, and of course also my involvement with Chinook studies. And more. I also have no quibble with native absolutist sentiments, e.g. the Lillooet radical line that the Crown has no tenure in the Lillooet Country (Pemberton Valley over to the Fraser Canyon) at all, and elsewhere (the Nuxalk declaration of independence, Gitksan-Wet'su-we'ten Confederacy, Council of the Haida Nation and so on.

I'm only a cultus whiteman (damned honkey) in the Chinook Jargon, but I do what I can in areas where I'm most useful.

And you? Other than writing protest letters to the Premier, that is.

Political letter-writing is about as useful as voting.....

Via California for ten years, y'see. Which his where his political tone and enthusiasm come, and his economic liberalism (laissez-faire, and hostile to the established colonial autocracy/assembly and its connection to the HBC). De Cosmos, like John Robson and the other early pressmen (and virtually all major BC news publishers to date) were in it for their own good, not with any high ideals. Douglas' clique controlled the new colony, to be sure, but the Victoria and New Westminster press took the "democratic" line and railed against the existence of the government at all.

De Cosmos himself was one of those Canadian "moles" who agitated in the colony/ies; not as overt as Governor Musgrave, the hatchetman for Confederation after Seymour's death, but close. Control of the press also means control over information; and I can tell you that De Cosmos' reportage of events in that period is no more reliable than the San Francisco and Seattle papers (who also maintained correspondents in the gold colony).

Hutchison's writing above interprets De Cosmos' politics in a pro-Confederation, aren't we all glad we're Canadian light, and with the usual tone that BC's natural destiny was with Canada etc. It wasn't; it was a choice, as you and Hutchison accidentally note in passing by way of saying that the colony might have otherwise opted for American union. What "it" really wanted was more support from London in the way of immigrants to justify the colony's self-sufficiency; it didn't get it; what it got instead was marching orders, and Gov. Musgrave sent in to shoehorn the place into Confederation whether it liked it or not (using the same autocratic powers enjoyed by Douglas and Seymour which De Cosmos so railed against).

And for those of us who know the history, the deal was not worth the paper it was printed on. So what good was De Cosmos' campaign to join Canada, since Canada never even backed him up by following through on the deal; he lost his seat a broken man because of this, as I recall.

And again, his politics were not Canadian, but Californian.

When exactly was that, Frank, that "the Canadian army came over the passes?" The Canadian Army? The RNWMP were sent in to quell the Wild Horse Creek War in the East Kootenay, as already mentioned, and the Royal Navy were of course entrenched at Esquimalt. Are you perhaps confusing British Columbia with Saskatchewan Territory (Riel's Nord-Ouest)?

I'm still scratching my head and actually trying to recall when the "Canadian Army" was "sent over the passes". Certainly in the 1930s to take over Vancouver and its port during the depression-era near-revolution that gripped the docks and the hobo jungles (when BC was a dumping ground, as now, for social outcasts and the disenfranchised from other provinces).

But it was British troops (mostly naval and marine) on hand for the opening of the CPR (to protect from possible Fenian attack). It was local enlistees who signed up for the Boer War, as well as World War I (well, mostly Brits by way of being here, that is, but also old frontier stock). What B.E.F. (British Expeditionary Forces) there was in BC was enlisted here; there was, in fact, no "Canadian Army" until after the Statutes of Westminster in the 1920s. Out here in BC it was British military and local enlistees, backed up militias for theoretical territorial defense (against possible attack by or from the US) in areas like the Kootenays and Okanagan, which were directly vulnerable and still fairly much out of reach of effective military action from the Coast (much less from Canada).

Not even in the case of the Metis Wars (which I think is the appropriate term for the so-called Riel "Rebellions"); that was, you'll recall I hope the RNWMP.

Clearly a case of someone not familiar with western history fuzzing it up; hell, it's like it was just one place west of the Great Lakes, huh?

Look who's talking. Alcibiades, you need to be a little more concise if you are going to try to answer a question.

Skookum, I enjoy your history. I like history but having been born here I find myself bored with things deem Canadian.

Frank and Coyote, I am a British Columbian. I'm only that.
I loved it when the marines flew that retarded leaf upside down.
I fly the flag of BC on my deck.
I cut the form of BC oput of the canuckistani flag and captioned it, "BC wants out".
I am a prisoner of this 'country', held hostage by birth.
There is nothing for me to love about this country.

[B][I][U]Now maybe one of you swifties can answer a simple question I posted a ways back.
WHY SHOULD BC REMAIN PART OF CONFEDERATION? GIVE ME REASONS. DON'T GIVE ME LINKS.
TELL ME WHY BC SHOULD STAY IN.

Sarcasm. I realize posting a couple of sarcastic shots has confused all of you but c'mon guys, its not that hard to grasp. Good thing I didn't mention the Dolphin Party.

The thing is Skookum, much as I think your interest in BC history is great, and certainly exceeds mine you're getting too sentimental. You keep forgetting scale. BC had a tiny population in the wilderness. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I'm not the one claiming that BC was on the verge of greatness and Canada took it over and shut it down. As far as I'm concerned the joining with Canada and the arrival of Canadians here was the best thing that could have happened to the place.

Doesn't mean I think we should ignore the stories of the few people that were here, far from it. Champlain in Quebec wasn't Canadian either at the time but I consider that period to also be essential reading for an informed Canadian.

As for Canada not having an army until the 20's, what the hell are you talking about? I read that 3 times. You claim Canada conquered the happy denizens of the west and obviously we took 60,000 casualties in France in WW1 but somehow we didn't have an army? I have no idea what you're claiming here.

When did I ask for compensation? I never did. I am very tired of paying for the "pivilage" of being called Canadian.

I don't want to continue to pay over and over again for what is already the property of BC.

I financial advisor I listen to calls things done in the past like this... "STUPID TAX".

Because everyone in BC, except you, wants to remain part of Canada. That's simple enough isn't it?

