Saturn

An odd comment. You believe Canada would be better off if Alberta had no oil and gas? Do you also believe that Canada would be better off if no province had any natural resources? I suspect that Canada would be better off with Alberta out of the picture. Having natural resources is good of course but unfortunately they are concentrated in a couple of regions, which on one hand gives these regions a lot of bad attitude, while on the other, makes ROC dependent on those resources. Effectively, Canada's economy is technology and knowledge poor and raw materials rich. We cannot even process our own raw materials. An economy based on raw materials involves too much risk and complete lack of self-sufficiency. It's not what a developed country should have.

I don't suspect you love the US enough to want that to happen. No, I don't love the US. I don't love whining Albertans and Quebeckers either. I don't see why they should be tolerated by ROC. It's time for them to go and take care of themselves.

I don't like spinners and liars. Ditto the US for 1990. Exactly my point. The US didn't lose even 1% of its economic output in 1990. There is no comparison between a slowdown with flat output and a depression where output falls by a third. Your point is bull!

Your bullshit never ends. Europe had a recession in the early 90s, just like North America did. Eastern Europe fell below the 1990 levels because it had a deep and prolonged depression. The earlier years for some eastern european countries were picked because the depression had already started. Depressions don't last forever and picking a date when your economy is 30% down is not representative of a country's economic situation. On top of that those countries hit their peak in the early 80s and by 85-89 their emissions had already gone down substantially. Finally, those countries' emissions were far lower than Canada's throughout the 80s and the 90s, so their targets are far lower than ours anyway. What the hell else do you want? You want them to start whining that they should have targets as high as ours?

Canada is a political and economic union. Whenever a province does something it affects the whole country. When Quebec gets more money from ROC, obviously ROC has to pay for it, which means that it sucks away resources from ROC. When Alberta digs up large quantities of oil and gas, it siphons away resources from ROC, it pushes inflation up across ROC, and increases the value of the Canadian $, killing hundreds of thousands of jobs across ROC. An economic and monetary union means that the effects of actions by a province go far beyond the borders of that province. But every province figures that it deserves to siphon away resources from ROC and that it has the "rights" to all benefits flowing from these resources. And then we fight and bicker like a bunch of little children. This has to stop. If we want to behave like separate countries, we ought to be separate countries. If we want to have the "right" to benefit from our resources, we ought to come up with those resources, not get them from elsewhere. If we want resources from elsewhere, then we ought to share the benefits accruing from those resources. In short, we either stay together, do our part, respect our fellow citizens, shut up and stop whining OR we go our separate ways and shut up and stop whining. Anything in the middle is a bad marriage which is nothing but a detriment to all.

Conservative voters are a bunch of loonies but there are two types of them: - the minority are wealthy and connected to the Conservative and/or Liberal parties. They know they will benefit from lower taxes, more subsidies for their industries, more favourable treatment of investment income, etc. - the majority are less educated, rural, greedy, social conservative dummies, who imagine themselves wealthy and figure that they will gain from handing out tax breaks and subsidies to the above group.

Once again you abuse statistics. The correct numbers for total GHG emissions are here.United States 24.3 % European Union 15.3 % China 14.5 % Russia 5.9 % India 5.1 % Japan 5.0 % Germany 3.3 % United Kingdom 2.3 % Canada 2.1 % As you can see Russia and India emit 2.5 times the emissions of Canada. China emits 7 times the amount. No matter how you slice it Canada is not a big GHG contributor. Any reduction that we achieve will be swamped by the increases in GHGs coming from countries like China and India. That is why it makes no sense for Canada to make big sacrifices to meet Kyoto targets if our neighbor and biggest trading partner is not willing to do the same. Dumb!

I've come to the conclusion that the only thing Canadians have in common is that we are a bunch of whiny bastards like no others. Every province in this country is convinced that it has the "rights" to everything that's good and ROC must take care of everything that's bad. We constantly complain that ROC is taking this from us or is not giving us enough of that. You can see it everywhere - in Parliament, in the media, on the forums. Than why the hell are we still torturing each other? If you think that you give too much and you don't get enough - GET THE HELL OUT! If we all give more and get less (btw, where does the excess go?) and we keep bickering and fighting over it like a bunch of 5-year-olds, why do we even bother talking to those who are ripping us off and why do we share the same borders? We should all go our own separate ways and stop getting on each other's nerves. Or do we stay together just to have someone else to blame for our own problems? That's bull! Goodbye Alberta! Goodbye Quebec! Goodbye Canada!

WTF are you talking about? You want ownership? You figure you should own twice as much of the atmosphere than a Norwegian or a Russian guy should and 10 times more than a Chinese guy should. And then you whine that you didn't get enough. Shut up! The only fair way to define ownership is to divide it equally among the earth's population. You already got far more than just about everybody else out there. So shut up and be thankful for it. Geez, whiny retards! Nothing's ever good enough for you. You make me want to puke!

