[Thanos]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Generalizations like how how awful a Liberal provincial government would be for this reason or that (Thanos especially) - generalizations that are based solely on their opinions of the federal Liberal party and PET/Chretien. Given that it's highly unlikely that anyone on CKA was actually alive when the Alberta Liberals ran this province, those opinions are biased and generally without merit.

So I deserve it because I voted wrong. Gee, thanks.

[bootlegga]

Thanos Thanos:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Generalizations like how how awful a Liberal provincial government would be for this reason or that (Thanos especially) - generalizations that are based solely on their opinions of the federal Liberal party and PET/Chretien. Given that it's highly unlikely that anyone on CKA was actually alive when the Alberta Liberals ran this province, those opinions are biased and generally without merit.

So I deserve it because I voted wrong. Gee, thanks.

I wouldn't say deserve, but voters like yourself are a big part of the problem. If we didn't have a defacto one party state because of archaic voter attitudes like yours, we probably would have gotten off the resource roller coaster decades ago. Instead, Albertans like you channel their rage over the NEP at the provincial Liberal party and steadfastly refuse to even consider the NDP becuase they are commies.

That's why the PCs are the longest running provincial parry in Canadian history.

I freely admit I mistakenly thought they had changed after Stelmach became Premier and so voted PC. I also got tricked into thinking Redford was an actual PROGRESSIVE Conservative. However, previous to those two, I had never voted PC and I vow to never do so again.

What are you going to do to see things change? If you do nothing, then maybe you actually do deserve it.

[Thanos]

SO you missed my multiple posts over the last couple of years where I said that I didn't vote for the PC's since the late 1990's then, that for the last three elections I held my nose and voted WildRose because I found the late Klein era and the Stelmach/Redfraud PC's to be so repellent. But I guess in your view from the ivory tower that isn't good enough because I apparently should have been working to bring the same kind of Liberal vision to Alberta that McGuinty/Wynne have used to make Ontario such a paradise over the last decade. A $300 billion in debt kind of paradise but, hey, when you have the power to raise taxes exponentially at a whim what does it matter what any detractors have to say.

Glad to know that you and your high horse find my personal Armageddon to be so amusing. This is something that I'll make an effort to note and not forget while I proceed forward on this site.

[bootlegga]

Thanos Thanos:

SO you missed my multiple posts over the last couple of years where I said that I didn't vote for the PC's since the late 1990's then, that for the last three elections I held my nose and voted WildRose because I found the late Klein era and the Stelmach/Redfraud PC's to be so repellent. But I guess in your view from the ivory tower that isn't good enough because I apparently should have been working to bring the same kind of Liberal vision to Alberta that McGuinty/Wynne have used to make Ontario such a paradise over the last decade. A $300 billion in debt kind of paradise but, hey, when you have the power to raise taxes exponentially at a whim what does it matter what any detractors have to say.

Glad to know that you and your high horse find my personal Armageddon to be so amusing. This is something that I'll make an effort to note and not forget while I proceed forward on this site.

There's that Made in Alberta arrogance I've been talking about - thanks for helping prove my point!

What proof do you have that Alberta Liberals are the same as Ontario Librrals? None, yet here you railing on about them as if the last time they ran Alberta was 9 years ago, instead of the actual 93 years ago.

And you voted Wildrose in the last three elections!?! Seriously? These boobs had less concern for you than PCs ever did. At least they could claim to be progressive (emphasis on 'claim'). How you can rail on continuously about the Republicans down south and then vote Wildrose is a hypocrisy I can't begin to understand.

The Wildrose remind me of Ron Silver in Timecop, "When I'm in office it's going to be just like the 80s. The top 10% will get richer and the other 90% can immigrate to Mexico where they can get a better life."

FTR, I don't take any pleasure in your (or any other Albertan's) predicament, but it's eeriely like Einstein's definition of crazy - doing the same thin over and over (in is case voting conservative) and expecting different results.

[Zipperfish]

Alberta, Alberta, Where you been so long?
Alberta, Alberta, Where you been so long?
Ain't had no loving, since you been gone.

[Thanos]

I'm not sure what's worse. The reality that I am literally losing everything. Or that I'm being accused of arrogance and hypocrisy by proud Liberals, and that they're laughing at me as my entire life is being destroyed.

[Unsound]

Who's laughing? No one here that I've seen.