A better question is why should Canada let you stay here. I know we're holding you hostage but the ropes are off now and you know where the door is if you wanna leave.

Frank. What exactly were you think this was all about if not politics?

Oh I see, so you ARE Canadian, you were just pulling our leg... good one

i thought he had a real reason such as his family actually lived here in 1869. Not that he was simply pissed off at what happened in Quebec.

That's pretty bold as statements go.
That will be one for statistics if you have any.

And I do have backup on that. Western Canada Concept, and the new party murdock linked to, among other separatists who have ponied up a few bucks to run, have gone absolutely nowhere politically.

Would you rather be an American?

If so, then go..in the name of God go..

And it is still a choice Skookum, whether one chooses BC separation, as advocated by yourself and your friends here, complimented by or in conjunction or co-union with Alberta, or a more Ruperts Land entity, and everything else simply allowed to go whatever which way it might, which I suggest all very quickly leads each fragment of the then Old Canada into the US Empire orbit and absorbtion by that entitiy. Or there is proceeding there into the arms of US Imperialism directly, as soon as the pretence plays itself out.

In any case, Canada as it is currently constituted, certainly under the rule and will of our current colonial mind set "corporatist" ruling class, is little able and lacks the will to stand up to the "deep integration" pressures that come from the continental US Empire, and its current Manifest Destiny (Project for a New American Century) imperative. Were we to then follow you and your parochial ideological thinker friends, and indeed succeed at fragmenting the territory of the current country, it is clear to anyone that can follow the logic that, we are not made thereby stronger at resisting the US Collosus, as De Cosmos and MacDonald recognized, but as is also made clear in the instructions of the British Government of the day, we are made more vulnerable. It remains as true, nay more true today. The Beast is even more powerful and of a controlling disposition.

The resolution of the problem, I suggest, not wishing to see an even greater US Empire collosus, of which we should then be but a consumed part, a piece of meat, is more along an avenue of resolving the unequal contradictions of the current union, creating both a more democratic and centralized governance system, taming the power of the provinces, as Trudea attempted, at least certainly outside of Quebec and a new Native Nations concept, creating as I have advocated what we in fact have here, three nations within one country. Out of that reshaping of the formal lines of the new country concept of Canada and its system of governance, launching a great effort to create a more economically and politically "self-sufficient" entire entity of Canada that can stand up to the hemispheric bully power of the current US Empire. (Which has built into that concept a new, entirely Canada controlled and home defence preoccupied, national self-sufficient military component as well.)

It is clear by now out of all these conversations here, that what you BC and Western separatists advocate for does NOT lead to a resolution of the problem of effectively dealing with the demands and pressure of the US Empire-, unless one really supports the creation of an even greater US Empire monolith such as we see rampaging throughout the world
Indeed it achieves quite the opposite, it but Balkanizes the country, diminishes the stature of our whole even further. It is like dealing with the problem of the bulk of the schoolyard bully by making oneself weaker and smaller, even more insignificant, puny and vulnerable. Which cannot but render us yet more vulnerable to its bully power.

Continued next post...

From previous post...

Clearly your "fragmented power and economic potential" solution to the problems of current Canada is the exact and precise opposite way to go if a useful economic and political power with real stability is the objective at the end. It is but a fantasy which creates only weaker and smaller, more digestible petty fiefdoms. And their life expectancy then is even more vulnerable, not less, to the whim and caprice of an aggressive and expansionist US imperialism. It is the sheep that one by one attempt to lie down with the lion.

No. You are either naive dreamers, or even more likely of a treacherous intent, serving a foreign power interest. Either way, you and the separatist positions you advocate can do us only further harm, and lead into an inky abyss that can only have a dubious conclusion within it at best. You may not like the name that attaches to what that makes you, but it is a shoe which well seems to fit your intellectual feet, from my perspective of an advocate for the interests of this entire country. Unless you have better evidence than what we have seen here.

freebc:

Are you prepared to see Northern BC separate from the lower mainland? Or Vancouver Island from the mainland?

I don't know... Skookum 1 decides to run down my dad... a farmer... for no reason it seems, other than for what he does... grow grain.

And he runs down the French... of which my mom is... and he runs down farmers children. You know, people like myself. And then he runs down my friend and employers, most of who come from Quebec. Yawn.

And freebc runs me down for being born in Canada, a canadian... what was that? Oh yah. Were worse than Nazis.

Gee Whiz, fellas. Your both real class acts. Can't wait to clink glasses with you both, a bunch of real swell fellas. Sure is a nice province, BC. Hope to run into you both sometime. Soon.

And furthermore, Coyote, founded on such a narrow-minded idea of self-interest as opposed to the needs of the broader group at all costs would quickly become, as RickW notes above, fertile ground for even more smaller, separate and more single-purpose states.

Someone above here suggested at one point the value of the Swiss model for participatory democracy. It may be well to look more closely at how canton local elections often abuse their power at the annual public meetings where votes are taken on such things as whether or not particular individuals (qualified in every way) should be permitted the honour of Swiss citizenship.

Some kinds of decisions, taken at a very local and often quite parochial level, can be fraught - in a disintegrating state such as murdock, freebc and skookum envision - with prejudice and a lack of equity that is not the case in larger entities where such decisions are taken by a professional class of civil servants according to democratically arrived at principles.

Smaller entities, by their very nature, are often fraught with relational problems - as anyone who has ever lived in a village or small town can attest.

I wonder if you noticed how Monte Solberg was greeted at a public meeting today in Ottawa. Perhaps now some publicity will be given to the fact that this character has been breaking up families and deporting people left, right and centre since coming to power - often with only minimal recourse to due process.

Excellent points, Alcibiades. The Cons could run Hitler as a Conservative in Medicine Hat and still get elected. It must be embarrassing for anyone who lives there with any kind of common sense to know who's representing them Federally there and why.

