Saturday, December 06, 2008

Just When It Looks Like Harper May Be Nearing Majority Territory...

...Alberta decides it wants out again.

These guys are led at the moment by David Crutcher, who was briefly President of the Alberta Progressive Conservative party's Calgary-Egmont association until they turfed him out for supporting the candidacy of Craig Chandler.

Right now it sounds like a joke, the old crew from the Reform Party crazy train revving up their electric walkers.

Here's a story from Thursday's Financial Post.

25 comments:

Pearce said...

I wrote about this a few days ago at my blog:

http://canadianspades.blogspot.com/2008/12/faulty-case-for-western-separatism.html

It is a ridiculous, untenable plan. Nobody in BC wants to leave Canada except a minority of vocal wingnuts and mouth breathers.

bigcitylib said...

Being an old BC boy, I never really thought this kind of sentiment extended over the mountains.

Pearce said...

This is what pisses me off about "Western Separatists" (aka: batshit crazy Albertans)... They always want to lump BC in with their asinine plans for separation. This sentiment most definitely does NOT extend over the mountains.

Dante said...

Leave a mess around like the liberals usually do and you will see the mice leave their droppings all over the place.

There is basically one party keeping the west from separating right now.
The day the west becomes disenfranchised with it, they will seek separation. Something a liberal supporter might want to think about.

bigcitylib said...

Oooh! Threats! Gonna hold Stephen Harper to the nation's throat, are we?

Pearce said...

Dante, you obviously don't get that it's not up to Alberta whether they secede. Constitutional amendments (what it would take for a province to secede) require 7 provinces comprising at least 50% of the nation's population to agree to let you go. Good luck with that, and let me know when you rejoin reality

Reality Bites said...

The first time the Parti Québécois ran (in 1970) it got 23% of the votes. It got 30% in 1973 and won majority government in 1976

By way of comparison, the Western Canada Concept got 12% of the vote in Alberta in 1982. Since then, no separatist party has achieved even 1% of the vote.

Regardless of what we may think of the merits of their cause, Quebec separatists are a legitimate force with wide public support. Alberta separatists are, without exception, a tiny group of deluded, powerless assholes who've been predicting a surge in support for a quarter-century as their actual support declines from tiny to unmeasurable.

Anonymous said...

We in the west unanimously voted against a Liberal government lead by Stephane Dion.

We in the west unanimously voted for a Conservative government led by Steven Harper.

Now a bunch of eastern idiots let by Dion, Layton and Duceppe want to take over a government and effectively shut out western Canada.

And you wonder why "Western Separatists" are emerging?

Unbelievable!!!!

Ti-Guy said...

And you wonder why "Western Separatists" are emerging?

I don't wonder why at all. You guys always start threatening to take your ball and go home whenever you don't get your own way. It started the minute the PQ was elected in 1976 and has never stopped.

The conceit that you have some divine right to a nation state is bizarre, especially coming from the province that is entirely a creation of the modern Canadian state itself.

I can imagine Alberta reverting back to a territory governed directly by Ottawa before I can imagine that the international community would ever recognise it as an independent state. It has the weakest claim to that right of any area in Canada.

That guy said...

We in the west unanimously voted

No, son, you didn't.

Militant Dipper said...

I wish everyday that Alberta would try and separate.Harper would get 27 less seats, (even more when he's finished gerrymandering) of course he could always form a coalition with the "Alberta party" but that would mean handing over the keys of the country to separatists! gasp.

Mala Fides said...

Lastnight on my way home, I filled up my gas tank and Ultra 94 octane gas was $0.87.

Regular gas was $0.71

If gas goes any lower, I am wondering if the Alberta tar sand will still be profitable.

Just think of how many jobs in Alberta are directly tied to the petroleum industry.

If the price of oil continues to slide and the tar sands are no longer profitable, what will happen to all the jobs?

What will Alberta do with all of the people that moved into the province that no longer have jobs?

In the past, Alberta has put the unemployed on buses and shipped them out of the province instead of paying them social benefits.

Ti-Guy said...

No, son, you didn't.

Precisely.

What is it with the education out there that encourages them to make obviously counter-factual assertions so shamelessly?

I've talked to rabid Quebec separatists who, apart from supporting a rather one-sided historical narrative (Conquest! Oppressive Canadian regime!), never engage in such blatant lies to support the case they're making.

Dennis Hollingsworth said...

Hey Prarie Kid ... I'd be all for Harpie continuing as Prime Minister if he were not a total fraud artist !!!

Get Harpie to resign, replace him with Prentice and giddy-up.

Kurt Phillips said...

We in the west unanimously voted for a Conservative government led by Steven Harper.