[JaredMilne]

Thanos Thanos:

SO you missed my multiple posts over the last couple of years where I said that I didn't vote for the PC's since the late 1990's then, that for the last three elections I held my nose and voted WildRose because I found the late Klein era and the Stelmach/Redfraud PC's to be so repellent. But I guess in your view from the ivory tower that isn't good enough because I apparently should have been working to bring the same kind of Liberal vision to Alberta that McGuinty/Wynne have used to make Ontario such a paradise over the last decade. A $300 billion in debt kind of paradise but, hey, when you have the power to raise taxes exponentially at a whim what does it matter what any detractors have to say.

bootlegga bootlegga:

I wouldn't say deserve, but voters like yourself are a big part of the problem. If we didn't have a defacto one party state because of archaic voter attitudes like yours, we probably would have gotten off the resource roller coaster decades ago. Instead, Albertans like you channel their rage over the NEP at the provincial Liberal party and steadfastly refuse to even consider the NDP becuase they are commies.

And you guys each proved one half of my point-namely, that there's plenty of fair criticism to be made of the way Alberta's handled its oil wealth over the last few decades, but that there's also a sense among many of us that we're looked down on for continuing to support conservative parties the way we have, even when we only do so because we consider them the most palatable option, and we feel like we're being insulted for being arrogant or stupid because of our political choices.

From everything I've seen, that's actually how most Albertans feel about Stephen Harper-many of them are not particularly enthused about him or his job performance, but they continue to support him because they feel that Justin Trudeau or Tom Mulcair would be far worse, as Thanos alluded to. When political leaders we support get pilloried as racist or un-Canadian, many people in Alberta-and likely other parts of the country-who support these leaders end up feeling as though the people attacking the political leaders we support are also implying that we're racist or un-Canadian for supporting them. Preston Manning wrote quite a bit about this in his books The New Canada and Think Big: My Life In Politics.

On the other hand, though, bootlegga hits the nail on the head when he talks about how poorly Alberta has managed its fiscal resources-something that Peter Lougheed has alluded to:

$1:

That’s one of my major concerns with the current situation in the province. I believed in the concept of the Heritage Savings Trust Fund, putting aside 30 per cent of natural gas and conventional oil – and, in due course, from the oilsands – into the Fund, and we built it up fairly quickly, actually, to $13 billion. But when the prices went into a tailspin – and the National Energy Program arrived in 1980 – there was a strong impact on the economy, so we started to use the income from the Heritage Savings Trust Fund for current needs of government. My view at the time was that that hopefully would be a short-term situation and then we would be able to recover. Unfortunately, it got worse.

...

The discipline that we had with the Heritage Savings Trust Fund of 30 percent of our revenues – I’ll leave aside the income side – 30 percent of our revenues being put aside in a savings fund didn’t occur. Today the – what, $16 billion? – Heritage Savings Trust Fund should really be 50, 60, 70 billion dollars if they had followed that. It also creates a discipline on your budget because when you’re creating your budget for the year for the province, after you’ve taken the 30 percent of natural resource revenues and put it aside in the Heritage Fund, then you’re left with the rest and you want a balanced budget. I have been critical of the Klein administration in terms of not forcing themselves into the position of being disciplined with regard to the Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

Lougheed is for Alberta what John A. Macdonald was for Canada as a whole, and unfortunately he's been proven right over and over. That's fair criticism, and a lot of it has been made by farsighted Albertans like him.

Unfortunately, it tends to get lumped in with the cruder, more insulting criticism that Thanos talks about, the kind that just ridicules us as glorified Captain Planet villains, hooded cross-burners, unpatriotic traitors, or what have you.

(EDIT: Bootlegga rightly called me out for my sloppy quoting. What I actually meant to say was how Bootlegga proves the half of my point about how short-sighted Albertans have proven to be in managing our provincial resources. I've changed the quotes to ones that, I hope, better reflect what I was trying to get across.

Mea culpa, bro. )

[bootlegga]

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

And you guys each proved one half of my point-namely, that there's plenty of fair criticism to be made of the way Alberta's handled its oil wealth over the last few decades, but that there's also a sense among many of us that we're looked down on for continuing to support conservative parties the way we have, even when we only do so because we consider them the most palatable option, and we feel like we're being insulted for being arrogant or stupid because of our political choices.

How did I prove your point?