The brain
It appears this is the kind of thing that happens when you let people of Solberg's character into the cabinet. I think I recall you and I discussing his potential for disaster the day pee wee announced his choices. I guess you've noticed he's expunged all the racist writings from his website - actually I haven't checked lately - maybe the website's gone entirely.

Can you imagine what these guys will do if they ever get a majority?

You are obviously overwrought, G. You and Alcibiades have been going at it hot and heavy and obviously you've blown a head gasket.

Knock it off for a few hours. What a rotten thing to say about the Canada's largest city, which for a start. ranks 3rd in the English-speaking world: New York, London, Toronto for its theatres.

As for the Toronto Star, kindly google the man named Atkinson who established the modern newspaper on the principle "People first, profit second." It's called the Atkinson Principle. You should be ashamed, you & Alc. But I know, you've worn yourself out and aren't responsible. No excuse, really.

B.C. Mary

Wasn`t G West being facetious?

BC Mary
I was being satirical. freebc, and Skookum had been going off on the rest of Canada, particularly Ontario in their inimitable fashion. Then Skookum, I believe it was, quoted something from Richard Gwyn but attributed it to Gwynne Dyer. I corrected him and threw in the description of Richard Gwyn as a Toronto writer for the obvious ironic impact it would have.

To wit, a BC separatist (for that's what these guys are) quoting someone positively who is also from the hated east.

Sorry I confused you. bob the cat is entirely correct in his analysis. Sometimes the disjunction between posts meant to be in conversational sequence impairs the effect for a later reader.

I love both Toronto and the Star and I know all about Holy Joe and his principles and I communicate regularly with Gwyn, Chantal Hebert and Antonia Zerbisias. I would do anything to stop these people who think Canada isn't worth fighting for.

Cheers as always.

Okay......!!??

See. She just hears the keys starting to clickety-clack, and right away she's onto me.

"Aren't you coming in here to bed? Am I going to have to sleep by myself? I might as well be single."

Those eyes of a dying calf in a hail storm. God, she's good.

I'm so goddamned pussy whipped, I don't believe it!

keep at em freebc, as I would have, but must carry on with other works today.

there are some like Coyote, that call you neo-this or nazi-that because they lack the positive vocabulary to see the dazzling potentials that others, like you and I have been pointing out.

Rather than continue worrying about their "why stay/" - since they will never answer that - because they know that any answer they give will be too facile to stand actual debate; get on with the needed works to have BC really be, 'free'.

delenda est Ottawa

Rick W asks:

Yes

Yes, sooner is better. At least then the power needs will be addresed locally and might actually be done.

If you read the posts you'd know I answered it over and over. You guys just didn't like the answers and resorted to cat calling rather than engaging in debate. The reason of course is that you have no national pride and therefore you see a country as being nothing more than a balance sheet denominated in dollars and refuse to accept any argument that isn't monetary based.

Your logic leads eventually to each person being their own country. The Sovereign Individual indeed.

Frank
I think they`re kinda nuts myself.

Never mind the Freud-Jung lingo bob, give it to me in layman's terms :-)

Thanks BC Mary and G West - I agree with your opinions about fighting for Canada and eastern provinces and the
Toronto Star - Antonia Zerbisias has a great blog!!

A Canadian Army BY THAT NAME is clearly what I meant, if you noticed my careful use of the name of the British Expeditionary Forces. Sure, we had soldiers, and even Canadian generals; but the command was ultimately British, as was (then) the flag we fought under (until Vimy and Ypres I suppose).

But I still want to know when the Canadian army "came over the passes" into BC. I still want to know Frank's source for that, well, crazy allegation.

I have to go to bed after getting home late but there's a lot of juicy irony in the responses to my recent posts above. What I do see is the usual cant that anyone who doesn't toe the federalist line is playing into the hands of American expansionism. More Central Canadian alarmism, and the very same argument that was used to stampede us into Confederation in the first place, and also to shore up the hegemony of the Central Canadian banks and money/industrial elites. It's the same old argument, and not even in new clothes; and it's just as one-sided as ever. Not giving us something to choose, but something we HAVE to do because (supposedly) there is only one alternative.

I don't buy that and think it's a crock. I also maintain that political and democratic reform - including less interference by the electorates and power brokers of Ontario and Quebec in the affairs of distant regions - can only be accomplished if the democracy created is vibrant enough, and vocal and inspired enough, to have its own confidence and not act out of fear (as you centralists are asking us to do). I'm not talking about giving more powers to the Premiers; far from it. In fact, they need to be chopped down to size and made public servants, instead of masters.

And as far as the US goes, don't forget half of them DIDN'T vote for Bush, and that other half (the Democratic vote) would be very sympathetic to liberal democratic reforms in Canada and public sentiment in the US, under their leadership, would NOT support US attempts to integrate the relics of Canada, if that were the case. They might also open up the files on covert American political activities in Canada, which could include everything from advertising consultations for political parties, channelling of donations, and influence in the RCMP and various smear campaign and provocateur tactics.

A Swiss Confederation-style British Columbia/Canada would, if chartered correctly and believed in by its populace enough, could use its independent status to its advantage in the fulcrum between Canada and the US. Our ties here have always been with the US West Coast, especially California from the earliest days, as noted previously.

The counter-arguments against even discussion of western grievances and the inquitous history of Central Canadian domination in so many forms, from military to economic and social policy, always seem to boil down to the same tired argument that "but if you don't follow our agenda, you're playing into the hands of the Yanks".

You know what? But if listen to you, we're playing into the hands of Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal. Who don't govern for our interests, but for theirs. There can't be a real solution until the East and Easterners put aside their own perspective and also relinquish their insistence on a strong central government (under the current constitutional structure of which they will remain at the centre of power) at the expense of greater democracy and freer development in the regions.

