Jerry J. Fortin

Alright then; in 2006 it was 65% support for Conservatives, in 2004 it was 61.7%, in 2000 it was 58.9%, in 1997 it was 54.6%. Is that enough for you? These folks out here really support the right wing in droves dude.

So in your view prostitution and drug use, maybe throw in gun ownership, are things that society as a whole need to just get "over it" and accept the reality of the situation.

How about.. "Whether Canada ends up as one national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion… And whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or ten governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country may be." Speech to the Colin Brown Memorial Dinner, National Citizens Coalition, 1994. Is that extreme enough......

Almost half the people don't vote at all here. Of those that did in the 2008 federal election a staggering 64.7 % voted Conservative.

I forgot to mention that I will most likely vote Liberal next election, the NDP guys can't seem to find a good candidate in this corner of the world.

You can believe what you want, its a free country! Just keep in mind that politics make strange bedfellows. All manner of interesting things are possible if the Liberals gain power.

Who said that we could? It wasn't me, perhaps you should go back and read what I actually said. Well the polls are never wrong are they? Even at 20%, if that many people actually responded to a poll that is, then you would have to admit something else. Lets use those numbers on a little venture in extrapolated logic shall we... In the last federal election about 60% of the population in Alberta turned out to vote. Making a leap in faith, we assume that the 20% number you quote is equated in the same manner and we end up with one out of every three Albertans in favour of separation. That is substantially higher than one out of five. Now consider that the Liberals will possibly form the next government, what do you think Albertans would say about that, given that there will likely be another Conservative landslide here. In addition consider this, JMCK Polling in April 2004, was contracted by The Alberta Residents League and they found that among PC voters 81 percent agreed that Alberta’s equalization payments are “too much.” Now that is a nice number for you, coming from the ruling dynasty of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta. With that in mind I will suggest that those folks who don't live here can't really take the pulse of the citizens by merely reading the most popular propaganda and drawing their own conclusions. Ya hafta be here to make that stick! So what I am saying is that there are numerous variables to take into the consideration of the political equation in Alberta. Here is another little tidbit for you, there is another Trudeau in the wings of the Liberal Party of Canada. Now apply your logic to the equation and think about how Albertans will perceive this person who will sit in Ottawa and make judgments affecting the citizens of Alberta............

The reason so many separatists from Alberta appear on the internet is because there are so many of us. Duhhh! Look people, IF the people of Alberta ever elected a government with enough balls to stand up for its citizens, then I will suggest that Alberta carefully study every move Quebec has made. There is a hell of a lot of things done by that province that is beneficial to its citizens. Here is what Alberta SHOULD do; 1) Repatriate the Alberta Act to the Alberta Legislature 2) Write an Alberta Provincial Constitution 3) Opt out of every possible federal program 4) Establish an Alberta Pension Plan 5) Establish a Alberta Provincial Police Force 6) Establish an English version of Quebec's Bill 101 7) Collect all taxes due and remit that portion deemed to be federal to the Government of Canada We don't have to separate in order to get what we want people. We can do it on our own, thank you very much. We have the people, we have the resources and we even have our own bank! There is nothing that can prevent us should we ever determine to act in our own best interests. While I absolutely detest both the equalization and transfer payments formulas because they discriminate against my province, I do understand that there are in fact many places where the nanny state provides cradle to grave benefits that have to be paid for by somebody. I understand that there is a gun held to our head by the feds and that we are not likely to be ALLOWED to leave confederation without a fight. But that doesn't mean that I will ever bow down to the will of Ottawa without having a say first.

Close only counts in horse shoes, hand grenades and nuclear weapons.

I would be happy with simply flipping one government for another and fire a few politicians. We should have a lot of elections with none of these guys staying in for more than 6 years. Lets keep them off the pension payroll.

The thing to remember is that nobody wants an election besides me and I don't count.

If Magna were to use its head, they would go to Bombardier, partner up, and buy some mothballed auto plants in Quebec and Ontario. You want to sell auto parts? Buy the company that uses them and start building autos.

Balls! The reason it isn't counted is because they successfully lobbied the fed to have these revenues exempted due to their "renewable resource" status, the wording was changed in the formulas after Quebec sought and received all of the federal and extra-provincial financing it got to build the James Bay portion of development. That portion is the "beef" of the company. It is an absolute travesty that those revenues are not calculated. Alberta used to subsidize nature gas for its citizens but never caught anything like a break under the formulas. All crows are not black.