I'm an Albertan myself and one who loves it and wants the best for it - and doesn't feel that the right-wing parties in this province fit the bill any longer. I'm not someone from Ontario or the Maritimes or B.C. or wherever you believe the 'Alberta-haters' live.

If I'm not allowed to criticize the province I live in, then who the hell is?

The fact is Alberta is verging on Einstein's definition of crazy - we've elected right-wing governments for more than 70 years in a row and somehow the Henrys & Marthas of this province are surprised when they screw things up like the planning for the boom/bust cycle that has been part and parcel of this province almost from the get go.

And if you're going to quote me, at least do it correctly - that mishmash of quotes is a haphazard cut and paste that isn't close to accurate. My Made-in-Alberta arrogance comment was in reference to Thanos' comparison of Alberta Liberals as being exactly the same as McGunity/Wynne (even though a Liberal government has run this province in over 90 years), not because he voted for the Wildrose.

[martin14]

bootlegga bootlegga:

What proof do you have that Alberta Liberals are the same as Ontario Librrals? N

Liberals are Liberals, the city / county /province /country / hemisphere won't change anything.

Always more tax, more pathetic mismanaged spending on utter bullshit.

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

Stephen Harper-many of them are not particularly enthused about him or his job performance, but they continue to support him because they feel that Justin Trudeau or Tom Mulcair would be far worse, as Thanos alluded to. When political leaders we support get pilloried as racist or un-Canadian, many people in Alberta-and likely other parts of the country-who support these leaders end up feeling as though the people attacking the political leaders we support are also implying that we're racist or un-Canadian for supporting them. Preston Manning wrote quite a bit about this in his books The New Canada and Think Big: My Life In Politics.

This. ^

I would prefer a real Conservative party to come along.

Until then, no other choice.

[DrCaleb]

martin14 martin14:

bootlegga bootlegga:

What proof do you have that Alberta Liberals are the same as Ontario Librrals? N

Liberals are Liberals, the city / county /province /country / hemisphere won't change anything.

Always more tax, more pathetic mismanaged spending on utter bullshit.

BC's Liberal Government seems to be running a surplus . . .

[martin14]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

martin14 martin14:

bootlegga bootlegga:

What proof do you have that Alberta Liberals are the same as Ontario Librrals? N

Liberals are Liberals, the city / county /province /country / hemisphere won't change anything.

Always more tax, more pathetic mismanaged spending on utter bullshit.

BC's Liberal Government seems to be running a surplus . . .

LINO

It's a Conservative Party. Gunny won't agree, but that's the reality.

BC politics is almost as bad as Italy.

I said almost.

[DrCaleb]

martin14 martin14:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

martin14 martin14:

Liberals are Liberals, the city / county /province /country / hemisphere won't change anything.

Always more tax, more pathetic mismanaged spending on utter bullshit.

BC's Liberal Government seems to be running a surplus . . .

LINO

It's a Conservative Party. Gunny won't agree, but that's the reality.

BC politics is almost as bad as Italy.

I said almost.

That's kind of my point though; just because a party calls themselves 'liberal' doesn't mean they are the same as the Federal 'Liberal' Party. Alberta's Liberals were headed by a former Conservative MLA who is a practicing ER. Doctor. I'd put them far more to the political right than the BC Liberals too. Doesn't mean I'd vote for them, but it also doesn't mean I'd generalize the Provincial Liberal party's characteristics just because the federal Liberals are the biggest douchbags in Canadian politics. Same way I wouldn't judge the Alberta Progressive Conservatives just because I don't consider the Conservative Party of Canada to be 'conservative' any longer.

[Zipperfish]

Thanos Thanos:

I'm not sure what's worse. The reality that I am literally losing everything. Or that I'm being accused of arrogance and hypocrisy by proud Liberals, and that they're laughing at me as my entire life is being destroyed.

I'm sorry to hear that old buddy. Things'll pick up. They always do.

[Zipperfish]

martin14 martin14:

LINO

It's a Conservative Party. Gunny won't agree, but that's the reality.

BC politics is almost as bad as Italy.

I said almost.

Yeah, I don't know how they came up wirth the name Liberal, but they are not philosophically similar to the Liberal Party of Canada. They tend to be social liberals, fiscal conservatives.

As for BC politics, there's no shortage of farce, but I do have to say that we've progressed from the bad old days of Willie Woodenshoes, Joe Clark and (facepalm) Moe Sihota.