And open discussion and acknowledgement of the different western historical and political perspectives in Canada (and not just the right-wing Reform/Alliance stuff, which is what the Central Canadian media likes to focus on as if we all thought that way). Instead of alarmist ranting about a US takeover, or calling us traitors and worse. That's a further point: you want to silence discord and debate as a way to find a solution. That's not a solution, it's repression.

somewhere above someone said something about a "more democratic and centralized government". That's virtually an oxymoron.....

and the brain has managed to take personal offence at something said about the politics of farming; more hysteria, more fear, more tar-brushing of the opposition, more assaults on our character, instead of dealing with the very real historical record I've cited about why Confederation hindered the development of the West, and maintained it as a colonial economy, rather than actually helped it to achieve self-sufficiency.

It's because of that fiddling around with natural development that the have-not provinces in the West are have-not. If they'd been allowed to flourish on their own without being slaves of the Central Canadian power/money base, equalization payments would not have been needed.

In all my railing against Ottawa/TO/Mtl/QC-based federalism, you have to understand that I'm much the same way about Vancouver and Victoria vis a vis BC's various districts (I live in Burnaby currently). Even electoral distribution rules work against the ability of local areas to benefit from spending or even a little bit of attention because their numbers are so small relative to city populations at the core of the riding; they have no sway in the vote except by percentage points, and because of the vastness of the country in general and the isolation of many rural towns and smaller communities, their chance for a say in their local affairs is extremely limited, and what process there is functions mostly as a pressure valve rather than a governing mechanism; local RMPs and such and all the debated park proposals and other protectionist and environmental policy measure suffer delays both environmental/protectionist and industrial/commercial alike - and that in no small part because of the unresolved claims process; politics as a way not to get things done, but to keep them from getting done.

Re the comment above somewhere about would so-and-so support Prince George and other areas breaking off from Vancouver/Lower Mainland (which now sees itself AS what B.C. is), I do support tha, in fact. Devolution of the provinces as well as the federation - that's where I'm coming from, being opriginally from the backwoods and marvelling at all the wealth that poured out of our "country" as the local districts in BC have been historically called, to be sure - because I mean that in the context of the Kootenay Country, the Lillooet Country, Cariboo Country, the Shuswap Country and so on.

For 10% of the Eagle Bluffs bypass and other fairly small bits of roadwork ($30 mil) the government didn't help BCR-cum-CNR keep the Budd Car service open, harming what little tourism those areas had managed to get despite being bypassed by Whistler's literature, and ignored by the Cariboo Tourism Authority for the most part, except they like to use pictures of the Canyon around Lillooet to bring tourists to the Highway 97 area farther east.

I don't mean to go on about that one area; but the point is that the big cities' resource-dependent economies require the ongoing mass extraction of materials; struck me strongly once, out on the resource edge of the wilderness, pondering the volume of landscape consumption that was going on, and in addition to the obvious environmental tones to that there was also this situation of the little towns I'm from struggling to survive despite generating immense wealth (and strategic electric power in after its completion in the '40s and '50s). Local economies become dependent on resource extraction and sometimes are hostile to anything else that might compete with it for free rein on the home turf. But because who lives out there is because of the colonial economy, and the way the local democracy I'm talking about could conceivably work could limit other industries and economies from coming into some of these places, and mutual subsidization of some kind in times of hardship (by other jurisdictions, close or distant if necessary).

(cont. re a truly confederal, devolved Canada/BC)
Things like the Criminal Code, immigration could remain constant, and traffic law, over wide regions/provinces; and maybe the boundary could use shuffling; the Peace River Country and the East Kootenay have elements in favour of union with Alberta for a long time, for example. And Atlin naturally falls in with Yukon, and socially and culturally has for a very long time.

All those little governments municipal/regional and First Nations - will have to get entrepreneurial to attract in-migrants and new industries and economic talent for capital, just like, so they'll be forced to diversify, a la the late Mme Jacobs' writings. If you run on local income taxes, you want to make sure there are incomes to tax. That's the problem with municipal taxation now, as the one proposal about all this goes that was fielded at the UBCM long ago, and rears its head from time to time, is that they are dependent on property value; and in a one-horse town (or rather, a one-mill town) when the mill shuts, property values fall and so do municipal revenues. A town that could control its local resource supply would not be so much at the whim of provincially-defined logging policies which ship logs from its area to serve a mill in another area, for example.

The UBCM proposal also focused on how greater local autonomy in the form of devolving various powers and taxes to the municipalities would also help “nation to nation” community-building with local native leaderships. In the case of Lillooet, this means that the town/district could have direct relations with the three band governments whose reserves encircle it on all sides, and integrated services and other policies could be derived and integrated at the community level much more easily. Such equality could conceivably also make settlement of land claims easier as local matters and disputes could be settled face-to-face, instead of by proxy, or rather by distant apparatchiks and mandarins in Ottawa or Victoria.

It’s actually the model of First Nations governance that got me thinking about how the country (Canada) is mis-structured; they had it the worst, but the divide, conquer and exploit tactics of central government were perpetrated on non-native society as well. We were just told it was good for us, and to obey, and to be glad we weren’t those nasty Americans.

I guess it’s because I’ve also known many of the American expats, draft dodger and otherwise, who lived and live here, that I don’t have the same suspicions of American intentions. Of Republican, Pentagon and Wall Street intentions, sure; but not of the American public, or the American intelligentsia. It’s not whether you win or lose, like they say, but how you play the game. And if we want to play it for keeps, that should be our business, and we shouldn’t have to hear “oh, oh, oh….but the American Empire is waiting to devour you”.

In other words, is that the best you can do?

And you know what? If it became an issue, the broadly-based American free press would do a hell of a lot job covering our constitutional and regional issues than our national, centrally-controlled media monopolies do. In the event of such a debate, it would be the American media where the forum would be most open, and where we could find a voice without having to hear the "Yankees at the gates" rhetoric of the Central Canadians, as if that was an answer to our issues. It's not; it's just a stupid, paranoid excuse.

But Skookum, your analysis presupposes that the people who disagree with you are also unhappy with the status quo. Some are, it’s true, others aren't. Many are perfectly happy with the Federal/Provincial arrangement - they just wish different people were in power.

