The Gods of the Copybook Headings

PQ Loves AB

Love means always having to say you're sorry:

Quebecers don't hate Alberta, according to a poll released Thursday by a Montreal-based think tank trying to deepen a relationship between the two provinces rife with "bad blood."

The 1,000-person survey conducted by Léger Marketing on behalf of the Montreal Economic Institute found 61 per cent of those polled in Quebec held a positive view of Alberta. A further 71 per cent said the province should continue to develop the oilsands, provided efforts are made to limit the environmental impact.

Which means nothing. You cannot extract oil from oilsand through the power of rainbows. It's a very messy business. The price of an industrial civilization is seriously ruining some parts of the earth's surface. Hoping that mythical Green technologies - most of which are economically unsustainable - will make resource extraction of any kind smell like roses and wine is foolhardy.

The 71% who say that Alberta should continue to develop the oil sands might have assumed that "limit environmental impact" means one guy with a shovel and a small pick-up truck. Think I'm exaggerating the naivety of those surveyed? Here is what that same poll said about the future of oil:

“The majority of [respondents] (56%) think that Quebec will still need oil in 20 years,” the MEI reported.

Huh? What do the other 44% think the cars of La Belle Province will be powered by in a generation? Gallic arrogance? The fresh clear water of the St Lawrence? Jean Charest's special hair elixir? The MEI survey undertook to discover what residents of Canada's least loyal province think of Canada's most conservative province. The answer is not much.

Sure the official Leger Marketing report stated that "Quebeckers generally have a positive image of Alberta." Really? Is that image born out of intimate knowledge or hazy understanding? A former Quebec premier once declared to a federalist rival: "Well, if you still want your Rocky Mountains, keep them." That seems about as far as the thinking goes in Quebec. There are mountains, oil and cowboys in Alberta. It's like Dallas, except with more mountains. Ralph Klein was like a portly and somewhat vulgarian J.R. Ewing.

You cannot love what you don't bother trying to understand.

 

The Firewall in My Heart

Macleans digs deep and finds this:

Alberta has opted for the best of Canada’s heritage — a combination of American enterprise and individualism with the British traditions of order and co-operation. We have created an open, dynamic and prosperous society in spite of a continuously hostile federal government.

Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status, led by a second-world strongman appropriately suited for the task.

My first reaction was that the boys over at our national magazine of record - since 1905! - had pilfered one of my posts. No such luck. The above was written by one Stephen Harper, originally of Toronto, then Calgary and more recently Ottawa. The above was written way back in November of 2000. I'm sure you remember those halcyon days.

Only foreign policy geeks knew who Osama bin Laden was. Economists were fearlessly predicting that the business cycle had been abolished, just before the Gods of the Stock Market decided to remind everyone what a nasty recession looked like. The National Post, where Stephen Harper's diatribe appeared, was owned by Conrad Black, whose legal problems were into the future.