playfullfellow

I have lived in Alberta for the better part of 20 years and a few years in BC. I have seen Canada from Quebec and West. I have yet to visit the Maritimes but will do so one day. I live in Alberta because I like it here. We have pretty good freedoms. My standard of living is pretty good. Aside from a whack of "service fees", the taxes are bearable. I have never been un-employed and send my fair share East every year. I do not sub-mit to the seperation movement as I feel I am a Canadian first, an Albertan second. Klein isn't perfect by any means but he has done fairly well for the province. I know a few of the current MLA's as past neighbours and I know they are honest people. This East West crap sucks but it is a reality that we have to live with. As long as Quebec gets their little special status quirks, you will always have others pointing fingers and wagging their tongues about unfairness. I am not in favour of an "all-powerful" central government as the current electoral status is set-up. I would fear another repeat of NEP and the hardship that was endured for almost 10 years afterwards. If we had a central government that actually stood for something other than being "PC", then there would be less grumbling in the crowd. We need a central government that looks out for the whole of Canada, not just vote rich regions out east. Currently we need a central government that will address the soft wood lumber dispute, wheat tarriffs, gasoline prices (though the prices are good for our coffers here in Alberta, they will bankrupt the average joe if we don't cap them) and the issue of taxes. We need a central government with a set of brass balls so to speak before they will get any respect from Albertan's. Let's start to see some tangible lip service to making Canada a serious country again instead of a glorified banana replubic.

If I were you, I would wait until an election call and then take a look at all the parties platforms and go with the one that you like the best. Other than that, maybe you should run yourself <{POST_SNAPBACK}> sounds like a good idea but I doubt people would like my way of doing things. Besides, I don't relish public speaking that much.

In our area we are in the midst of nominating new candidates for the Conservatives. I haven't heard the results yet as I think the voting was for today. The problem is that one of people vieing for the position is a local lawyer whom has some very questionable clients. This is mainly contractural stuff, not much criminal law here. Now this guy helps set up questionable contracts for realestate deals so hence forth I have to question his basic ethics. I know his job is to do the best for his clients but some of these clients are down right nasty and cheaters. The results have been that a lot of people have lost everything they own. My problem that I would hate to see this skidmark get into office yet I am generally a fairly strong conservative. Do I still vote for the party and pop more pepto if this arse gets into office or do I send a message (yep, one vote more or less is a strong message) to the party. for the first time since I have started voting, the party flavor does not seem so inticing if they let this arse run.

How about some autographed golf balls and a Canadian flag? Oppps, thats been tried before. Didn't work, but some people sure made some bucks out of that deal.

Caesar, "bring cash" just means things cost more in BC because of that wonderful sales tax you have there. Agree with you in the weather statement though, man its ugly here now. I seem to ge the impression that the separtists in Quebec definately want their cake and eat it too. I see no reason why they should get all of that if they decide to leave. Plus they should also pay their share of the national debt. But we need to get back on track to make this a stonger, cooperative country. This bloody crap over east/west, french/english so and so forth does absolutely diddly to make this a better country. There are a lot worse countries out there to live in. I still say no one has the cahonnies to do anything about it though in politics. No one in politics has the guts to say that we need to do away with the current language laws. Let Quebec be French as they always have. Let the other provinces do as they see fit and what they decide that they want to pay for out of their own budgets. If Quebec wants to diversify their business, well they will just do it in the language that will give them the better turn around. The ROC of Canada could save a bundle as we would not need to pay for the bilingual cereal boxes we have. Quebec cereal boxes could be french only, more savongs there. This is a very simplified point but that many people can start to agree with. But as with many things, people forget the KISS rule "keep it simple stupid".

Raspberries to you caesar but ultimately you are right. Sigh, I can not deny that. This issue has to be put to bed but it seems no one has the cahonies to do so. Reading through the posts here, there sure seems to be a variance on peoples interpretation of history. But you know, history is in the past, we can't change it. What we need to do is look towards tomorrow, we can do something about that out come. Even as a "whining Albertan", I am not in favour of seperation of any province. I do however dislike favourtism shown at times in the past just to buy a few votes. If Quebec does chose to seperate, let them. Let them leave with what they have right now, not what they had 200 years ago. Pull all Federal projects out of the territory, cancel all Federal contracts and then send them a bill for their share of our national debt. "X" number of dollars for every person in Quebec. How many companies would stay past the first couple of years after they lose their place at the Federal feed trough? You would have a country that does not have it's own money, has no military, the infrastructure would be chaos and there would be a huge debt to boot. What about unemployment, what kind of figures would we see there? Everybody is screaming they are the victim here yet the only ones who seem to benefit here are the lawyers and politicians while the rest of us get to pay the tab. This includes people from Quebec. Can you imagine the strength of this country if we were organized and united, striving for the same goal? With our resources and determination (even welfare BC has determination) we could be a very self-sufficient country. Caesar, I am sure you have heard this before but do you know what we Albertans refer to "BC" as ....... Bring Cash Anyways, have a good day and look forward to your next Alberta bashing post.

Zundels a freak as fas as I am concerned. I've seen the camps, graveyards and hundreds of pictures from the 40's in Europe. I have listened to my grandparents talk about how they hid jews and other "undesirables" through out the war. You don't all the facts from just one book. You need to lossen that tin foil up a bit paulpaul, it's starting to cut off circulation from your brain.

Someones got their tinfoil hat on a little too tight I see.

