The end of Canada?

Why is Canada a colonial dictatorship?

Because more people live in Ontario and Quebec than BC and Alberta?

If that's the case then BC is a colonial dictatorship because more people live in the Lower Mainland than in the Kootenays. And the Lower Mainland is a colonial dictatorship because more people live in Vancouver than in Haney.

If Canada fails it will be because of people that for some reason are simply not attached to their country. Either because "BC" is their country, or "Alberta", or because they're attracted to the neon signs of the USA and think everything from music to football is better if its American.

It won't be because of people that actually think of themselves as Canadians first.

The problem Frank is........

........the politicians and bureaucrats (who actually rule) are afraid to share power with the people. With 'showcase' elections every 3 to 5 years, give the politicians the excuse of calling the colonial dictatorship a democracy. The recent secret massive TransLink Board wage increase is case in point: all done in secret, with the public not allowed to know.

This is dictatorship and there are two ways to end a dictatorship.
1) Give the 'people' real power.
2) Revolution.
I'm afraid revolution is the course Canada is on and the longer we dither, the more violent it will be.

Until the public are allowed the real power to make decisions Canada will devolve into partition and separation. The USA will be smacking its lips at the prospect.

Let it go...

The experiment known as 'the canada' as it was conducted from 1867 has had a good chance to get the population involved in its sphere.

From the start there has been a series of divides and a constant pressure to collect power over the people into Ottawa.

Time has come to say, "no thank you" to any more powers going into Ottawa.

Let it go.

colonial dictatorship, you bet

The only tangible difference between Canada and shelled-out banana republics is that we, like a rusty pile of junk, are still camoflauged by the tarped and thin civilized veneer of an industrial, modern society that fools most of the sheeple living here.

You can bet that as soon as the majority of our resources begin to deplete in earnest-- including water and oil -- things will head South, (literally), fast. All we need to do is watch what's happening in the previously rich manufacturing and farming states of the US, now decimated by water shortages, now stripped of minerals, fish, forests-- a country now too populated to support its own middle-class people in the fat-off-the-calf style with which they are accustomed, etc. Things will cave fast from this point forward; the center will not hold... Third world status by the last half of this century for Canucks, as well, is my guess.

That deceptively ignorant-but-opinionated Canadians continually vote for such mean-spirited, myopic, culturally and socially illiterate "leaders" as Harper and Stelmach cements the deal. That's what happens when the people, hypnotized by bling, stop paying attention their politicians who have been swined and dined by media corporations whose sole intent is to divert public attention from the real story and distract the masses with childish, Disney entertainment, instead. History will write us off as fools who threw our birthright onto the dumpheap.

murdock and Grumpy

So basically Canada is a failure because we have a parliamentary system that gives huge power to the ruling party and their hangers-on?

I'm all for dumping the present system, including provinces.

However, if we don't like the system we should change it. But throwing the geography out with the parliamentary system would leave us worse off.

Change the system and the country will be just fine.

Bananas

Right on. We have already lost so much. A country tottering on the abyss, and heavily into self-denial.

alda, I'm glad you're here, commenting on The Tyee. Invaluable insights.

Huh?

This makes zero sense. Harper is worried about Alberta votes? Since when? Harper could go to Venezuela and shack up with Chavez and turn commie before Albertans elect a liberal before a blue. The article assumes that somehow the feds WANT a fight over oil...again, how do you figure? It's only Alberta oil that is keeping Canada in the black.

A few sentences about western alienation doesnt' make a thesis. When did Chretien 'fight' Alberta, even though it had a majority for ten years? It was Chretien that put in the oil sands tax credit worth billions which Harper is now removing.

This is just a bizarre article right from the start. THe country is run by ATLANTIC client states? Since when? The atlantic 'client states' have ZERO political influence or power, which is why they've been the also rans since confederation. They barely subsist from year to year, with only enough crumbs (less than those oil sands tax credits) to keep out of third world status.

