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Wake-up call
Calgary Sun ^ | 7/17/05 | Paul Jackson

Posted on 07/17/2005 6:06:01 PM PDT by DogBarkTree

Our grandparents would not recognize the frayed and fractured country that was once admired across the seven seas and in the four corners of the world as the Dominion of Canada.

Several decades of nihilistic federal Liberalism, starting with the iconoclastic Pierre Trudeau, through the thuggish Jean Chretien and right up to today with the principle-lacking Paul Martin, have rendered our once great nation rudderless.

The federal Liberals really do stand for nothing except getting re-elected and to do so they will abandon each and every value and cater to every whim that might bring votes on side Yet, when readers call saying it's time for Alberta to go it alone, I have usually made a strong defence of Canada, suggesting the only people wanting to form an independent nation are fanatics.

I once thought just that about Quebec separatists, but have now been convinced, as Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe puts it, both Canada and Quebec will be far better off and like each other far more when Quebec achieves independence.

But when it came to Alberta leaving -- still no.

Even though an independent Alberta would be fabulously wealthy, and we could surely negotiate some kind of an alliance with our true friend, the U.S., it seemed pulling out of Canada would be unpatriotic.

Yet, after reading Link Byfield's "Time for Alberta to exit stage right?" (July 3), and pulling up various notes about the subject of that column, Leon Craig, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alberta, I'm rethinking the proposition.

Maybe all loyal Albertans -- and patriotic Canadians -- should rethink what our country now is and where it is going.

The 64-year-old professor's essay is entitled, Let's get out while the going is good and forthrightly argues the case for our province to declare unilateral independence.

His main thrust is the Canada we all know (used to know, is a better way of saying it), no longer exists.

Since Trudeau, the Liberals have stripped the nation of all the values it once had and debased it politically, economically, socially and culturally.

Who can doubt that?

If we go it alone, we would create a country reflecting our own political, economic and social beliefs, values and traditions.

We would become again what the Dominion of Canada actually was -- or, in a very real way, take back the nation from those who have debased it and continue to destroy it almost day by day.

Craig has given us all a wake-up call.

Chatting with Craig, who is a very affable fellow, he told me he is tired of seeing his students graduate and then leave Canada never to return.

The situation in much of the rest of Canada is "hopeless" and if Alberta stays in Confederation in a generation or two the situation in our own province will be "hopeless," too.

Now, Craig is not some fanatic -- his main field of interest is political theory, along with traditional political philosophy, in particular philosophers Plato, Hobbes, Rousseau Nietzsche -- and William Shakespeare

His most recent publications are a book-length studies of Plato's Republic entitled The War Lover (University of Toronto Press, 1944) and of Shakespeare's political philosophy, focusing on MacBeth and King Lear, entitled Of Philosophers and Kings (University of Toronto Press, 2001.)

Aside from his controversial essay, he is now putting the finishing touches to a critical re-examination of Hobbes' Leviathan, with chapters relating it to Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

This is a man of some intellectual stature -- and stamina

Sadly, the Canada most of us loved so much no longer does exist outside of Alberta, and occasional patriotic hold-outs across the nation that the even the Liberals haven't been able to wipe out yet. There's really little left of the "true north, strong and free."

One more grab by Ottawa for our energy resources -- and it's coming -- and Craig's conclusions will turn concrete as a huge independence movement stirs in Alberta.

Craig's essay is not only a wake-up call for Albertans -- it should be a wake-up call to Liberal Ottawa.

For we aren't going to take much more of the Liberal penchant for national suicide


TOPICS: Canada; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: canada
It's good to know not all of Canada is nutless and clueless.
1 posted on 07/17/2005 6:06:01 PM PDT by DogBarkTree
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To: DogBarkTree
The federal Liberals really do stand for nothing except getting re-elected and to do so they will abandon each and every value and cater to every whim that might bring votes on side.

Sounds just like our republicans and democrats, eh.

2 posted on 07/17/2005 6:22:11 PM PDT by Founding Father ( Republicans control the Oval Office, Senate and House, but still can't govern.)
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To: DogBarkTree

I'm with him. Quebec should get lost. However, everyone else should be able to get along well.


3 posted on 07/17/2005 6:27:31 PM PDT by Heartofsong83
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To: DogBarkTree

Alberta becoming an independent nation would be a positive development in North America, imo. I hope they have the courage and will to follow through.


4 posted on 07/17/2005 7:28:56 PM PDT by Sunsong
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To: DogBarkTree

I just sent this letter to Paul Jackson, the author of the subject article. I hope this list finds it to be informative.



Sun, July 17, 2005

Wake-up call

Separatist scholar makes case for Alberta split from Canada


To: Paul Jackson -- Calgary Sun

Kudos to you on your Article!

In 1979 a young , new, graduate of the University of New Brunswick Law School was in a private practise in Newfoundland. It took him 3 years of reading the writing on the wall of politics. Unlike most Canadians he had the choice to emigrate to the USA and begin a whole new life. He did so, with only the regret that he missed the pristine shores of his native New Brunswick , and the fine people he grew up with.

That person was me.

We raised our children in Northern Vermont, a peaceful state with no gun contol
except for hunting laws, few police officers to watch the population, and a legislature that has no full time, paid politicians. It was a breath of fresh air despite also laboring under a similar liberal malaise as Canada's. The social engineering quotient is very small compared to that of Canada, I admire the patience of Canadians, and it is wearing thin I know. I am a teacher at one of the best private schools in the USA. I also started and now run a very successful pipeband at school which has become a regional jewel.


