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| Eckvillie Forum - February 25, 2008 7:00 p.m. A speech by Leader Bruce Hutton Mr/Madame Chairman, Fellow Candidates, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to thank the electors present for showing up here tonight to listen to this rhetoric. An Angus Reed Poll released last week which was conducted for QR77 and the Corus network indicates 23% of Albertans believe they would be better off if they were a Nation unto themselves. Think about it Ladies and Gentlemen that is 1 in 4 Albertans Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Voting for any of the other candidates sitting here tonight is insanity. I am 61 years of age and I have been watching my fellow electors voting for some of these parties for the last 40 years and nothing has changed. I look at the platform of the newer parties, like the Green Party and I wonder how the economy is going to survive when they kill industry. If you think the rise in oil royalties that Ed Stelmach invoked has affected you personally and slowed down the oil patch, put the Greenies in power and see what happens to your job. This is not to say that we don't have environmental responsibilities because we do. But we have to work in conjunction with industry to find a workable balance. I look at the Wildrose Alliance and I see dreamers people reaffirming Albert Einstein's theory. When the Wildrose Party was being formed I accused Link Byfield of re-inventing the wheel and he said that his Party was right of the Progressive Conservatives. He said that his Party would try to effect change inside Confederation. I told him he was wasting Alberta's time. This election will prove me right because they will elect minimal representatives, if any, and they will be unable to change anything. The Social Credit Party served Alberta well 50 years ago but they refused to keep pace with the times and they became obsolete. They are still obsolete. They have no new ideas and refuse to address the real problem in Alberta. The Liberals have a less than stellar track record. We cant look at their Alberta record because they don't have one at least they haven't for the last 75 years. Heaven forbid that you would entertain giving them a chance. You only have to look at their Federal cousins, the Libranos, to get an idea of what you would be putting in place in Alberta. And if you don't think it would be disastrous for our economy, what about their platform to increase oil royalties? And don't think Provincial Liberals are any different than their cousins. The BC Provincial Liberals are currently in the process of implementing a Carbon Tax which would be devastating to the oil industry in this Province. The NDP is perfect for anyone who doesn't want to work. Rob from those willing to work and give it to those who aren't willing to work. Some sort of perverted Robin Hood syndrome I suspect. An NDP vote is a guarantee for economic recession. If you don't believe me, ask any of your friends who have lived in Saskatchewan. They finally got rid of their NDP Government and they are now a boom Province. But what about our friends, Mr Lund and his Progressive Conservatives? Certainly we can trust them. Our waiting times in the health system are perfectly acceptable, our infrastructure is keeping pace with expansion and our highways are in great shape, and everyone is happy with our education system. And of course our Heritage Trust Fund is something to be proud of there is actually less in it today than there was 15 years ago. Our Health Care System is a JOKE. On a per capita basis we spend 3 times as much as other industrialized nations and yet we rank 30th by comparison. Rest assured, you don't fix this system by throwing money at it. Ask me in the question period and I will tell you how to fix it. Where are we going to get the money for infrastructure? The people sitting at this table don't know. Alas my point. We will never be in a position to take care of these problems until we learn to take care of Alberta first. The economic drain to Ottawa of tens of billions of dollars in transfer payments every year makes it impossible for the people sitting at this table to address any problems in this province and keep their election promises. But they will never tell you that and they certainly don't have the courage to do what has to be done in the best interests of the future of this wonderful region. The Wildrose Alliance Party talks about the Alberta Agenda our own police force, our own pension plan, collecting our own taxes etc. But that is only the first step and it will not solve the fact that the West is not in or part of Canada. The only Party with a plan is the Separation Party of Alberta. We are the only Party with enough courage to step to the plate and tell Albertans what has to be done. Thank you
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An Angus Reid Poll released
Feb 20, 2008 for QR77 Radio in Calgary shows that 23% of Albertans believe
Alberta would be better off as a country unto itself. This is an astounding
proclamation.