Many others, for example, don't see themselves as tied to one province as you seem to be. Often they've worked or gone to school in other parts of the country and see the nation from a totally different perspective than you do. In such a case, they would see your denial of the other parts of the country for which they feel great affection as tantamount to treason. In fact that's exactly how I see you.

I don't mean this to sound overly negative because I'm not really interested in picking a fight. I sense that's not why you're here either. As for freebc, I see him differently - he's here to vent not to make friends and allies so I'm more than willing to scrap with him.

You I see as different, naive and blind to the greatness of the whole sweep of this vast almost deserted country, and I see that as a kind of tragedy. That you would accept this little bit of Canada stretched out along the mountains as all you want or need when you could have so much more. It seems to me a lack of imagination somehow to live in bitterness thinking of what might have been.

The country, the whole country, needs people with passion - but people who also have big hearts and can see the potential for something much greater than we already have. You feel wronged by some nebulous central Canada - I see a wonderful but troubled city in Toronto and an even more vibrant one in Montreal a place where, despite my love for Vancouver, I know will always be the most cosmopolitan city in North America.

Why would you give up the beauty and friendliness of Atlantic Canada, the openness and vastness of the prairies, when you could share in the whole experience?

I just don't understand it. It seems so like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Have you never traveled; stayed for a summer in somewhere other than B.C.?

Why be passionate for a small thing when you could be passionate for something greater? There are things far more important than politics and money, in my view. In addition, bitterness is a draining, limiting emotion.

Why let your present be ruled by an imaginary past. Even your view of post-Confederation history is open to interpretation. I see no evidence in anything you’ve said to make me willing to even consider risking for a will ‘o the wisp the place I call my home. I don’t want to feel closer ties to America; I want closer ties with the rest of Canada. America’s influence on this province is already too great – why would I chance making it greater? I loved my time in Quebec and I even enjoyed much about the 5 years I lived in Ottawa – I feel far closer to some of the friends I met there than I ever have to many of the prigs who live in Oak Bay. I think you suffer from the same failure of imagination that they do. In the friendliest possible way, I think you need to take another look at yourself and what you believe. I think it’s an illusion.

As for your observations about the questionably Canadian character of the Expeditionary force, you may think that because the early efforts of those soldiers in Flanders were led by British officers that the troops were not distinctly Canadian. You’d be mistaken, from our cardboard boots to our malfunctioning Canadian made Ross rifles and our idiot Colonel Blimp Sam Hughes; from the mud of Valcartier to the mud of Salisbury Plain; those soldiers were Canadian from the very beginning and even more Canadian by the end of the First World War.

You might spend a little time with a history book by Desmond Morton called When Your Number’s Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War. It might help you learn some pride in your country once again.

Asking us to have big hearts when the East's heart(s) toward us is so clearly cold and disdainful and LECTURING. That you know better. That any distinctiveness or specifics of BC history which are definitely part of what this place is (whether it knows it or not, and whether or not there's now kids that have lived in ten provinces and don't have a clue about anything but the manufactured nationalism they've been fed post-1982.

I used to have that to - a "broad national vision", inherited from the earlier Trudea era - and I used to have a pollyanna-ish vision that Parliament was good and true and wonderful. Then I saw, over and over through the modern era, one stupid arrogant decision after another coming out of Ottawa that had to do with BC. I saw the PMO and the other first ministers work at consolidating power around themselves. I saw the national media consistently twist and distort current news as well as history to advance a really suspect agenda on all fronts. I saw the sell-job of the Constitution and the FTA and the failed sell-jobs of Meech and Charlottetown.

I saw Grant Bristow revealed first as a new regional party's chauffeur/bodyguard, then turn out to be a CSIS agent paid to spy on him, perhaps to taint him because of that same CSIS agent's connections to the neoNazi Heritage Front, which it turns out CSIS had also ordered him to create to flush radical rightists out so they can be studied/watched. I watched reporters jailed simply for reporting on those events, and I watched that CSIS agent get his hands washed of it, and I watched the systematic disinformation campaign that obscured the details of the event.

And I saw the government wash its hands of the whole thing, as it had at Oka.

And lo, I became disaffected. And I also became aware of the First Nations political arguments on sovereignty and self-determination and wondered why it was only for them. I began to wonder how it was that areas of the country stripped of their wealth never saw any of it return, and how the smaller communities have become irrelevant to the big cities and the power brokers. And so on and so on and so on.

I took off the rose-coloured maple-leaf glasses a long time ago. During Trudeau's shoehorning of the Constitution, when autocracy and threats were used to give us a new constitution - a new constitution that left out of the ratification the one province it had bee repatriated to try to please.

I saw Bill Bennett outstay his mandate to spend but refuse to resign and an election get held under emergency warrants because of his arrogance; then watched him reveal what a subtly-placed word in his slurred campaign speeches had meant (restraint) - and watched BC become consumed by what was very nearly a revolution. And throughout all that, I saw Ottawa look the other way and wash their hands of the constitutional impasse that was at its root of the crisis - which was a crisis and not the "labour strife" it was reported as outside of

I watched Brian Mulroney lie his way to power, then lie and cheat and toady his way through the PM-ship with FTA, Meech and the rest. I saw Quebec declare war on the Mohawks (by attacking them), and I saw the blessed Canadian Army's "peacekeepers" come in, and rather than peace-keep they simply took up the SQ's siege positions. I saw hundreds of people during those events arrested without charge and other human rights violations, without a state of emergency being declared. I saw our national media censored by the military without a declaration of a state of emergency. I watched
Mounties attack a crowd of unarmed Indians in a remote Indian community (where I'm from), and had to wait for the Seattle papers to report the truth, which apparently the BC papers are incapable of, and the "national" papers are just clueless about BC and always misreport news from out here anyway. (cont.)

