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In his famous first inaugural address, President Roosevelt said: “Our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things.” Unfortunately, we cannot claim the same, though we have those also. Current polls indicate that about 43 per cent of Quebecers support separatist parties, not the 49 per cent who in the 1995 referendum voted to authorize negotiations for sovereignty with association, but that’s compared to the 38 per cent who appear to be federalists and 19 per cent who are ambiguous or undecided.
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Polls also show approximately 30 per cent of Albertans as separatists, which in practice means for many that they wish to join the United States. If Mr. Carney proceeds with any significant part of his immensely ambitious climate change program, that 30 per cent may confidently be expected to become a majority. And in those circumstances, Albertans would be right to vote for secession-they would be much better appreciated in the United States than they have been by Canadians who have pillaged Alberta for decades to try to buy the votes of ungrateful Quebecers for federalism. Equalization payments were adopted by the St. Laurent government in 1955 as a consolation prize to themselves when Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis, after reminding Ottawa for 20 years that direct taxes were a concurrent jurisdiction, imposed a provincial income tax and threatened Ottawa with an election on the issue if it did not allow the deduction of Quebec provincial income tax for purposes of calculating the federal taxable income of Quebecers. Latterly, Quebec has been much better managed economically than Canada and it is not clear that Quebec has any reason to expect the volume of equalization and transfer payments to continue as it has. I would like the film rights to the response to the first request Quebec receives for contribution to help equalize the living standards of the Atlantic provinces.
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These are just symptoms of the fragility of this Confederation. Next to Saudi Arabia and the United States, we probably have the greatest oil reserves of any country in the world but still import large quantities of oil in the East because as the premier of Quebec might say, “We don’t want your dirty oil.” It appears that neither side is happy with continuation of this arrangement. Nor should they be. As was mentioned in this place last week, a British Columbia justice has found that the natural right of the Indigenous people of this country takes priority over the property rights of those who enjoy unencumbered fee simple ownership of real estate. If this view is sustained by our higher courts, which have deluged us with such a shower of asinine judgments that it is impossible to rule out anything no matter how absurd, then 95 per cent of the immense area of this country remains ultimately the property of the approximately five per cent of Canadians who are Indigenous. The fatuity of this state of affairs does not require elaboration.
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The former government of Justin Trudeau acquiesced in the view that this country has attempted genocide on the natives, putting us in a category at the United Nations with the most infamous regimes in the modern world. The flashpoint was the purported discovery of unmarked graves of native children near a discontinued residential school in British Columbia. The whole country donned sackcloth and ashes and all flags were lowered for six months, but there is still no proof the alleged incident has taken place.
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Canada is terribly enervated and has been degraded by this systematic abasement of our nationality. We are awaiting Carney’s plan to lead us to a better condition. The summer is almost over and it’s time for him to do his job. Canada’s future hangs in the balance.
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National Post
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