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Sundre Forum - February 20, 2008 7:00 p.m. |
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Caroline Forum - February 19,
2008 |
Leader
Reviews Alien |
Recommendations? - Web Editor, Sep. 20, 2005
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GET READY ALBERTA – HERE WE GO AGAIN! - R. B. (Bruce) Hutton, Leader - Wed. Sep. 7, 2005 A Leger Marketing poll conducted between August 24 and August 31, 2005 indicates 49% of Canadians want Canada’s petroleum resources nationalized while 43% said they would like to see the same fate for gas companies. It should come as no surprise that 67% of Quebecers, 53% of Maritimers, 45% of Ontarians and 42% of British Columbians want to nationalize the petroleum industry. The scary aspect of this survey is that 40% of respondents from the Prairies (Manitoba & Saskatchewan) and 36 % of Albertans were also in favor. This should make not only Alberta business but also Alberta home-owners very nervous. The reasoning behind Canadians’ sudden urge to nationalize the petroleum industry is painfully obvious - the price of gasoline. It appears the only thing Canadians care about is “What is gas going to cost me?” Unfortunately, this is self-centered and selfish. Most people don’t understand the economic ramifications of a knee-jerk, catastrophic reaction like nationalizing the petroleum industry. It would be devastating for the Alberta economy but nobody east of the Border City or west of the Rockies cares about that. Promises are being made on a daily basis by Federal Liberal politicians that they are not going to “pirate Alberta resources” or “steal Alberta’s resource wealth”. Who can trust a Federal Liberal? In the 1993 Federal Liberal Policy “Red Book”, Liberals promised to abolish the GST. Leger Marketing was founded by Jean-Marc Léger together with his father, Marcel Léger, former PQ Minister of both Environment and Tourism for Rene Levesque and Pierre–Marc Johnson. This Parti Quebecois friendly firm has a history of predicting Federal Liberal policy through the polling of Canadians. I barely survived the National Energy Program of 1983 but many of my friends weren’t as fortunate. Now, everything points towards the implementation of a similar program. The fact that 49% of the voters in Canada support nationalizing the petroleum industry insures that this will become Federal Liberal policy before the next election. |
Eyes Roll in Alberta - Link Byfield, Sun. Sep. 4, 2005, Winnipeg Free Press When it was announced on Monday that the prime minister has appointed two of his Quebec friends to the Senate, someone in the East asked me if Albertans were outraged. I guess we're supposed to be permanently outraged over things like this. Actually, we aren't. Disgusted would be closer to the mark. Permanently disgusted. Speaking for myself, I see nothing wrong with the new senators as individuals. The problem lies in who chose them. One of them, Francis Fox, was a longtime Liberal MP and cabinet minister who left a lucrative private-sector job to run the Prime Minister's Office for Paul Martin. The other is a Montreal lawyer with a track record in volunteer community work. Both men might be well-suited to represent their province in the Senate. But we'll never know, because the people of Quebec didn't choose them, and have no way of getting rid of them. For that, of course, is what senators are supposed to do -- represent their province in Parliament. It states this explicitly in Sec. 22 of the 1867 Constitution Act. MPs represent constituencies, and senators represent provinces. So why then does the prime minister of Canada choose members of Parliament for Quebec? And for Manitoba? And for Alberta? Are we all too stupid to pick our own? The objectionable thing about the Canadian Senate is not (for the most part) who sits in it, but that the senators owe their loyalty and gratitude to the man and party that appointed them, not to their province. No other federal democracy on the face of the Earth lets the boss of its executive branch staff its legislative branch. It's constitutionally ludicrous. The reason we have a Parliament is to hold the chief executive and his cabinet accountable. If Canadian senators were elected by provincial parties, and were thus independent of party leaders in the Commons, they would fulfil two very useful functions they don't serve now. They would monitor the honesty and competence of government -- quite a challenge these days. Six years of unconfirmed rumours might not elapse before things like Adscam were ferreted out and exposed. (And Ottawa is becoming exceedingly corrupt under one-party rule. Since Chrétien took power, Canada has sunk from fourth-best in the world to 12th on the global corruption scale.) Second, senators would speak for the cultural and economic interests of the provinces that elected them, not shill for the prime minister. We would not see, for example, an "Alberta" senator, Tommy Banks, heading the Liberals' Alice-in-wonderland Kyoto initiative in the upper house -- not, at any rate, if he cared to keep his job. But then, he probably wouldn't have run for the job in the first place. He's actually a jazz piano player. Quite a good one. That this man could serve in so powerful a position for decades