heroquest

Does anyone else share this trait with me. He is just a self-centered pig who can't see past what his greedy hands can get on. Screw the rest of Canada, screw everyone but the Conservative's of Alberta.

He is the only person in politics, whos rabid followers will make excuses for this drunk's behaviour. Nowhere else but in Alberta could the Premier get drunk, tell his driver to go to a homeless centre and hurl insults at people. It just makes me go nuts.

I'm also tired of how he's always hinting at how Quebec might have the right idea and should split fromt the rest of Canada. He is so shortsighted, that he can't see that one day Alberta will not be Canada's richest Province.

Not only that but he is trying to tear Medicare apart in that Province. Two-tier healthcare is going to be the end of Canada, as we know and love. It will just create another way to seperate the class structures: Those who can afford to pay for their health, and those who can't.

[/rant]

Kyrin

Do you live in Alberta? I do, and I, along with most of the people I know, support Klein, crazy as he may seem to some, and as much as he puts his foot in his mouth at times, he's done a hell of a lot more for our province than any other premier has done for theirs and we're proud of him for it.

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My opinions are my own, you may or may not agree with them, but those are your opinions, which I also may or may not agree with.

Mr. Munchy

Right, beacause Ontario sure isn't privatizing healthcare as well...

And while Alberta may not always be Canada's richest province, Quebec almost certainly never will... And Quebec will NEVER separate from Canada, they need too much money to do that. By all rights Alberta should be the one threatening to leave and violating our constitution with a notwithstanding clause.

Maybe you never thought of the reverse situation? That of Ontario and Quebec saying "screw the west, screw everyone except eastern Canada".

heroquest

Who said I even lived in the East?

unbzete

Mr. Munchy, I'm not really sure what you mean about violating the constitution...the notwhistanding clause is a PROVISION of the constitution. If memory serves, it's section 33 of the Charter.

And heroquest, although I love King Ralph, I understand that a lot of people feel the way you do. Like Bush in the US, Klein is right wing to a large enough extent that he acts as a polarizing force. And it's altogether possible that he would be less popular if Alberta wasn't awash in such oil wealth (but I doubt it). However that's a moot point anwyay, because Alberta is going to be Canada's richest province for all of my lifespan, and likely my children's. So I think perhaps calling him shortsighted would be inaccurate.

frankgrimes

Hero, I know what you're talking about, but since I don't live in Alberta and out of respect for those who do like him, I won't go too crazy here, but I just don't understand how he can get away with anything. Financial scandals, conflicts of interest, drunken rants, nothing seems to hurt this guy...

Suave

Klein is an absolutely awful premier. The thing that irritates me isn't Klein himself, but the rabid support he has from so many people, for doing so much crap. IF YOU WANT A FREE MARKET ECONOMY, MOVE TO THE UNITED STATES.

metalgeek

How is he an awful premier? when has he said something he doesn't do? when has he out and out lied about something?
The Conservitives broguth this pronvicne back form 30B in Debt and 3 B in defiicit to where we are today (I realize they started it, but Klien did what it took.)
How many other Primiers would stick to there guns to do something like this?

heroquest

That's what my rambling point was. I can't seem to figure out how his followers can actually support the awful and basically illegal things he does.

frankgrimes

It just seems the Multi-Corp scandal alone should have been enough to bring him down. It would have been in B.C., where premiers regularly resign for less. But B.C. (generally) has a strong and relentless opposition and a media which (generally) is tough on the government, and a history of swinging back and forth from right to left. Alberta never changes governments, has little opposition and a popular media which is government freindly. Nobody holds Ralph to account, so he can do what he wants. But, hey, I don't live there, so I'm not going to try and tell my Albertan neighbours what to do...

JustDisGuy

Just out of curiosity, how is it that a provincial government that refused to sign the Constitution Act is able to take advantage of "the notwithstanding clause" contained within our Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Seems to me like they want to have their cake and eat it too.

In the on-topic part of this post - a LOT of Albertans despised Klein when he was first elected. His policies created a lot of pain for Albertans, but in the end paid off. He was fortunate enough to have the results for his laurels in order to get re-elected. I'm not a conservative politically speaking, but if you look at Alberta where a conservative government has been elected for the last 30+ years, and at Saskatchewan which is right next door and no less resource-wealthy but where we have elected Social Democrats since the Devine government bent us over in the eighties, you have to wonder if there are any other causal links related to economic prosperity or whether this is the main one.

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"Act as if the future of the universe depends on what you do, while laughing at yourself for thinking that your actions make any difference."

Suave

He has the largest propoganda budget of any of the Canadian provincial governments, which is a clue right off the bat. The "representative" questionnaire he sent out recently, asking what Albertans want, was completely biased and good only as fire tinder. I don't give a shit if he sticks to his guns, when his "guns" are bad policies. There are more important things than reducing debt.

Even though we are now fully out of debt, and have an enormous surplus, he's still slashing the education budget. U of C is taking a 20% funding cut over the next 5 years because of this asshole. And just wait until he gets re-elected and reintroduces his ideas for privatized health care again. Oh yeah, this guy's a fucking genius isn't he?

While I'm pissing and moaning, I may as well bring up the deregulation of the market, which means that companies can now operate under less strict environmental rules, and fuck up nature more. The job cuts he's been making in the government have adversely affected more women than men, and his policies are clearly pushing for a traditional "woman stays at home, man goes and works" society.

