The Bloc Are Ruining Quebec

I'm sure that people in the east thought the Reform party was bad for Canada when it first arrived on the scene, but the Reform party never wanted Alberta to separate. Not like the Bloc, who actively campaign for Quebec to leave Canada.

I like Quebec in Canada. The province is unique and adds a special flavour that makes Canada more interesting, but so does PEI. Funny how you never see PEI crying for more money from the rest of Canada even though they have very little industry or job opportunities. (Thanks PEI for sending my husband to Alberta!)

So, why does Quebec think that they are MORE special than any other Canadian province? Why do they continue to vote for a party that wants to separate from Canada, then whine when they don't get that hockey arena paid for by the rest of Canada. They are pro's at using threats to keep Canada "unified".

Quebec politicians often seek de facto bribes from Ottawa — whether in the form of cold cash or more symbolic gestures. And usually, Ottawa gives in. This explains why our equalization system is skewed so as to deliver a multi-billion-dollar jackpot to Quebec every year; not to mention Paul Martin’s “asymmetric federalism,” and Stephen Harper’s declaration that Quebec constitutes a “nation.” These shakedowns have come to define the Canadian political condition.

On Wednesday, Mr. Duceppe took things to a crassly chutzpadik new level, demanding that Quebec receive a cool $5-billion from Ottawa as his price for supporting the upcoming budget. How did he arrive at this figure? By adding together a bunch of stale demands from yesteryear — including $421-million for dealing with the great ice storm of 1998.

Are you kidding me? Is this what Quebec really wants? Do they have no shame? Quebec has gone from the victim to the predator, but we already knew that didn't we? I keep thinking how the western provinces have so much in common with Quebec. We all want more control over provincial jurisdictions. We want the federal government to stay out of our way, and give us room to grow. Where the western provinces differ from Quebec is that we want to do it without welfare from all other provinces. Quebec has no excuse for taking transfer payments from other provinces. The transfer payments are like bedbugs, once you have them, they are very hard to get rid of.

If Quebec keeps voting for the Bloc, they will continue to isolate themselves from Canada, and I hope that isn't really what they want.

My message to PM Harper is very serious, it could mean the difference between a united Canada or a nation in pieces (Hint: It's not Quebec that will separate).

Do not give in to Duceppe's demands, it is blackmail, plain and simple. The Bloc MP's refuse to sing "Oh Canada" in our Parliament, a blatant snub to ALL Canadians. Do not give any money to an arena in Quebec. If this means you will not get a majority next election, so be it. You need to show Quebec that they can not blackmail us anymore. They might even surprise you and vote for you because you stood tall on issues that concern ALL Canadians, not just Quebec.

To the people of Quebec, think very hard about what you do to Canada when you vote for a party that wants you to stop being Canadians. Stop being so selfish. It's easy to vote for the Bloc as a protest (or that's how you justify voting for a party that wants to destroy the Canada we know), but understand that it makes other Canadians angry. Angry because you do not love our Canada as much as we do, if you did you could never vote for a separatist party. NEVER.

Oil Sands A Cleanish Bill Of Health!

Move over Ontario, Alberta is taking the reins and galloping towards economic independence, the rest of Canada is welcome to come along with us! Saskatchewan has already joined us. BC, oh who knows about BC from one day to the next? We already have huge numbers of our Atlantic cousins working here, with room for more, that leaves Quebec. If Quebec would look outside their province towards other provinces, they might actually see some kindred souls. Alberta wants less federal government interference, so does Quebec. Alberta wants provincial jurisdictions respected so does Quebec.

Instead of co-operation between provinces we are seeing Quebec and Ontario attack Alberta's oil sands on the international stage. Well here is some in your face material for Alberta to use right back....oh wait, we are not that immature, we wouldn't do that to our fellow Canadians.  Why do Liberal provinces think they can attack Alberta without consequences? 

Are the oil sands the most environmentally destructive project on Earth, as critics suggest?
While the belief that the Canadian oil sands represent the greatest environmental threat in the world “pervades” the Internet, the report found that it’s based more on photos of “ugly” surface-mining operations than on real scientific evidence. In fact, the Society says, the oil sands aren’t even the most environmentally harmful industry in Canada. The oil sands rank fourth in air pollutants in Canada, fifth for toxic emissions of mercury, sixth for cadmium, ninth for lead, as well as for four carcinogenic compounds. Oil sands production would have to quintuple for the industry to become the biggest industrial polluters in Canada, let alone the world.

