Posted on 09/25/2005 3:30:58 PM PDT by -=[_Super_Secret_Agent_]=-
Jealousy, thy name is Canada
Don Martin National Post September 22, 2005
OTTAWA - It's official now. Alberta is a heaping embarrassment of riches, and the rest of Canada is bloody jealous.
It wasn't as hard to take when Premier Ralph Klein was just throwing bunches of billions at paving freeways, building schools and buying the nation's most advanced health care while charging Albertans the lowest provincial taxes.
But his plan to cut a $400-per-person cheque just in time for the Christmas shopping season is different. It has captured Canada's eye -- and triggered its envy.
Alberta's "prosperity" dividend was officially announced this week, unfortunately timed for the precise moment when average Canadians are bracing for the daily hurricane surge in gasoline prices while dreading the sound of those energy-guzzling furnaces firing up on record-high natural gas.
Never, it would seem, has what's good for Alberta been so bad for the nation.
Only Albertans will also pocket energy rebates this winter and the leftover spending remains sales-tax free. Feeling green yet? If not, consider that Ottawa on Wednesday agreed to Alberta's request that this cash dividend be spared all federal taxation because it qualifies as a tax credit, not additional income. Go ahead. Seethe.
Klein appears to understand there'll be a prickly reception for his prosperity payday in other provinces, where disposable income is rapidly becoming energy-depleted.
Sources say he's planning a major tour of Central Canada later this fall to promote Alberta's runaway wealth as a benefit for the entire country.
It will be a welcome change from his recent Alberta gunslinger routine, a "keep your hands off our money," "we won't share the wealth" act, which does nothing to endear him in a Canada where most voters mistakenly believe oil and gas are a national natural resource, not under provincial ownership.
But is the cash bonus a mistake? If so, it is entirely Klein's. The Premier dreamed up the scheme, presented to his caucus and Cabinet as a done deal that didn't rate a vote and announced it himself, with details to follow.
He shrugged off the fact it flew against the Conservative policy of rebating windfalls through broad-based tax relief.
And as a self-declared lame duck premier, he obviously doesn't care that voter gratitude for the cash will be long forgotten by the time his Conservatives face re-election under future premier Jim Dinning, whom I suspect is appalled by the crassness of the one-time handout.
This is vintage Klein, a politician with an uncanny blue-collar connection. Sure, the business elites are attacking the $1.4 billion out-of-the-blue, hard-to-administer scheme as another boom Klein's trying to piss away.
But ask the guy driving a garbage truck or roughnecking at an oil well or ploughing a field if he wants a piece of the energy windfalls in his pocket and you'll get a loud chorus of "hell yeah"s.
Former premier Peter Lougheed, who presided over the dawn of the blue-eyed sheiks in the mid-1970s, has always warned Alberta should avoid rubbing Canada's face into a splurge of its petrodollars or risk a federal cash grab. This scheme would qualify as Exhibit A.
"Remember that part of the reason the National Energy Program came out was because there was such envy about Alberta that the federal (Pierre) Trudeau government thought they could get away with upsetting the nature of Canada and the ownership of resources," Lougheed told me in an interview. "You have to keep your head down and not be too high profile about it and convince the rest of Canada and Albertans you're managing a depleting resource well for the rainy day."
That's the cautious voice of experience for you, but Klein won't listen, nor particularly care, about the national consequences.
He is expected to retire next spring before his leadership is put to a review at a party convention where he's expected to only receive mere mortal levels of enthusiastic endorsement instead of the throngs of usual unanimous thumbs-ups.
So time is running out to carve his place in Alberta's history books beyond the impressive but low-sizzle legacy of deficit and debt elimination or the wonderful privatization of liquor retailing.
If this scheme becomes an annual cash bonus for being Albertan, that would be seen by King Ralph as a fitting tribute to his reign.
When the cash arrives in the mail, Albertans will love him for it. And if the bums and creeps in the rest of Canada don't like it, well, they can freeze in the dark.
Move!!!
:0)
The rest of Canada is not jealous, but ENVIOUS. People always screw these 2 words up. ENVIOUS is when you want something you don't have that someone else has, e.g.: "The rest of commie socialist Canada is ENVIOUS of Albert's wealth." JEALOUS is when you are defensive of what you already have, e.g.: "Albertans are jealous of their wealth, and don't wish to share it w/the rest of commie socialist Canada."
GOT IT?????
So to what degree is this just Alberta having incredible natural resources, vs the Alberta regional govt being well run?
CORRECTION: AlbertA's wealth, not "Albert's wealth."
They know he's raking in the dough for having invented the internet, not to mention all that Occidental Petroleum stock.
I really like your example sentences.
AlQanada is jealous?
Of course, when Alberta complained about getting the short end of the stick with the wheat board, nothing happened. Ontario and Quebec have been messing up the country for the hearty Albertans, great Canadians, and better than Kerry-loving Americans.
P.S. Wife is from Grande Prairie, Alberta.
I know. It's better not to be so blatant with the Alberta surplus otherwise the Ottawa government will create The National Energy Policy Part Deux and bring Alberta down to its knees (again).
The rest of Canada is jealous ??? What a crock. Who's jealous? The only comment I've heard was "good for them." And that was in Ottawa from a mail carrier.
Nitpick, nitpick....
Alberta is rich in petro dollars but Sask. especially the FALC region around Prince Albert has some of the largest diamond "DeBeers" and mining companies buying claims of hugh amounts of land.
Sask has as much crude tar/sand oil as Saudi does right now and always has but there has not been an extraction process until the last few years. The biggest player is a small Las Vegas, NV company called CMKX which has about 1.8M to 1.9M areas in and around the FALC region. Their claims totally surround DeBeers. In 2001 it was thought that they had kimberlite formations "the formation that produce diamonds" with over 200 anomalies with one said to be 8mile X 5mile, then in the past 6 months tar/sand oil hs been discovered so not only is Alberta rich in oil Sask. has what some are saying as the richest rare earth minerals ever found in such a concentrated area or the 16 "IUM" minerals with a large deposit of Uranium.
I bet the US would much rather spend out petro dollars on Canadian crude then middle east crude. This has gotten so big Halliburton is looking at potential work with their oil extraction process.
Canada could very well be the next super power in minerals/oil/natual gas and diamonds that are said to be of color and clarity never seen before because it's geograhical location as opposed to say South Africa.
It is almost like a modern day mineral race in Sask and up the NWT. Keep an eye on Shore Gold, Kennsington "Recent merger" Petro China is looking and CMKX along with USCA and Gemm. It is time America drilled for it's own crude or buy it from our friend Canada instead of being held to the middle east's games.
I as an American would much rather send my money to my friends in Canada.
able
All that is news to me. I agree with you.
I point out to my university students that we have billions of barrels of oil right here in North America. And we can always extract the oil from baby seals.
Fraid we don't have the kind of crude we used to. US oil production peaked in 1970 and has pretty much gone downhill ever since; not even ANWR would change that.
But what we have is an absolutely enormous amount of oil shale. We need to develop that, or else (as you suggest) buy from our friends up north. I agree with you, we are foolish to rely on the Middle East for our energy.
The one that drives me crazy is the expression "I could care less ... " Can you retool your scathing beatdown of the abusers of "jealous/envious" to give these "careless" ones their comeuppance also?
About 60-40.
Alberta is definitely not as well run as it once was, they could use a change in government (Ted Morton or Paul Hinman will be the next Premier). I do believe the oil played a major role though...although Saskatchewan has lots of oil as well that they refuse to tap (once it finally is, that province could hit a boom cycle as well)
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