Jusdis, Saskatchewan doesn't have NEARLY the amount of oil we do. That's the only reason we're a wealthy province.

unbzete

An impotent opposition, a fawning media, scandals that are never followed up on, totally unaccountable government that retains power election after election....hmm why does that sounds familiar?

On a totally unrelated note, how many of you voted Liberal in the federal elections?

Janey

Wow so many parallels with Mel Lastman!

Charlatan

Wow... that was the lowest blow yet!

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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Janey

The pleasure is all mine .....

splck

heh...now that's funny...

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nice line eh?

Janey

oh no... I voted liberal. bad girl (can somebody help slap me?)

JustDisGuy

I was referring to overall 'resource wealth'. Saskatchewan has something like 1/3 of the entire world's uranium deposits, as well as being one of the major if not the only sources of potash. Add in the many other mines - gold, diamonds, and who knows what else along with vast tracts of timber and being the buckle in the country's 'grain belt' and what it boils down to is a difference in resource management, rather than a difference in resource wealth.

I think that Saskatchewan could be one of the foremost economic regions in the country if we could just elect some assholes that were on our side instead of looking out for their own interests. That's pretty much the story of Canadian politics in general though, isn't it? Nice democracy we have - once, for a day, every four or five years. <sigh>

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"Act as if the future of the universe depends on what you do, while laughing at yourself for thinking that your actions make any difference."

frankgrimes

And when we start driving uranium and potash powered SUVs, Saskatchewan will be rich!

JustDisGuy

Bahahaha. Point taken.

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"Act as if the future of the universe depends on what you do, while laughing at yourself for thinking that your actions make any difference."

metalgeek

Queue a John Stewart, Wha?
He has not slashed the U of C budget. the U of C got a 6% funding increase last year. what the U of C was saying is that it needs to cut x aount of dollars (funds between 30-72million) over the next 4 years to meet there debt. Your insane if you think the government is slashing education funding right now.
And why would having a two tier system be so bad? Ontario already has it.

Edit, and to bring in Sask. They do have oil. Cuirrent reserve estimates are at just over 1 billion barrels. That does not include Sask. total of the oil sands as well.
Saskatchewan has resources. They just don't have a government that will benifit the people there.

Suave

Sorry, my mistake on the funding issue. They have to cut their budget by 20% over the next 4 years because the government isn't contributing enough. It still comes down to Klein not giving enough of that surplus to education.

As to two-tiered health care, the only reason it's being offered is they know that no one will accept full on privatized health care at this point. Given the chance, we'd be using HMOs and having health care considered a commodity by everyone.

Defending Klein by using oil profits as a reason is completely weird to me. The Lougheed government was the one that allowed Alberta to make good use of its oil reserves, not Klein. Klein just happened to come into power during a period of economic boom when all of the basic economic infrastructure was in place. They're both conservative governments, but VERY different conservative governments.

R_R_R

all I know is we're out of debt, and getting richer and richer. If you want a peice, move here and you'll reap the benefits. If you don't like him, and don't live here, then don't worry about it. There's an election coming up and we'll deal with it how we see fit. We are allowd to elect which ever candidate we choose...

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What am i doing on this planet?

metalgeek

I do agree on the fact that they need to give more, although I've always wondered why the UofC alwasy seems to be falling apart, to a certain extent I think there not doing a good job managing the university, it used to be quite highly rated in the annual survey's, and well, now look at it.
But Klien was not elected during an econmoic boom, or at least not at a time like right now, we were in an econonmic slowdown at that point in time. Our unemployment rate was at 9.3% at the time. (another interesting stat, since 1993 we've gained about 500k people in alberta, and the total employed is up just under 500k people)
The economic infrastruture was not in place, besides the fact we already had in industry. The previous government ran up a debt of 22.7 billion, and had a deficit the year before of 1.4 billion. It had just completed such boondogles as the swan hills plant.

I'm not defending him using oil profits, I'm defending him by saying he's used the profits well, and helped maintain/create and environment where we can profit from the oil prices.

OFKU0

I'm in. Which cheek?

I don't mind Klein but one of the reasons he is so pissed is because between Alberta and Ontario, Quebec gets subsidized for being a have not province.

When Paul Martin was campaigning this summer, he tried and succeeded to convince people that there would be no two tiered healthcare and that Klein and Harper would destroy Canada because of it. What was it, a few weeks ago at the first premiers meeting that Quebec can and still operate two tiered healthcare but the rest of Canada can't. Who's scary now? Actually Martin isn't scary, just another Liberal liar.

Either that or it's the billions that Quebec generates from selling hydro to the northeastern states that doesn't get taxed at a federal level all the while Alberta pays through the nose from oil subsidies. Funny to how when Klein suggests Alberta seperation he is a tyrant of the worst makings but when Quebec does it, the money doesn't stop rolling in. Sad actually.

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" In Canada, you can tell the most blatant lie in a calm voice, and people will believe you over someone who's a little passionate about the truth." David Warren, Western Standard.

Janey

for my esteemed cowboy, you can do all 4 cheeks

mostly because you can construct a compelling arguement. But i might swear at you in chinese....

OFKU0

Heh heh. That would be a first, that being sworn at in chinese. Cowboy? No cowboys here in Ottawa. Just a lot of horseshit flung around.

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" In Canada, you can tell the most blatant lie in a calm voice, and people will believe you over someone who's a little passionate about the truth." David Warren, Western Standard.

JJRousseau

But a beautiful city, none the less!