 Soooo, the oil sands aren't the most environmentally harmful industry in Canada? Who would be number 1? 

According to the RSC, the “sands” are not dangerously polluting the air, nor are they fouling the Athabasca River drainage basin or causing elevated levels of cancer and other diseases among the area’s First Nations people — all claims environmental activists have made repeatedly.
The oil sands are not “dirty oil.” Climate activists at the 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen dubbed the development “the world’s most destructive project.” But the seven Royal Society scientists who spent 14 months studying what is known, scientifically, about the extraction of oil from Alberta’s mammoth bitumen deposits say the truth is far removed from the activists’ hype. “Based on our review of the publicly accessible evidence, a claim of such global magnitude is not accurate.” They point out that Quebec’s James Bay hydro project has destroyed 15 times as much boreal forest and that Canada’s coal-fired power plants give off more than five times as much CO2 annually as the oil sands mines.

Do you hear that Quebec? The James Bay hydro project is not as environmentally friendly as you want us all to believe. I wonder how loud the howls would be from Quebec if Alberta went on an international stage and slagged Quebec like they have done to us twice now?

Find Your Balls!

Seriously? Everyone voted to slap Maclean's on the wrist for printing the truth? Maybe they should take it to the HRC's. I expect the CPC numbers to drop after this stupidity. The only party that won was the separatist Bloc, and they hate Canada, well, except for their pensions.

That this House, while recognizing the importance of vigorous debate on subjects of public interest, expresses its profound sadness at the prejudice displayed and the stereotypes employed by Maclean’s Magazine to denigrate the Quebec nation, its history and its institutions.

This is Parliament, not a grade 3 student president election. How juvenile. Talk about pandering to Quebec. I expected better of the Conservatives. It seems that they are so intent on a majority that they think they too have to kiss Quebec's butt. They would have gotten more respect from Quebec if they stood up against this obviously biased motion. This motion had no place in our House of Commons! Shame on the Bloc for bringing in forward, and shame on all MP's, from all parties, who voted for it.

Try reining in the HRC's, instead of attacking a magazine for it's article. Freedom of speech is dying in Canada, and it disgusts me that the Conservatives are too chicken to do anything about the HRC's even though it was one of their mandates from the last conference. Find your balls!

Election? Shhh, Don't Let The Opposition Know This!

So, the media are pulling for an election to raise revenues. Face it, the media has become boring, and during the weekends they are home swilling the wine while bloggers are still actively posting interesting articles you might never read in the Toronto Star. The media loves polls, that's why every media outlet has a daily poll, to test the mood of Canadians.

Some polls show the Liberals and Conservatives tied, others show one ahead of the other, though lately it's only the Conservatives who seem to be polling ahead. So, let's forget the polls and look back on the 2008 elections. The Conservatives needed 155 seats for a majority, they got 143. So they were short by 12 MP's. Let's put independent Andre in the Conservative win column, so they really only needed 11 MP's. Here is the shocker, when you look at the close races, they only needed under 7000 votes more. If 7000 more Conservatives would have voted we would have had a majority.

Vancouver South 22
Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca 68
Brampton West 231
Welland 300
Edmonton-Strathcona 463
Western Arctic 523
Vancouver Kingsway 745
Brampton-Springdale 773
Burnaby-Douglas 798
Sault Ste. Marie 1111
New Westminster-Coquitlam 1488

Add them up, you get 6522. Less than 7000 votes. The 11 ridings we needed were less than 7000 votes away. One thing that all Canadians should take note of, is that NONE of those close ridings were in the province of Quebec. Let me repeat that for all those lefties who think that Quebec actually plays a part in getting a majority, no close ridings were in Quebec. As a matter of fact, if you look at the Bloc votes, not even the Liberals riding as high as 30% in that province will convert those polls into actual gains in ridings. The media loves to slam Alberta for voting Conservative, but look at the Quebec numbers and they are just as bad, if not worse, but no one dares mention that little fact. Quebec is not needed anymore for a majority, because they vote for the Bloc, and cut down the votes for the traditional parties. The Bloc usually wins about 50 of the 75 seats in Quebec, which reduces the Bloc to a rump party like the NDP. They will never be in power, and so have no impact except that the Bloc MP's will get huge pensions from the Canada they want to separate from.

