A letter from Quebec to my friends in Alberta By Alec Castonguay – December 21, 2018,
Mcleans posted an article titled: A letter from Quebec to my friends in Alberta, it was written by Alec Castonguay who is the political bureau chief for L’Actualité, where this column first appeared. is a Montreal based Canadian French-language news and general interest magazine that I believe is part of Rogers Communications. You can read the opinionated article for yourself by clicking the link below:
To put this article from my perspective in proper context people should consider reading the Twitter Post by Maxime Bernier, that a lot of left-leaning socialists have a hard time comprehending. Now, I first have to point out that I live in Ontario and quite frankly what annoys me about Alberta is the lack of entrepreneurship in that province. I’m not sure if this is a result of the Federal Governments regulating Alberta to death or just Albertans, in general, preferring a big paycheck over ownership.
Part of the reason I’ve been critical of the Albertan oilsands is the amount of foreign ownership related to the Oilsands, I’m not anti-pipeline, I’m pro-Albertan entrepreneurship because if there were more Albertan entrepreneurs Albertan Oil would be branded on more products, which is something I’d like to see. Because often is the case that a lot of Canadians have no idea how things are produced and the reason for this is lack of awareness.
I’d love to see more stickers, or advertising, a larger push for made from “Albertan energy” because quite frankly a lot of people in Canada have no clue how important Albertan energy is to our economy and quite frankly I blame Albertans for that. Everywhere I go to Ontario I see made in Quebec this, made in Ontario that, when I see anything that’s made in Canada I’m more inclined to support them.
I even accidentally purchased I “designed in Canada, made in China” t-shirt because I thought it was made in Canada. I love supporting my own people, however, if I don’t know you’re making something or you’re responsible for key ingredients to improving my quality of life how in the hell am I going to be sympathetic when you start complaining about you being treated unfairly?
If you’re an Albertan I want you to understand that you need to start pushing “Made in Alberta” because Albertans haven’t been doing this, as a business person who understands the power of branding, you Albertans are shooting yourselves in the foot. MADE IN ALBERTAN, MADE IN ALBERTA, MADE IN ALBERTA, get those words through your thick skulls and start stamping everything that comes from Alberta. If a foreign company creates jobs in Albertan demand that foreign company put MADE IN ALBERTA on your products. I remember a few years ago the following non-oil related article came to m attention
WTO rejects final U.S. appeal on meat labelling
I remember reading the above article and saying to myself, what a stupid move by Albertans to promote Alberta, I should mention that I’m not a fan of globalist trilateral and/or multilateral trade deals because in my opinion countries lose their sovereignty, that aside, it Amazes me that a lot of Albertans don’t understand the power of branding. “Made in China” is everywhere and what a lot of people all across the globe don’t know is China usually doesn’t make anything, they usually assemble products together, however everywhere you go you’ll see Made in China, because so many humans see “made in China” everywhere even Political figures like Justin Trudeau are fearful what to say when the Chinese Communist Party kidnaps Canadians residing in China.
If you talk to most left-leaning Canadians and even Americans the thought of a trade war scares the crap out of them. “Oh no”, these weak, lazy minded people say to themselves “who’s going to make all our cheap stuff, without the Chinese” Please Prime Minister Trudeau, Please Mr President Donald Trump, give in to the mighty, powerful Chinese, we need to exploit their cheap labor in order to sustain ourselves. I bring this up to Albertans that this is the power of branding, and if you Albertans don’t start creating more entrepreneurs who push an Albertan agenda, this will be a common problem for you going forward.
Now in response to this Alec Castonguay article, it should be noted that in my opinion he’s writing that piece from a place of entitlement and in case most people haven’t read Maxime Bernier’s tweet consider reading it below and also consider following Maxime Bernier on twitter:
1/ Five years ago, Quebec imported most of its oil from overseas and only a tiny portion came from North America.
Today, most of it comes from western Canada and the US, thanks in large part to the reversal of Enbridge’s Line 9B pipeline in 2015. https://t.co/dLNN8ot1pv
— Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) December 19, 2018
As it stands now, unless Quebec changes its behavior, Quebec will be a have not province now into infinity.
Equalization payments in Canada – wWikipedia
Alberta, on the other hand, is a have not province primarily because of legislation and regulation, without the Government intervening in the Albertan economy, chances are they’d be in a position to potentially buy up all of Canada, it’s actually via government involvement in the Albertan economy why it has any economic problems, this is a fact, everybody and their neighbor considers moving to Alberta to make money. People choose Alberta not only because of Oil but because of how the people think. People forget that all over the globe there are tons of countries, often referred to as tax havens that have no natural resources, but these countries attract capital because those countries often have a small government and believe in Free Markets, well Quebec, Quebecers, a vast majority of you are socialists, some are communists and many others are firm believers in Big Government. If we included Crown Corporations, Quebec’s Public Sector is easily over 35%, which means if today in 2018, Quebec decided that it wanted to have 1995 style Quebec independence referendum
It would be a big joke to most Conservative Canadians in the know, in fact, a large number of Canadians might even welcome the idea. I’ve often said Argentina comes to mind when I think of Quebec as an independent nation, now, the reality is Quebec would probably seek some sort of reparations if they became an independent nation, but for a lot of Canadians, the idea of shedding an influential portion of Canada that’s very entitled and socialistic would be a dream come true. When I read the “A letter from Quebec to my friends in Alberta – By Alec Castonguay” it screams of entitlement, as if Alberta is somehow lucky, that Quebec buys its’ oil? Is Quebec not lucky that Equalization payments(transfer payments) in Canada is a real thing? It’s important to understand that…
The purpose of equalization payments is to enable the “have not” provinces to provide public services which are reasonably comparable to those in other provinces, at similar levels of taxation.
To understand how money for the public sector is derived is to understand that with a strong Private sector, socialism simply does not work, in order for any big government program to work a country cannot be isolated. One of the jokes of 2018 was the movie, Black Panther. In the movie Wakanda was pretty isolated, innovation typically doesn’t occur in isolated regions, if a country is isolated and lets say trades it’s resources for money even if that money is backed by gold it will still be nearly impossible for that nation to be able to acquire technology without trading ideas with other nations, which of course would lead to neighboring countries have similar technology as Wakanda.
Now, fantasy films can make people believe whatever they want, but typically regions with big government or massive public sector spending usually have the same problems as Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, and even France. When the government redistributes private sector money to the public sector and it becomes a written or unwritten law that the public sector can not or should not shrink in size, it’s only a matter of time before that country Stagnates and in time ends up like Venezuela. The Quebec economy really reminds me of Argentina, with that said, I don’t deem it wise that Quebecers take the Alec Castonguay approach of trying to talk down to Albertans, The Quebecer, the people of Quebec should listen to is Peoples Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier. It’s time to engage in real debate, have real discussions and be honest about what’s happening in Canada.
Quebec is for the most part energy independent right? If they are how did they find themselves being a have not province? A surplus in one sector but massive deficits in other sectors? Hmmm, could a big bloated expensive Quebec government with overpaid public sector employees have anything to do with this? hmm, I wonder? lol
Interesting times ahead