Wow! Just wow! What a tremendous amount of history you have written about in this article. I have a feeling that I will be spending my weekend looking up all the different aspects of Canadian and world political and economic history that you have mentioned. Can I just say… As a teacher… There is no way that the sound bites that TV or radio news can come close to this level of journalism. People need to read, read, read! Thought provoking, intriguing and important! Thank you!
The quote, “Let those Eastern bastards freeze in the dark,” attributed to former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed was actually made by former Alberta premier Ralph Klein, who also said after some bank robbers were caught, all with Eastern addresses, “Send those Eastern creeps and bums back where they belong.”
This was on T-shirts at the time. One was given to my husband just before we went to Queen’s University in Kingston.
We arrived there and saw middle aged people working fast food joints because they lost their jobs. And Westerners were saying “freeze in the dark?”.
What is Canadian about that? Nothing. Zero. We are Canadians, not PEI, not BC, not MB, not just white, not just brown, not just indigenous, but Canadians. All of us first nations and all immigrants from the 1600s on. The T-shirt became a cleaning rag. I say this as a born and raised Albertan. I was dismayed at the lack of empathy from Alberta. Some of my family now lives in Ontario (born in Alberta as they are). Does that make them less? Shame on UCP, Shame on Danielle Smith for denying Alberta born Canadians. Wow, if, imagine if she had actually left the province and resided in any other part of Canada for more than a vacation? She’s never done it, not the north, not PEI, not Ontario, not BC. Nothing.
Great article. Smith is a sociopath in my opinion. She is a useful tool as part of a larger order called the International Democracy Union with democracy being described by Stephen Harper here in Canada as anything not liberal. A supporting cast of Presto Manning, Tom Flanagan (MAGA mole), Skippy Poilievre (pretend politician) and drinking and driving enthusiast Scott Moe, is buttressing Smith’s dissociative identity disorder as she navigates the troubled waters of Alberta politics. Peter Lougheed has to be shaking his head at Smith’s pathetic attempts to be the Premier of the great province of Alberta. I am sure saner heads will prevail but in the interim let the shite show continue.
She's a previous Fraser Institute intern. That is all, you really need to know. Object: get higher on their "Economic Freedom Index." Shrink govt to the size you can ___ in a bathtub.
I would add, write newspapers and politicians, radio stations, especially in Alberta. Write to Smith. Share this on social media, and encourage others to do the same.
Write your MP, your Mayor, the Premiers, the AFN and Indigenous organizations in your province.
Thank you for all the juicy tidbits, very informative and good to have some background stories... The discussions at the family table are important and it is good to know what one's father or grantfather was up to in life.
The mendacity of Danielle likely borders on sociopathy and the question is, for people that had face to face exchanges with her, is whether that tinge comes through at times? Asking for a friend.
As for the tendencies in population following depressions, I like Gabriel Rockhill explanation:
Liberalism & Fascism: The Good Cop & Bad Cop of Capitalism
"It resulted in U.S. refinery closures. When OPEC drops its prices, it makes U.S. and Canadian oil less competitive - which has an impact on refineries profitability.
This report on the U.S. losing refinery capacity illustrates the problem.
First, it is possible to make billions of dollars as a company, but to lose money consistently in an individual refinery. We have seen this happen a lot with East Coast refiners that didn’t have access to cheaper oil from the U.S. shale boom. They had to continue to procure crude oil on the international markets, and that put them at a competitive disadvantage."
So, if the crudebecomes cheaper when OPEC drops prices, the impact should be on those extracting in North America. Refineries on the other hand, buying cheaper oil from abroad, on the east coast, shouldn't be able to make a bigger profit? Or is the fact that the margins, slims as they are for refiners, are based on the crude price and a percentage from a smaller number is smaller than the percentage of a larger number. If that is the case, this needs to be better articulated in the article to make it hold water and not seem to go against logic.
I would suggest the conflict is between those who create value and pay taxes, and those who live off these same taxes. With the productivity increase the value creating bunch becomes smaller and smaller (think farmers), and the leaching majority can elect whoever would increase taxes and their share. Hence the conflict.