If Danny Williams hadn't gone on a rampage against the Conservatives, we might have had a majority. Now I love Newfoundlanders, but do you have to be such followers? Could you not vote Williams provincially and Conservatives federally? Speaking of the Atlantic provinces, what have the Liberals ever done for you? Seriously, tell me, post a comment telling me how you are better off because you vote Liberal. You had 13 years of Liberal rule, how did that work out for you? Did the cod suddenly reappear? Why is my PEI husband still here in Alberta earning his living? Will Atlantic Canada ever wake up and realize that the Liberals are users, and they have been using you for years. PEI has 140,000 people and they have 4 MP's, Alberta has over 3 million people and they only have 28 MP's, or 107,000 people per MP. How is that fair? According to those statistics PEI should only have ONE MP! They can prevent a Conservative majority because they get more MP's than they should.

I am tired of the east dictating who should be in power. Most Atlantic provinces along with Quebec do not have the population to support the power they have. Tiny PEI has 3 times the power over Alberta in our confederation then they should. WHY?

Funny I don't hear the judges talking about our Charter of Rights when it comes to some provinces having an unequal share of MP's for their population. I thought our system was based on representation by population. Silly me.

The Bloom Is Off The Boom!

I don't like any bailout, not even one little bit. It goes against every Conservative principal in my body. It goes against every good economic principal you will find in any economics textbook. So far we have been focusing on an auto bailout, but what happens if the oil sands needs help?

Manufacturing in Ontario is not just about the auto industry. Think "dirty" oil. That's right the oil sands are a major source of manufacturing in Ontario, and right now the bloom is off the boom.

Some oilsands math
Gary Lamphier, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Thursday, November 13

One day, it would be nice if the oilsands bashing lobby deigned to explain a few things to the rest of us.

Such as. If the oilsands are shut down -- as the good folks at Greenpeace would very much like -- or even significantly scaled back, where will the billions of dollars in federal equalization money that Alberta's (oilsands-dependent) taxpayers ship to Ottawa each year, come from in future?

Just wondering. It's a small-minded little nitpick, I realize. With Ontario now a "have-not" province, and the country's manufacturing sector flat on its back, you'd think Quebecers, among others, might like to know. Especially in the middle of a provincial election campaign.

Ontario's Biggest-Ever Trade Mission Seeks Oilsands Contracts

Economic development ministers rarely work the floor at a trade show but that's what Ontario's Sandra Pupatello did last week in Edmonton at the National Oilsands Buyer/Seller Forum. "We've brought 208 people here representing 134 companies," says Pupatello (shown at left). "This is the largest trade delegation ever assembled by Ontario, even bigger than our trade mission to China [in 2005]."

Clearly, Ontario industry is hungry for bitumen-fueled business. Central Canadian metal-working companies and other suppliers, suffering from slowdowns in auto manufacturing and forestry, see the oilsands as their most promising opportunity for growth. Government preparations for this forum included a 282 page directory of potential oilsands suppliers in the province, available in printed and digital versions. Trade officials even produced a lapel pin combining the Alberta and Ontario flags.

The economic crisis and collapse in oil prices have pushed the sector to the brink, resulting in the delay of some $40-billion in new projects, taking 800,000 barrels a day of expected production growth -- about half of what had been expected -- off the table, according to CIBC World Markets.

Meanwhile, existing projects are close to losing money at today's oil prices. According to a recent Merrill Lynch report, many oil sands projects need US$38 a barrel oil to break even. Oil prices settled at US$46.28 a barrel on Friday, keeping projects in the black for now, but curtailing developers' ability to fund expansion.

Industry watchers say companies that scaled back won't be rushing to jump back in, even if oil prices recover above US$90, the level many say is required to build new projects.

Other problems would have to be resolved: mounting costs, tight financing and, of course, environmental challenges. The oil sands' poor image could lead to even tougher environmental legislation.