(cont.)I saw Ottawa refuse to put the US in place over the A-B Line Dispute. I saw Ottawa look the other way when a whale-watching vessel and fishing vessels were apprehended by the US during the Salmon War.

I saw democratic anti-corruption lawyers like Jack Cram and Bruce Clarke and others abused by the police and courts and media, then heavily medicated as a condition of sentencing for contempt.

You're asking me to endorse a nation, and a political system, that has perpetrated one outrage against democracy after another. You're asking me to be a sheep like the other people you say are happy with the status quo:

Yeah, right. They've been sold a bill of goods by one of the slickest political advertising machines in the world, and a media "debate" that systematically excludes the general public, relying on pundits, and they're STUPID enough to believe that a change of the seating in the cabinet room will solve the problem.

See, and that's the difference. Few people here in BC are so sucked-in; the last two federal elections the national media pundits have come out here for special visits, because they're finally clueing in that BC has a different set of political experiences and a different climate - based on cynicism towards the current system and parties, and towards the East - and that we don't think like the rest of you, even though you're telling us we should become good little flag-waving "gee, I love the current system" Canadians.

What crap. Hell, I haven't even read the rest of your reply yet, because the opening was so UTTERLY INANE. But I did see your incantation that I should read our military history more; well, you know, you're asking me to think like you, to read what you think is important, to come to your conclusions. All as a way to deflect you having to think like me, to read what I think is important, to come to my own conclusions. You want to make my conclusions for me.

And you want me to look the other way from all the obvious violations of democratic rights that have taken place in this country in recent years, and to embrace the system that perpetrated them. You want me to ignore the democratic deficit in the current political system and help the first ministers consolidate their near-monarchical powerbase further by endorsing the Federal-Provincial Agreement. You want me to forget my own province's history, or accept that it's secondary to the "national" history as defined by Central Canada.

Embracing the current system as "our only hope" may be good enough for joe-blow Tory/Grit voter in Ontario or Nova Scotia. It's not good enough here, and I think overall the "let's make the best of this rotten system" arguments like the one you're making are just pathetic cop-outs.

Speaking of the military, did you have any luck digging out something on the "Canadian army coming over the passes"??????

It seems to me a lack of imagination (on your part) to fail to understand alternative ideas to the political religion you're embraced. I'm not bitter about what's gone down, whether historically or in recent years. I'm just listing off the truths. If it sounds bitter, then it's because they're bitter truths. It's you that's in denial for not having the courage to face the truth of what events like those I've listed in these posts really mean. That Canada does not work in its current form, and reforms created by the politicians (the federal-provincial agreeement) are legitimate, even though it's just letting the foxes run the chicken coop.

(cont.)

But they were not part of a "Canadian Army". They were Canadian soldiers in a British imperial army, the British Expeditionary Forces.

You said "when the Canadian Army came over the passes", as if BC had been violently annexed as was Rupert's Land/Saskatchewan Territory, and when I pointed out that the only eastern force that had come across the mountains had been the RNWMP during the 1860s, I extended the line of inanity you'd introduced to the historical discussion by exploring forward along the timeline to when exactly there came to be such a thing as a Canadian Army (by name, not by ethnic/dominion origin).

You know what? You're a priss. You make a mistake about military history in this country and then spend the next few posts not admitting that but assaulting me for not being a patriotic student of our military like you are etc. But if you knew your ass from a hole in the ground, you would have known that the "Canadian Army" never invaded BC.

All to evade facing up to the facts about the Canadian system's obvious democratic and regional deficits. And then you want me to forget what I know and suck up to the merde trough like all the other Canadians who still believe what politicians say. You want me to un-learn my history, to forget the past and my province's separate lifestyle and culture, and somehow learn to love maple leaves and hockey and Mom and powerful, autocratic politicians just like you do.

Disaffection applies to the constitutional debates too; one reason those of us who are disaffected with Canada are tired of the whole business is because of the repetitive arguments and holier-than-thou grandstanding of pan-Canadian nationalists, who treat the evolution of "nationhood" as though it were some kind of divine mystery that should not be questioned.

What a crock.

And to all of you: It's Skookum1 (skookum-one), not "Skookum" by itself. Thx.

And I wonder - do you also dismiss grievances from natives, or Chinese-Canadians re the head tax or Japanese-Canadians re their confiscations and internments, or the East Indians re the Komagata Maru incident, as "living in the past" and "bitter resentment". It's an easy cop-out to say that; but much harder to face up to that past.

Which is what you're refusing to do. Refusing to admit the democratic violations and historical arrogance of Canada and its dominating provinces. Unless you want to tell those other groups that they're "living in the past" and have no reason to complain, and they should be happy with the current system, even though we all know it's rotten to the core.

re the comment about about Bennett; the gist of this has to do with the Big Blue Machine sending electoral troops to BC (covertly) to help Bennett get re-elected in what seemed a sure-fire upcoming defeat. Computerization won the campaign, which turned out to hinge on some cleverly-written drunken-voiced speeches; and what was brought down was what Harris and Klein did in their provinces a few years later, and Mulroney did nationally not long after. Rule like an autocrat, polarize the polity, persecute the opposition politically.

This country is not a democracy. It's run by bagmen with semi-rigged elections and a media in their hip pocket from one big, arrogant city that thinks the world revolves around it (T.O.). And you're asking me to endorse that.

very well said Skookum1!

I see a kindred spirit with your points about the slow change of heart.

Have you read the biography of Ben Franklin?

He also changed his mind, about 'mother england' over time and became a revolutionary.

Skookum, go back and read my comment. Do a word search for "sarcasm". Use a dictionary if you have to. You like to rant but you don't like listening to what other people say. YOU are the one that claims BC was forced into "chains", not me. YOU are the one that claims the NWMP were basically a foreign occupation force that came over the passes from Canada, not me.

You are the one that claims the Canadian Army of WW1 was nothing. Even though its record is what gave us a seat at the League of Nations and recognition around the world and led to control of our foreign policy.