I'm not sure what the point of the article is, but it sure isn't what the author thinks it is.

K-bec

The Alberta right has certainly taken advantage of the Quebec/Canada situation haven`t they? A new and even more cynical variation of the usual Canadian Federal power broking.

Buy them off in exchange for giving them (Alberta oil/Harper/Manning) complete sway over the rest of the country.

Thankyou Quebec for the serving of your self interest only and ultimately....your stupidity.

Frank

Why would I want to continue to support (via my taxes) anything going on east of the rockies?

Why should I expect someone in Gander to pay for the heat in federal buildings in Winnipeg?

The collctivism that was supposed to reap such great benefits has not done so, Helmcken and other stated this RIGHT UP FRONT that the west was being bilked by the east from the very start of the 'federal' experiment.

Today there are more reasons than ever for smaller regions to prosper while cutting ties to the stupid wasteful systems of the past.

In the end Frank we cannot build a fence or dynamite off some section of the nation. We can re-set our focus to the 'original' intents of that federalism (by doing things like printing our own money = legally permitted by the acts of parliament and the provinces but sadly dominated by the FEDERAL banks!), by taking power AWAY from Ottawa, and keeping it away from them.

I can still respect my friends in Winnipeg and Halifax and connect with the shared history.

I do not have to be drowned by it though.

Nor do my children.

The Enigma of Alberta

Having grown up in Alberta (if anyone actually grows up there), I was present when the previous ante-diluvian government had been in power for God knows how long: Social Credit.

Now there probably isn't a spit's worth of difference between the Social Credit neocons Albertans dumped in the 1960's and the Conservative neocons they replaced them with. Thus, the hegemonic survival of the Alberta myth of how the rest of Canada is always out to screw them and the only people who know how to run the place are arch-conservatives, preferably with their heads stuffed with religion (but even if they aren't, everyone is of the same religion when it comes to money).

Albertans are hard-working people and deserve full credit for that. They exhibit, for the most part, the independent ethos that their politicians pander to. But this real virtue often gets conflated with the simple good luck that parked them on top of a few trillion dollars worth of hydrocarbons. Geological accident = virtue doesn't quite work for me, especially when that accident gets exploited in a, "Screw you, I'm all right, Jack," kind of way (the way it's being exploited today).

Rafe, you're right. They'll just keep electing the guys who say to them, "Keep electing us and we'll continue to tell you how wonderful you are and to provide you with a few bucks now and then (the few that aren't flowing to shareholders). Further, (silently), you're too dumb to realize that we're liquidating your patrimony, and by the time you figure it out, few of us will be alive to worry about it."

They're a sad, strange brood. Wish it were otherwise.

Imagine that.

Who would have thought that resource extraction in one small part of the nation, indeed of the world, would have an effect on everyone around them, to the point where we have to consider the advantages of a central government with a lot more power and jurisdiction than it now has. It may be that it will come down to the resources exist for the benefit of the citizens of that country first. Perhaps Trudeau had it right with the NEP. In Canada we have always allowed the tail to wag the dog. The only thing missing is a second chamber which can keep the lower chamber based on rep. by pop. in check. The second chamber having equal provincial representation. Then Nfld, NB, NS and PEI would all be one province.

Alberta,

according to Rafe, is another "separatist" province, like Quebec. Perhaps some day Albertans will see themselves as distinct and their own 'nation.'

I don't see either Quebeckers or Albertans as so totally self-absorbed and selfish that they want to divorce themselves from "The Rest Of Canada." Both want recognition of their differences and control of their separate assets. Insecurity leads to a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude, incorrectly seen by TROC as a kind of proud selfishness.

I see this self-imposed isolation growing as a result of economist thinking, especially in Ottawa. What we need, Rafe, are more enlightened politicians, who can say to us, and make us believe it, "No man is an island," and "Ask not what your country can do for you..." or even "Never has so much been owed by so many to so few."