without once reporting to either the legislature or the electorate of the province which (in theory) he represents, is too preposterous for adult discussion. This is why eyes rolled in Alberta when Martin declared, in his customary meaningless and overblown way, that he'd consider appointing elected senators, would end the democratic deficit, and will have failed if he doesn't solve western alienation. I strongly sense (for whatever that is worth) that we in Alberta are about to end this tiresome charade once and for all. There's a growing realization that we live in a country that can't defend itself, can't govern itself and can't explain its existence. Decade after decade it elects national governments that use Alberta money to bribe voters in Eastern Canada to take more money. What will come next out of Alberta is not another futile plea to appoint our Senate candidates. We have asked nicely too often. Rather, I predict that Canada will be sent a constitutional ultimatum to institute (among other things) a full Triple-E Senate. If it isn't accepted within the requisite three years, I predict Albertans will vote on secession, using the referendum process laid out for Quebec in the federal Clarity Act. I can't prove this, obviously, and I may be wrong. We'll just have to wait and see. - Link Byfield is one of four Alberta senators-elect and chair of the Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy in Edmonton. He was raised and educated in Manitoba. |
A Personal View - Judith Pankewitz Who am I? I'm an Albertan who believes in self-reliance, justice and free enterprise...and we are not enjoying this at any political level. Further, I believe that as long as we are part of Canada, we will lose these attributes as progressive thinking -- the new socialism -- takes over. As long as Albertans put all their energy into a seige mentality against Ottawa (and this is an entirely normal reaction, given what has happened), then they are unprepared to take an honest look at our PC government, which I regard as Liberals in a PC suit. If Ottawa can be jettisoned from the equation, then that means we have only two levels of government to deal with (provincial and municipal) and we can start paying attention to what's happening at the provincial level and start to build something great. Unless that happens, I feel we are in big trouble. By the terms of the Constitution, Ottawa has wide reaching taxing powers that no one can challenge. As a result, the Liberals have been deliberately building up its surpluses by withholding tax transfers to the provinces (except for Quebec) so that they can't effectively execute their responsibilities. Then, just when things are at its worst, the Liberals will offer money for "a national initiative" to bring the country up to code. Since starving people don't care where their bread comes from, the masses begin clammoring for the initiative, even though it means allowing the feds into provincial jurisdictions. The provinces are in a no-win situation. Since few citizens understand about federal/provincial jurisdictions, they don't care about the ramifications of signing the deal -- they just want the money. So, if the provinces don't sign, they are treated as villians by their citizenry; if they do sign, they have just opened the doors to even more interference, and control, by the feds. Either way, the Liberals come off looking like white knights and can laugh themselves silly over how easy it is to gain even more power in this country. This is how they have won, and will continue to win, elections. The best example of this is the "New Deal For Cities." All the mayors have been jumping up and down with glee over Martin's sudden interest in their plight and have been praising him to high heaven for his compassion. What they should have done is read the fine print. Anyone who is waiting with baited breath for this money so that the roads can be fixed should give his head a shake. Although paid for by motorists, this money cannot go towards road/highway maintenance. It has to be used for public transportation or green initiatives (whatever the heck that means). In addition, I don't think ordinary citizens know this. As well, they don't seem to know that only a paltry $5 billion (out of $30 billion) is being returned, with the rest going to a large pot to buy votes in eastern Canada. And when you start dividing $5 billion by the time-frame for the giveaway (5 years), that leaves $1 billion/year. Divide that $1 billion by all the municipalities across Canada, and that leaves "not very much money" to actually do anything constructive. But people aren't going to know this -- they're too busy to read beyond the headline "New Deal For Cities" -- so I predict that federal Liberal popularity will rise in time for the next election. And we shouldn't feel too smug in Alberta. Again, anyone who thinks that this PC government has defended Alberta's interests against the Liberals should give his head a shake really hard. The media message "Keep your hands off" is far different to what really happens behind closed doors. My grandfather was a pioneer of this province. The last thing I want to see is all his hard work wiped out by Marxist socialists from the east. |
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