That's because we were part of an alliance! Just as in WW2 we were under US command "ultimately". Doesn't mean we were part of the friggin US army. Grow up.

You go on and on about gov't decisions you didn't like. Well so what. All of us here don't like lots of gov't decisions. We don't declare our yard a new country in response, that's just childish. Somnehow you think the nation-state of BC would have protected your whale watching boat? For chissakes, with what? A country of 4 million is going to go to war with the US to protect a whale watching boat? Again, grow up.

You are the one that when you talk about America separates the gov't from the people and tells us not to tar the whole country with one brush. Which we don't anyway. Yet in your long list of supposed grievances against Canadians you never once say anything against Canadians. Instead every single one of your silly little rants is against the gov't of the day. Well if you're capable of separating Americans from their gov't then you should also be capable of separating Canadians from theirs. Fact is no one from Ontario has pissed on your carpet but you want to act like you've been oppressed ever since your family moved here and have even adopted the "oppressions" that occurred before you arrived as your own.

Nation yes, political system no. You're free, as we all are to advocate for a better one, as many of us do.

Like it or not, as long as you continue to reside here you are one of us. But Canada being such a great country means you don't have to think like your neighbours.

You don't know any history beyond your narrow view of the world. We think you should read a few books but the only ones you want to read are the ones that focus only on BC. The fact that you think BC was a thriving country on its own before the NWMP came over the passes and conquered you (before you got here of course) just proves you haven't got a clue.

You even blame Bill Bennett on the east? That's rich.

Hey skookum, my history of WW1 says that it was Cdn troops that held the line when the Germans gassed us in 1915. How is that since you claim we didn't have an army.

Geez, it even says it was "the Canadian army" that attacked and took Vimy Ridge in 1917 when all previous efforts had failed. Again, I thought you claimed we didn't have an army in 1917?

Holy shit, look at this. On August 8th 1918 it says it was the Canadians and Australians attacking side by side that broke the German line. That the "Canadian army" destryoed 8 German divisions in a single day and that the head of the German army said it was the "Black Day of the German Army".

I thought you claimed we didn't have an army for another decade?

Must have been the BC army eh? And you probably think the the Nove Scotia army was probably chasing girls in Paris at the time eh?

Skookum1
If I had more time, I'd serve up a few history lessons myself. Unfortunately you can't even seem to decide who you're replying to, me or Frank. Kind of the same sort of confusion you displayed yesterday re Richard Gwyn and Gwynne Dyer.

Your prejudice is definitely showing. However, as I said, I'm busy today so others will have to deal with your lack of knowledge. Do you actually know anything of the history of the Ross Rifle? Or the role of Canadian shock troops in the last 4 months of the First World War?

Go back to school kiddo!

Hey now look at this. It says the "Canadian army" landed on Juno Beach in 1944. But Eisenhower was in overall command so how can they say "Canadian army" skookum?

Hey, the Canadians in Italy were under Monty and Alexander. They're not Canadians. Yet you said it was a Cdn army after the 1920's...

The "Canadian army" liberated Holland in 1945? Ya right eh skookum? Eisenhower was still in charge wasn't he and he's an American.

Okay Frank. I work all night so I'm about to go to bed.
But not before I respond to your clever answers to my request for reasons to stay in confederation.

"because" isn't an answer. It's the same crap my kids used to say when they didn't actually have a reason except that the position they were taking suited them best.

You are doing nothing more than giving yourself some person favoritism, at the expense of others.

Perhaps you can dispense with the bull and actually answer the question.
See, unlike you, I believe in the collective wisdom of the people. I believe that a fully informed people are not stupid. I believe that if the people of BC really knew what the truth was and the possibilities and reality of separation, they would choose it. Not the fear-mongering lies that currently bind us to confederation.

I don't think you can come up with any really good reasons for BC to stay in. Ways that we can't do ourselves, for easier and for less. Even for the same cost to us.

Consider yourself smacked with the gauntlet.

Oh, and traditions have some merit to you, but not to me. Doing things because that's the way we've always done it is how this whole debate started here anyway.

I didn't say because except in the context of "because none of us want to leave"

No you don't. You believe they're all misguided sheep who would want to leave Canada if they were less ignorant.

Is that the argument you use when you dump your wife for something younger? tradition and emoptions are for losers and you can do better financially with someone else?

skookum, I just foiund out we had a minister of defence before the 1920's... How is that since we didn't have an army? Must have been just a title eh? Ontario patronage no doubt. Ruddy foreigners.

The fact that the head of the non-existent Canadian army was a Canadian from BC must really stick in your craw eh?

skookum, the world map shows BC as part of Canada. How is that? Did you need Rand-McNally's email address? Wanna explain to them that BC was never conquered nor did it freely join Canada and therefore their map is wrong?

I'll dig it up for you.

Oh, and you need to write to the UN too. You know how Ontario dominates that organization...

Speaking of email addresses did you want me to dig up Erich von Ludendorff's family's?

I don't really know what happened to them after he became a Nazi. But maybe you can get them to retract his very famous statement that the attack by the Canadian army on Aug 8th, 1918 couldn't have destroyed 8 German divisions since there was no Cdn army.

Oh and that there was no Cdn army at any time in Lahr because as we all know the US was in command of allied forces in West Germany.

And I suppose it goes without saying there was no Cdn army in Korea in the 50's either since there wasn't a Canadian in overall command.

Oops and the same with the Gulf War. Geez there's a lot of email addresses to dig up.

Do you think the National Library of BC could help me on this? Hmm, doesn't seem to be one. Ontario must have dismantled it and moved it back there when the NWMP stormed through BC eh?

I've figured it all out skookum. The archives showing how BC was poised to become the richest and most democratic country on the face of the earth and in tune with nature to boot was buried by those evil Canadians on Oak Island along with the Da Vinci code. Mystery solved eh?

Rock on, Frank.