Though i do not agree with him, you have to give PM PM a little more credit than you do. His decision was met by a US response of basically " we don't really care what you think, we will shoot down missiles over your soveirgn airspace if we feel like it". Through past speeches from the US, this has hardly been a surprise. PM PM just appeased nay sayers of the BMD , made the yanks look like bullies and buffoons, put the opposition in a position where they get hammered no matter which direction they take. If they agree with PM PM, then they get whacked from the left and if they are with the yanks (who have said they will wage a war in Canuck airspace if needed), then they will get slapped silly from the right. There is no safe middle ground on this issue anymore. If PM PM plays his cards right, he might just come out this smelling like a rose.

Lougheed was one of the few premiers to stand up to Trudeau and eventually win. Lougheed could not be bought and he stood his ground. Face it, Canada is much too diversified culturally, ethnically and geographycally to fit neatly into a cute little perfect bottle. Lets accept that fact and then lets find ways of dealing with it. I took my oath to become a Canadian citizen and am a very proud Canadian firstly, I am a proud Albertan secondly.

Correct me if I am wrong (it may be different for BC, I dont know) but isn't the breakdown for responsibility of road maintenance as follows? trans canada and hwy 16 are federal as they are the two coast to coast highways and built by the feds. I think this also includes roads inside of the federal park system. all county, rural roads and small town main streets are provincial all large town and city streets are municipal responsibilities I know the provincial government helps towns and cities with major new road construction and transit systems with grants and subsidies but general street construction and maintenance is up to the cities.

I know where you are coming from august, in theory it makes sense. In reality, it is not doable as you suggest. I have no problem with short term tolls on roads that greatly improve efficiency. But under your idea, we can just as easily say that pedestrians should pay to wolk on the side walks, slide a quater into a meter everytime they want to use a cross walk. I know this is very simplyfied but that is what you suggest when you say user pay. My understanding of the fuel tax system is that it is supposed to be redistributed from the feds to the provincial governments, municipalities and cities to go into road construction and maintenance. So, you need fuel to drive on these roads so you pay your toll when you fill up. If these governement groups spent more than 16% of all fuel taxes collected, then we would see a vast improvement of our road ways. But it seems to me that the feds are handing over a pile of money to municipalities to spend on infrastructure but no real guideline as to what that may be. I know our current bunch of trained monkeys on city council would first spend 100 thou plus on a study, then another 50 thou on public meetings, 100 thou to the lawyers to make sure they get it right. Then we get seceral weeks of ads on the radio, tv and newspaper about what a good job they are doing. Oh yeah, now they need a raise to for this good work too. Ooooopppppsssss, now the money is running low, give the contract to the lowest bidder, watch the project go over budget, raise taxes to pay the bill and sit around and waith for the next handout so the whole process can be done over again. If I am to pay tolls on the roads, then why should I pay fuel taxes and the same for vice versa? I do agree with paying for what you use, I know I get nothing for free is this lifetime. I don't like this double taxing crap, which of course I know a lot of stuff is double taxed. Government needs to get more bloody efficient and we would be able to see our tax dollars actually working for once.

I agree with you here august, the simplification and efficiency aspect should be spread across all government agencies but we all know that is a pipe dream. Looking at me own budget 15,000 is definately a good benchmark for the cutoff. This should be implemented immediately, not over 5 years either. A lot can happen in 5 years to blow this plan out of the water. Why should we pay tolls when we pay fuel taxes that are supposed to pay for all our roads? If the feds actually spent 50% plus of the collected fuel taxes on roads like other countries, then we would better roads. I think the current figure is around 16%. Temporary tolls are a good idea but these tend to turn into a permanent tax. Just look at BC. This would certainly simplify things and in principle I think that it is a good idea. My fear would be that some brainiack in Ottawa would forget this and then spend this money else where. I would prefer to see people who never use the dole get this money returned to them when they retire. I like the embedding the taxes into the selling price. It can be a real brain pain that if you are picking up supplies, have an exact amount of bucks in your pocket and have to try figure the GST on the fly so you dont over spend. Being from Alberta, I don't have to worry about the PST.

hmmmmmmmmm, so you have get off of your butt, move around, put down the game control and get some exercise. You have to do some volunteer work in the community and at the end of the day, you have to write a report on it. This homeowrk assignment is over the span of 3 years I take it. I have to agree with caesar here, get with the program. This assignment sounds better than a lot of the other brain fluff that is being taught in schools nowadays. Exercise and volunteer work never killed anyone that I know of.

Hmmmmmmmmmm, I have lived in Alberta most of my life and haven't come across too many Yanks living here. The ones I do know are pretty well Canucks aside from the fact that they have an accent. A lot of non-Alberta born people I know are from BC, the Maritimes and Ontario. The majority of them just want to make a decent living and not lose the majority of their earnigs to taxes. I met a lot more Americans living in Canada when I lived in BC. They seemed to like the weather more than in Alberta. The majority of Albertans I know come from all sorts of backgrounds. The one thing linking most of them that are over 40 is that they scratched an income from the dirt, didn't take any crap from anyone and weren't scared to take a chance. They don't like someone several thousand miles away telling them how their hard earned money (taxes) are going to be spent. That is a bunch of hooey as far as I am concerned. Trudeau was an arrogant ass who only did things that he felt was his vision of Canada, not what the populace wanted. Trudeau was a good talker, he knew how to orate in a way to impress people. Yeah, he didn't take any crap from anyone but the NEP was not a very well thought out program. It was a way to buy eastern votes, thats all.