You ought to stop bullshitting. Russia will have a hard time meeting its target and if they end up selling any emissions credits, they will amount to close to nothing. To claim that a country gets rich by experiencing a 40% drop in economic output is ludicrous. Germany isn't getting rich either because any reductions in emissions there are achieved by investing in efficient technologies and spending money. So the Germans have spent a lot of dough to reduce their emissions and they deserve some financial reward for it. Kyoto allows countries to choose whether to be environmentally wise or to be environmentally irresponsible. The wise are rewarded for their efforts and the irresponsible are punished for their wastefulness. That's how markets work. You want a car, you have to pay for it. If you give up your car, you get paid for it. That's because there are only so many cars to go around. If you want to pollute more, you pay. If you give up polluting, you get paid for it. That's because there is only so much pollution that our planet can tolerate. That's the simplest way to put it for the bullshitters here, even though I doubt that they are capable of comprehending even such simple concepts.

No matter how you slice it, Canada's emissions are roughly double that of European countries and Russia. Btw, third world countries have 1-5% of our emissions, so in order to end up like a 3rd world country, we'll have to cut our emissions by 95-99%. That's not what we are aiming for. We are aiming for a 20% reduction which will put us more in line with 1st world countries (and our emissions will still be higher than most 1st world countries). You can suggest a tonne of other ridiculous reasons but landmass doesn't double your emissions. The reality is that energy is very cheap in Canada and we waste it like it's free. In addition government and industry policies do not promote energy efficiency, which of course makes little economic sense because there are a lot of savings to be gained from using less energy. Add to that the environmental benefits of using less energy and you are looking at substantial savings now and in the future.

I don't think you will see abortion brought to any sort of vote as long as Harper is prime minister. Harper would never even dream of bringing abortion to a vote. If he does, his government and his party are finished.

Then you are in the wrong place. There are a few people here who try to provide a balanced analysis of issues but most members are Conservatives who are extremely biased and when they see any information they don't like they just dismiss it and call names.

You sure about that? Compared to Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal? Last time I checked Vancouver, TO, and Montreal were still cities, not provinces.

I confused. Are you saying there are more high income earners as a percentage of the population in Alberta? And if so, why is that a bad thing? BC is saying that the income distribution in Alberta is more skewed than in the rest of the country, meaning that the average exceeds the median by a lot more in AB than in ROC. This is of course why income averages don't mean a whole lot and why they are generally used by people who don't know stats.

The average Albertan also pays more for housing and everything else than people in ROC do. When you consider the differences in the cost of living and the fact that Alberta's future isn't that bright, you may be better off living elsewhere.

We don't have just one boat. But there was only one boat the navy thought they had the money to run and then it turned out that they don't have the money to run it. It's nice that we will be buying $20 billion worth of military equipment over the next few years. It will just sit and rust because we won't be able to afford to operate it.

Well, yes, first we don't have that much use for that oil. Second, the American really want it because they want to depend less on the Middle East for oil and they are here to get it. Actually, it will be Canadians who will be slaving over getting the oil out of the ground and the Americans will be using it and making the huge profits off it.

Look forward to a huge mess and a state of disaster in Alberta. Albertans should very seriously consider separation.

LOL! I would comment but I can't stop laughing.

WTF? The right to pollute is in the constitution?

Is Norway third world? Northern country, lots of oil, and only 2/3 of the GHGs. Most of Europe produces 1/2 as much GHGs as Canada and how many European countries are 3rd world?

The average family in Alberta forgoes around $10K through equalization payments to Texans. Oil companies may provide good jobs in Alberta but they can't go anywhere else because that's where the oil is. So since you are spending similar amounts of cash on charity and on equalization, you really can't convince me that equalization payments are a major burden. It's like selling my cottage at half price because I like the buyer and then complaining about having to pay tax on the the gains because I'm broke. Makes no sense. Natural resources are just luck. It's just like finding a pile of cash in your back yard. I don't see why natural resource revenue should be treated any differently from any other kind of revenue. But I guess this just goes with the ideology that work should be taxed at the highest rate and other types of revenue that involve no work should be taxed at half the rate. Work bad, sitting on your ass good.

That's ok, we refuse to live up to our obligations too. Ok, let's spend tens of billions on worthless junk to keep Lockheed and Boeing happy. What do you think a shield that may but more likely won't intercept a missile that may or more likely won't target us is worth? $20, $50, $100 billion?

You could have much better programs than that if you'd just stop giving away your oil to the Americans and start charging reasonable royalties for it. Why exactly are you far more generous when it comes to the Americans than when it comes to other Canadians? I'm just curious. Saskatchewan is not transferring anything to Quebec. If Saskatchewan has anything to do with equalization, it will be getting money from Alberta and Ontario. Now, I don't know why you get these ideas that Eastern Canada somehow lives on the backs of Western Canada because Ontario pays for most of the equalization transfers and on top of that equalization amounts to a couple of hundred bucks per person per year so it's not like you'll starve as a result of it. On top of that you are getting a real good deal including only half of oil money into the equalization formula - not only do you win the natural resource lottery but also half of it doesn't even count.