Why Albertans are a disillusioned lot
By Letter to the Editor on October 4, 2019.
Here are a few perspectives on why Albertans have become a disillusioned lot! Bill C69 gives the federal government veto power on oil and gas exploration. Bill 48 (the tanker ban) prevents oil from Alberta being shipped off the West Coast. Under the equalization program Alberta has put $622 billion into Ottawa since 1957. Every man, woman and child in Alberta pays $6,000 more into the national budget than they get back. Alberta is the only province that is a net contributor to that budget – by 2020, the number could exceed $20,000 per person, $40,000 per taxpayer. That will be the greatest wealth transfer in per capita terms in the Western world! The only other place we see things like that is in Saudi Arabia, where the oil-producing regions subsidize the rest of the country. With the current electoral situation right now in this election, Ontario has 121 seats, Quebec has 78 seats and Alberta has 34. If you just look at the city of Toronto alone it has 25 seats. There are 10 in the city of Montreal alone. So just those two cities whose political and economic interests alone are fundamentally opposed to Alberta’s, alone out vote Alberta 35 to 34, thereby negating any influence from the province of Alberta to the federal outcome! Here’s a full breakdown of federal seats: Northern Canada – 3 B.C. – 42 Prairies – 62 Ontario – 121 Quebec – 78 Atlantic Canada – 32 The electoral reality of this confederation or what we call confederation is that federal parties always have to win Ontario and Quebec. The Senate also is disproportionate, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have a population of under a million people, yet have 10 senate seats! Alberta’s population of 4.3 million in 2018 had only six. The current system leaves Alberta powerless. Alberta’s vast resources of oil and gas, as well as more than 100,000 jobs has been decimated by the current governments treatment, of promoting foreign and unethical oil from foreign countries. Meanwhile our neighbours to the south of us are preparing to ship as much as 5 million barrels of oil a day by 2023, after building out new pipelines and export terminals! There is much truth to the fact that as Alberta goes do does the rest of Canada. Leslie Maltin Medicine Hat 18-17