You might want to let Linda Duncan and Ralph Goodale, among others, know that. Or the significant percentage of voters in Alberta and Saskatchewan who didn't vote for the Conservatives.

Robert McBean. said...

Conservative popular vote across the four western provinces has always hovered around 50%, higher in Alberta. The idea of a monolithic conservative west is a media myth.

Niles said...

but but but what Prairie Kid (who apparently is about ten years old emotionally) reaalllly means is, all *real* Westerners voted against a government 'lead' by (PK's Engrish not so good neither) Stephane Dion...

...and the rest of us faux Westerners (Albertans even) who actually did vote for Liberal elitists and NDP socialists and Green losers should just line up for the beatings Freedominion is yapping on about. Because that's how *real* Conservative democracy works.

Why yes, I do find the tactics of the Conservatives divisive of this country in a manner reflective of pre-civil rights Southern US Democrats and 21st century US Republicans, why do you ask?

Unknown said...

Hey, take a look in the mirror lefties. It's you who are so eager to consummate an unholy union with the Bloq. Principles be damned and Canada too. Your lust for power knows no limits.

"Regardless of what we may think of the merits of their cause, Quebec separatists are a legitimate force with wide public support." - RB

Which explains why a fool like you is so eager to support a seperatist like Gilles Duceppe and consider a Canadian like Harper to be more dangerous.

Face it, you are afraid of the seperatists, that is why you are so enthralled by them.

"Alberta separatists are, without exception, a tiny group of deluded, powerless assholes who've been predicting a surge in support for a quarter-century as their actual support declines from tiny to unmeasurable." - RB

Exactly. They have never been a threat.

And as a traitor, you obviously want to stick with a "winning" seperatist party, right Reality Bites?

Unknown said...

"I've talked to rabid Quebec separatists who, apart from supporting a rather one-sided historical narrative (Conquest! Oppressive Canadian regime!), never engage in such blatant lies to support the case they're making." - Ti-Guy

Of course Ti, that's because you are sympathetic to the Quebec seperatists.

Like I said, the left will defend and support a seperatist like Gilles Duceppe while disparaging true Canadians.

Maybe it's time for you to switch your allegiances.

Unknown said...

"...Alberta decides it wants out again." - BCL

Alberta? Try and be at least a little bit credible on the issue BCL. That's like saying Ti-Guy is "Ontario". (Gawd help us if it's true.) ;)

Ti-Guy said...

I think Paul S. is just BCL. trolling his own blog.

Unknown said...

I'm coming late to this thread but I just had to comment on Paul S's characterization of Stephen Harper as a "Canadian", with the subtext that he is a "true" Canadian, whereas we who oppose him are, apparently, not.

Harper is a "Canadian" in the same sense that Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian.

If history had been kinder to him (while kicking the rest of us in the 'nads), he would be a good little gauleiter representing Canada as a minor province in some larger neo-conservative corporatist empire, led by some sort of self-appointed ubermensch that looked a lot like Cheney.

Try photoshopping an SA cap, brownshirt and jodhpurs onto Harper's pudgy body and pasty face and you'll see he wouldn't look the least bit out of place in one of those old photos of "the boys" like Ernst Rohm or Sepp Dietrich jocularizing along with Herr Himmler and the fearless leader Himself.

Remember that he's a Straussian and a disciple of Milton Friedman. As far as I can tell, he despises this country and everything it stands for. He loathes the people he is supposed to be leading, even those ordinary voters who support him, because they don't belong to the so-called "elite" he is so desperate to claw his way into.

"Canadian"? Only by accident of birth.

/rant

Unknown said...

"Try photoshopping an SA cap, brownshirt and jodhpurs onto Harper's pudgy body and pasty face and you'll see he wouldn't look the least bit out of place in one of those old photos of "the boys" like Ernst Rohm or Sepp Dietrich jocularizing along with Herr Himmler and the fearless leader Himself." - Domoustier

Yeah, yeah, once you explain it that way it does make sense Domoustier.

Gawd, what a buffoon.

No wonder the Liberal party is broke, out of power, and a pale shadow of what it used to be.

Unknown said...

"I just had to comment on Paul S's characterization of Stephen Harper as a "Canadian", with the subtext that he is a "true" Canadian, whereas we who oppose him are, apparently, not."- Domoustier

D, you're just another one of those lefty nutters who sees fascists everywhere.

You are a fair weather Canadian who is casually willing to give a seperatist party veto power over the coalition in a pathetic grab for power.

That you and others have no shame about this shows how debased your commitment to Canada is.

Partisan Hobo said...

Thanks for your various posts on the WBTA. I wrote a background post on the organization inspired by your blog, among others. If you want to add to it, just leave a comment. It took me a while to wrap my head around this story!