English is the language of business and science, or at least widely accepted in these fields. What claims does French have?

It seems that I am unable to move you from your position, that is alright. You already know that I will not budge either. I don't give up very easily though! So tell me why is it that Hydro-Quebec profits are not calculated toward provincial revenues the same way that Alberta oil is?

Selfish? Is it selfish to desire freedom? Is it selfish to desire to be treated as an equal? Albertans "give" more than any other on a per capita basis from their tax levies to equalization. We had no say in this charitable donation, it was decided for us by representatives who had their own agenda, now if this was ratified by the citizens as in the form of a democratic vote there would be no argument.

Iggy is indeed fishing for support at every opportunity. This pace will increase with a positive polling trend.

Dude, your kingishness, I have never in my life voted conservative in federal elections. I started voting in the late 70's, thats 4 decades of not supporting the fools on the right. Your jumping to conclusions and making assumptions based on a complete lack of knowledge of the things you speak of.

Politics and religion, nice mix!

Listen people, Albertans to a citizen disapprove of equalization. You will not find a single informed citizen that likes paying taxes out that simply do not pay for services. The true cost of this travesty of justice can be seen in what had to happen to public spending in Alberta. Of all the provinces, we cut back the most trimming damned near every program and dollar spent. We had to because the province was in trouble. Keep in mind that provincial finances and federal finances are two different planets, the only commonality is the tax paying citizen who gets to pay both ends of that smelly stick. The provinces don't pay equalization the citizens do. The theory is that these funds are to provide an equality of services from province to province. The reality is far different. Lets look at the number of MRI's per capita in lets say Quebec compared to Alberta. Lets look at the number of federal jobs in that province compared to Alberta on a per capita basis. There are a lot of things to look at before you can conclude anything at all. But I digress, my original point was that Alberta citizens know they are being had by the system. In this province one of our favorite political games is to blame the feds! It works because we all know its true. The province had to cut back services because of transfer payment reductions at one time. Those transfer payments make up a fair portion of provincial budgets, but compare the numbers from one province to another. If you really look into these things you can begin to understand the nature of western dissatisfaction. Provinces are supposed to be equal in confederation. So how is it that Hydro-Quebec profits don't factor into provincial revenue calculations for equalization but Alberta oil does?

I am sure that in the east the Liberals will gain many seats. They need to recover their losses under Dion, but still does not translate into more than a minority.

In the west right wing support is as strong as ever. For those of us that live out here, the concept of the fall of the right is not something commonly desired. The liberals and the left wing just do not sit very well with the preferred ideology.

The latest poll is far from an election result. There are simply no way to tell what will happen after an election is called. At the moment it looks as if the Conservatives are in a very tight race with the Liberals.

This nations policies are very much in line with most others in terms of immigration.

Printing money will only further devalue the dollar. As it stands now we are only in a recession, not a depression. If a government starts monkeying around with the dollar then we will be in real trouble as in deflation and depression. As it stands now, the correct move is in fact some sort of stimulus package. My view is that any such package should be infrastructure, and not just building roads and fixing sewers, these are only public assets that do absolutely nothing to return the investment. Granted this type of thing does wonders for private business, but I tend to think the government should avoid making profits for individuals in favour of creating some secondary industrial capacity that would at least have the potential to provide a return on investment. Call them crown corporations or call them coops, whatever you call them isn't important, the point is productive capacity. The creation of wealth is dependent upon profit made though productive effort. That is the name of the game after all. Coops are the best available business model for this kind of thing, at least it leaves government out of the equation and has the effect of spreading the wealth around. Spreading the wealth is the way out of our problems. Providing or creating additional disposable income for citizens is the only sure means of increasing economic activity. In my view the best way to go is to begin with energy and food production because we have a ready made internal market for these products and the available resources to pursue the effort. In addition, our small population makes the production surplus to internal consumption available for export and bringing in foreign capital in the form of profits is the easiest way out of debt. Make the other guy pay the bills and let us invest the savings. I guess what I am getting at is that the governments need a full spectrum economic plan that begins with and ends with the concept of profitable employment for the citizens.