From my hometown: (surely this is evidence that we had a Canadian army in WW1?)

"Officially listed in military records as Lt. Col. John MacGregor, V.C., M.C. and Bar, D.C.M., E.D, he is Canada's most decorated soldier for valour . When W.W.I struck in 1914, MacGregor was trapping in Nass Valley and snowshoed 100 miles into Prince Rupert to enlist. Ironically he failed his physical examination as he was exhausted from his trek. Undaunted, he travelled to Vancouver and applied again. He joined the 16th Battalion Canadian Scottish, Second Canadian Mounted Rifles and was sent to France in 1915. His feats while in France are truly amazing. He was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal after leading the Canadian attack on Vimy Ridge, in 1917. In 1918, he captured several of the enemy on Hill 70 and was awarded the Military Cross and Bar (the Bar signifying a second awarding of the M.C.). His highest award, The Victoria Cross, was won for extreme bravery at Cambrai, France, when he captured a machine gun nest single-handedly, killing four of the enemy and taking eight others prisoner."

My only comment is that those who want no part of Canada, yet seem quite content to keep living here, remind me of people who never get over the various (not to mention natural) inequities of birth order...forever holding onto the spin...you know, "life was terrible because I was the middle child.. the oldest, the youngest etc"...sulk, sulk, sulk. They spend their whole life resenting the fact that nothing is perfect, everything is flawed and every circumstance and situation has its inherent difficulties to be overcome.

It's all about resentment...they stew in it.

It's like freebc saying: "I care only about BC" as he childishly stomps foot and throws tantrum.

Grow up....and take your thumb out of your mouth...you don't know how lucky you are to live in such a fine country.

All I can say is our non-existant,wholly imageinary forces have kicked some serious butt over the ages .
And what of Billy Bishop of the Canadian Air Corps .
He was there all alone ?
German's were terrified of the Canadians and used to call them the 'ladies from hell' in reference to our troops who wore the kilt with pride and distinction into battle .
Yea, we never had an army till the 60's.
Never heard anything so dog stupid in all my born days .

You are in part right I think, Skookum,insofar as there is a problem between democracy and centralization, certainly within the current "capitalist" framework, no less than there was within the old USSR one (a state capitalism framework, in my view). Which does not necessarily make it a case of "must be dissolved" as you then proceed to assume. (And, you will certainly have that same problem no less, of the built in tension between the needs of democracy and centralization, though but perhaps only on a smaller scale, within all the fragmented parts of the former Canada you advocate for.)

Getting the mix of grassroots control, and of the proper elements, with the need for an integrated and unified economy and governance structure, even in the new social order I would advocate for is certainly going to have to go through its own kind of learning curve, no doubt.

That said, however, what is important, and much already determines central governance outcomes,regardless of formal electoral outcomes and processes, whether we are talking current BC, Alberta alone, or the government of Canada is, who controls the economy, the purse strings of the nation. And whereas the current system has that control over the means of sustenance and so-called "wealth creation" firmly in the hands of an elite ruling class, again within BC no less than Canada, which gives them an effective power of veto and means to scuttle the best laid plans of either regional or larger State central authority. All they have to do is threaten to move elsewhere, offshore and back to the US, or even simply refuse to co-operate. Real democracy then, real power, in this way actually resides outside the formal political/electoral processes whatever level of provincial or overall State authority we are talking about. And assuming the same private corporate ownership economic system is retained, within your more parochial/regional/provincial governance system, you will continue to have the exact same problem: an economic ruling class elite that is able to effectively negate or circumvent the plans and any threats to them that emanate from a formal "democratic electoral" system. To which all States at all levels step into line, big or small, almost invariably.

And presumably, for I do not hear any intentions from yourselves to deal with it, that same ruling class system of control over the economy is going to be retained by yourselves, AND it currently being a system that is already, and in your "new" fiefdom system going to remain, largely under the control and ownership of "foreign", mainly US Corporations. (The "Eastern" enemy of your creation is but a childhood bogeyman. What really skewers economic development in all "parts" of the country is, this foreign ownerhip and control of the economy. And it is what gives it such an overwhelming degree of influence of our central government as well, Liberal or Conservative.)

Such as all you really achieve is a rearrangement of the deck chairs upon your Titanic fantasy.

There is much more to it all than even this, of course, but fundamentally for this overarching reality which I have described to change, one will need to address this issue of who owns and controls the management and governance of this economic system-, whatever formal "centralized" governance system, within even your new wee fiefdoms. For they will need significant degrees of centralization as well.

Continued next post...

From previous post...

But there as the underlying foundation of the new democratic system and a check on abuses of centralized authority, I propose a new system of democratic ownership and control over the economy, its plants, facilities and institutions. Here at the very foundational base of the entire social structure. That ownership and control system being rooted in the working people who perform the actual labour, through their unions, co-ops or whatever, such professional management as they may choose to retain, act for and advise them, and in the elected representation from communities in which they exist and operate, and including appropriate environmental and other special interest representations within the new democratic governance and management systems. In which wise the purse strings of the the new democratic and central system of governance remains firmly in the hands of as broad a base of citizens as can be secured.

Which does not exclude the need for other democratic systems that act as a means for electing central governance representation, or even special rights of recall etc., such as may be necessary, offering the widest base of participation there as well-, including those class groups and other ideas representation currently largely excluded from the current ruling class controlled and monopolized democratic system and State structures.

And there is, of course, still more which needs to be addressed by a future constitutional/citizens assembly. I merely attempt to indicate a general outline direction that real experience will need to fill in with detail.

So we are agreed that there are deep problems with the current democracy and State system of Canada. Naive and dreamy thinking though, giving you BC and Western separatists the benefit of the doubts I have, is not the solution to this. What we are not agreed upon is that the solution to all that is the dissolution of the country and the effective offering up of its throat to the US Empire. This route leads but to a Civil War, in which you get caught in the position of the Southern Confederacy of these similar US events, make no mistake.