The implications of a no-growth period for the oil sands are grim, not just for Alberta, but the entire country. The oil sands boom has been Canada's economic engine over the past decade. The country's rise as a major global oil producer would stall and the United States would see its energy security options reduced.

For the last decade the oil sands have been driving the economy, now we have Saskatchewan and Newfoundland entering the have provinces because of oil, but for how long? Meanwhile Toronto Liberals, Quebec separatists and the NDP think the gravy train is never ending. They are busy plotting the downfall of our elected government so they can throw money at the unions. Those same unions that will not compromise, those unions that except the taxpayers to bail them out so they can continue to live in lala land on the taxpayers dime.

Quebec is so union heavy that they are like the mafia, that's why Quebec continues to suck 8 BILLION more out of Canada than they put in. I am sick of it, and so are the intelligent Quebecers. What does Quebec think will happen if the oil sands slow down? It really ticks me off when they spout off about their $7 a day, daycare that the rest of Canada is paying for. They are too ignorant to be embarrassed about freeloading on the rest of Canada. They think it is their right because they are special/different/unique. Well the fuse is getting shorter out here, and Iggy is not going to sell any better in the west than Dion did, so the divide will continue.

The bloom is off the boom out here in hicks ville Alberta, and the east better get prepared for the consequences, it's not going to be pretty. Alberta is debt free, and has some reserves for a rainy day, so we will be okay, can Quebec say the same thing?

Quebec Free Falling!

I have gone from being mad at Quebec for not voting Conservative after PM Harper catered to them for the last 2 and 1/2 years, to seeing how they have isolated themselves from the rest of Canada. What were they thinking? Do they expect to get more goodies from the rest of Canada now?

The west has been silent about the handouts to fix the fiscal imbalance, they have been silent about Charest's using the extra money to give Quebec a tax break, all in the hope that Quebec would understand that the rest of Canada wants Quebec to play a roll in Canada. This is not to be. They have no voice, like Newfoundland. Sure, some of the 10 Quebec Conservative MP's will get to be Ministers, but 10 voices from Quebec will get quickly overruled by BC, AB, SK, ONT, MAN, and even PEI at the caucus table.

It's not just PM Harper talking about arts cuts that is the problem, they even get snooty with President Sarkozy. Apparently their arrogance knows no bounds.

QUEBEC — An upset French diplomat tried to quell a storm in the ranks of Quebec's sovereignty movement on Saturday, complaining that President Nicolas Sarkozy's endorsement of Canadian federalism has been blown out of proportion.

Alain Joyandet, the French secretary of state for the Francophonie, blasted journalists for paying more attention to Mr. Sarkozy's ad-libbed call for Canadian unity rather than the carefully crafted homage to Quebec he gave in the province's National Assembly.

Hey President Sarkozy, join the Quebec "we hate everyone" club, PM Harper knows all about it! Don't sweat it, Canada respects you even if Quebec doesn't.

Quebec is getting outright embarrassing. Not wanting the Queen at their 400 year celebrations (petty little people), supporting juvenile killers not the victims, wanting abortion up to and including partial birth killing, wanting free daycare and free university, inviting the President of France to Canada and then slapping him in the face for daring to say he loved Canada, all while sucking on the Canadian taxpayers teat, while having a provincial debt of over 100 Billion.

Read this excellent article by Jeffrey Simpson, it's bang on.

After each of the six elections since 1993, a chorus of Quebec commentators explained why the Bloc Québécois, once again, had won the largest number of seats in the province.

It's always been something: reaction against the defeat of the Meech Lake accord, the Liberal Party's sponsorship scandal and, this time, Conservative cuts to two little cultural programs and one announcement on juvenile sentencing.

"It's always been something"...and it will continue as long as Quebec thinks it has a hand to play, but it's hand is a pair of deuces, and I predict that PM Harper will call their bluff. You see, PM Harper came 10 seats away from a majority without Quebec, so they have no power left, they are free falling. They are stuck with a provincial party that can do nothing for Quebec because they have no power, kind of like the early Reform Party, but the Reform party had room to grow and expand, the Bloq has no ability to increase, no ability to affect policy, no ability to help Quebec, Duceppe is as useless to Quebec, as Dion is to Canada.

Enjoy your self imposed isolation Quebec. You have made yourselves irrelevant.