Looking back I know I had made the best decision, but I am still a patriot of the Canada I once knew, prior to Trudeau. I have analyzed the devolution of a free Canada and I believe it started with the fall of Deifenbaker and the electoral term of office of Lester Pearson. The heart of New Brunswick's Anglo communities which assured a balance in liberal and conservative politics was ripped out by two huge developments necessitating the death of many commmunities in New Brunswick. They went with hardly a wimper and the inhabitants forced to seperate from their Anglo culture and submit to living in a comfortable, colorless, urban environment.

These two Liberal government federally funded New Brunswick projects were :

1) The construction of Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, taking about 20% of the land area of New Brunswick

2) The Mactaquac Dam Project, taking about 10% of the land area of New Brunswick.

Virtually the heart of Anglo, loyalist New Brunswick was ripped out by expropriation, houses and churches put to the torch, graveyards exhumed and reinterred in meaningless locations. If it had been done to French communities , there would have been cries of cultural genocide. Some protested , but were branded as politically incorrect heretics. [I know first hand all about political correctness. Liberals try to use it in the US to circumvent political debate,and are being stopped now.]

In retrospect the policies which were pursued by successive federal liberal administrations in Canada were designed to rearrange electoral power in the province away from its community , conservative roots, and their ties with England and Scotland. Even the Blackwatch regiment was later drummed down and the 2000 men in kilts which had graced Rememberance Day each year were to be no more. Those were the saddest of times in my youthful memory.
The French under Loiuis Robichaud took power and all the grant money they could get from Ottawa, assuring that the old poltical balance in NB was destroyed forever in a rush to bilingualism in school and government.

Now the whole country suffers from an effective 17% sales tax between many provincial and federal consumer taxes ( punitive). In the province of Quebec alone in 1996 it became public knowledge that over 50% of the jobs
consist of positions paid by tax dollars or the earnings of monopolistic crown corporations. There is 100% gun control, as if the feds know that some day the people will have had enough. The police to population ratio is very high. A large percentage of the GNP is spent on assuring that cereal boxes and other labeling is published in two languages, not that I personally object to the French language, but to the the incredible waste that such "hitorical justice" represents for the nation economically. Canada has incredible resources and wonderful, hardworking people. It has a federal government full of scumbags who have been controlled for too long by federal politicians from Quebec. Even the criminal conduct of civil servants and government contractors cannot be brought to conclusive justice. Now liberal judges have tried to dictate that culture must change to include same sex marriage as a matter of right. The people are being even further removed from the culture of their own aristocratic government.

How can the people of Canada throw off this incredible burden? Alberta maybe does need to be independent. It also needs to lead a movement of patriots nationally. The province needs to control its own media which can evolve to a national force. The changes need to be made at the ballot box and Professor Craigs truth needs to be realized by a majority of Canadians. The alternative is revolution, and many would die in that attempt. The liberals are false aristocrats who continually let the whole nation " eat cake." The conservatives and NDP little better.

Newfoundland, The Maritimes, Alberta and British Columbia could easily become part of the United States, but there would be armed conflict before that would be allowed to happen by the feds.

I can describe the day I decided to move to the US. I was on a wharf with a group of fisherman in 1980 in a small outport called Lewisport, Newfoundland. Romeo LeBlanc had assigned the fishing quotas all to Quebec and the Francophone parts of Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Cape Breton for herring. This was based on alleged scientific surveys by the dept. of fisheries. We all knew better as we watched herring shoals work there way up the bay, so thick you could almost walk on them. The men around me were silent, some shaking their heads, one or two cried......good men, hard workers who built their own boats. Most of them lost their homes through forelosure, their fishing gear also , and had to go on the dole, hunting Moose in the winter to get by, poaching lobster for sale to tourists, many drinking too heavily. That was my signal to either become a revolutionary, and I would likely be defamed or economically as a result, or to leave as quietly as possible. I chose the latter but my heart still bleeds for Canada, and what she could be. It is my fault that I did not love my "new Canada " enough and loved only the memory of the old, as I do now. I blame no others but myselfand hold no bitterness . I just feel a profound sadness for the people of Canada.

Yes, professor Craig is right. The liberals have been a curse upon Canada and have sown the seeds of either revolution or a prolonged political battle which itself will be violent and bloody. People need to believe Professor Craig, for he speaks the truth. When that happens the first step toward change will have occurred. Alberta has the reources , but not yet the will to lead the way. Perhaps it will take another export tax on petroleum products
and a little more attempted social engineering of the people of Alberta. I would love to again see a free Canada, as it was in my youth. Perhaps it cannot happen in my life time. I know the adage." the government which governs least, governs best," is true.

Thank you for your article, it was a breath of fresh air that means a few Canadian patriots still breath in the press and in the halls of academe.

Yours,

Candor7
Vermont, USA


5 posted on 07/17/2005 7:49:42 PM PDT by Candor7 (Into Liberal Flatulence Goes the Hope of the West)
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To: Candor7

What a sad story out of New Brunswick. Then again the French run Canada and have for 40 years...the fall of the once-great country has been devastating.


6 posted on 07/17/2005 8:22:16 PM PDT by Heartofsong83
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To: DogBarkTree
The federal Liberals really do stand for nothing except getting re-elected and to do so they will abandon each and every value and cater to every whim that might bring votes on side

Sounds like Erie County NY

7 posted on 07/17/2005 8:25:25 PM PDT by The Mayor ( Pray as if everything depends on God; work as if everything depends on you.)
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