There’s only one way to get change
By Letter to the Editor on October 30, 2019.
It may not be what some Westerners want to hear but the only way any changes will be made to Confederation is if Alberta is serious about separation from the Canadian colonial system that was established in 1905 to the detriment to Alberta and Saskatchewan. It was written to follow the system of English colonialism that worked so well for England. And it has certainly done wonders for Eastern and Central Canada at Alberta’s expense. Albertans are considered dumb hayseeds by Eastern and Central Canadians. I have lived in “Trona” so I speak from experience. As long as Albertans keep taking the crap, why would things change? Keith Davies, the old Trudeau’s chief adviser, coined the phrase “Screw the West, we’ll take the rest.” And with that they won the election and Alberta got nailed to the wall with the National Energy Program fiasco. That phrase is still gospel in Central Canada today. Albertans are worried, anxious, and damn mad about our future under the rule of overlords from a colonial system that is as redundant in Alberta today as buffalo chips on the open prairies! Imperialism at it’s finest. The only way that will change is if Albertans force the changes. History is a great teacher. “Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle,” said Benjamin Franklin. John MacLaren Medicine Hat 9-8
What is this crap Albertans are taking when it was their stupidity that created this mess we are in? They allowed these phony conservatives (Reformers) to slash our royalties and taxes to benefit their rich friends and privatize everything in sight to once again help make their friends a lot richer and to make up for their revenue slashing stupidity closed hospitals, hospital beds, and cut 5,000 nursing positions , driving out thousands of doctors and nurses, putting people’s lives at risk, cut social services, drove out teachers creating an over sized class room nightmare for remaining teachers, and dumped power costs onto the backs of the people with deregulation, while adding massive fees to our power and gas bills. Add in the Orphan Wells crisis that Klein created and guys like John MacLaren need to wake up. As anyone with any intelligence knows if the Klein, Stelmach and Redford governments had continued to collect royalties and taxes at the Lougheed levels we would have at least $400 billion in our Heritage Trust Fund and still have the best health care and education systems in North America. I doubt that MacLaren is smart enough to understand that he is paying the highest property taxes in Canada, paid the highest power bills for 14 years, is still paying the second highest , the highest vehicle registration fees, which Kenney has raised another $5.00 , the second highest auto insurance premiums and the seniors are paying likely the highest long term healthcare fees in North America for a bed in a nursing home. The list goes on and on, and it’s all happening while he has let these so-called conservatives give away our money. Where is the intelligence in that?
Now to make matters worse he is buying into the stupidity that we should separate from the rest of Canada totally ignorant of the fact that us seniors would lose their Old Age Security, our Canada Pension Plan , and our Health Care funding and I doubt he could survive without them.
The question is why are guys like MacLaren so easy to fool ? I think a retired RCMP Officer I knew had it right. “They are no smarter than the seniors we had to deal with that weren’t smart enough to avoid the con-artists from stealing their life savings. Instead of con-artists doing it they are believing every lie these politicians feed them and letting them help their rich friends do it? What do you guys think? Those of us who had ties to the oil industry know Notley and Trudeau did more for the Alberta oil industry than Harper and these other Reformers ever did. It’s been nothing but a “Horrific Mess”, as Lougheed called it since he retired, and we only have ignorant Albertans to blame.