It doesn't serve you well calling names, just because you disagree. Sometimes it's worth considering alternative viewpoints. I grew up in the USSR, went through all sorts of indoctrination, read lots of Lenin; and your writings remind me just that. Lenin was an evil and hard working genius. The result of his work was untold misery and suffering. The only work of Ayn Rand I've read was 'We the Living'. And I can tell you this book was 100% for real. Check it out.
I haven't done anything. I merely expressed my personal opinion. As for my ideology... I could express it in one word, Accountability. Every person, including politicians, should be accountable for their actions. You wasted $10 million in your department? You went $1 billion overbudget? You go to jail for theft.
That's not accountability, that is heavy-handed punishment, and a horrific abuse of the law that has no place in a free country.
Public money is far better accounted for than private money.
There are tons of mechanisms for accountability in place at the Federal and Provincial Governments: Auditor Generals, Ombudsmen, policies, and the public accounts.
It *IS* a crime to breach the public trust or write cheques you are not authorized to do.
Politicians are held to account by their constituents and in elections.
We don't live in the Soviet Union. The Government in Canada doesn't run the economy.
“Calhoun’s insight,” Rothbard explained, was “that it was the intervention of the State that in itself created the classes and the conflict,” not the labor relations of the economy, as previous thinkers believed. Calhoun saw “that some people in the community must be net payers of tax funds, while others are net recipients.” (In today’s parlance, makers and takers.) By his theory, the net gainers of tax monies were “the ‘ruling class’ of the exploiters”; the net losers of tax funds were “the ‘ruled’ or the exploited.” In other words, Calhoun and Rothbard inverted how most people would construe who had power over whom. A man whose wealth came from slavery was a victim of government tax collectors, and poorer voters were the exploiters to watch out for.
MacLean, Nancy. Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America (p. 2). (Function). Kindle Edition.
I appreciate the quote, never heard of Calhoun or Rothbard. My original comment came from my own thoughts, not influenced by these thinkers. It went like this: if 100 people work for the government (or are contracted/subsidized by the government, directly or indirectly), while 60 people working the fields, it would be rather normal for the 100 to vote (and win) for their own interest, which is more taxes, and expanding the government.
Taxes don't pay for the government and never have. One of the crucial lessons we have learned over the centuries is that attempts to balance budgets (when one is a currency issuer) lead to recessions. In fact, a healthy government, which issues its own currency, always runs up a deficit which is never paid down, and is never covered by the taxes of the populace. Taxes, at best, take care of the interest on the debt that governments incur. Governments pass spending bills, and then create money to pay for that spending.
The sad fact is that money is not accounted for in neoclassical economics. So most people (including, amazingly, most economists) do not understand how money works, which means they do not understand how taxes work, which means they do not understand how governments work. The Marxists are just as bad at this as everyone else, because Marx and co, Lenin included, never really question classical economic theory, which excludes how money is created. The usual theory is that money replaces barter, which is incorrect. You can read Debt, the First 5000 years, by David Graeber, to gain a clearer picture.
Agree, this is a loaded word that may offend good people. However, let's face it, the entire system wants more and more money not offering any real improvements in return. Take a close look at any govt activity and you will immediately spot waste, and no one is really accountable.
If you really had any sort of real world, comprehensive understanding of this “waste” concept you adore, you wouldn’t focus it strictly on “govt activity” or, by inference, public sector spending. Organizational inefficiency and incompetence is rife in the boardrooms and managerial offices of this world. Malfeasance, corruption and greed, too. Your focus on the public sector is a strong sign you are probably an ideological crank.
What proportion of the Alberta labour force work in the fossil fuel industry? What proportion in agriculture? I expect that most of the wealth generated in the oil patch Is redistributed and mostly leaves the province. (A feature of rentier economies). Agriculture employment generates a larger share of wealth that stays in the community. If Alberta's understood this it would undetermine most of DS's case!
If shocks like this radicalize people then why didn’t that occur in the 50’s from the post Korean War in 1953-1954? Or the Eisenhower recession 1957-1958? Or the recessions in 1960-1961, 1969-1970, 1973-1975, 1980-1982, the early 1990’s double dip recession, the early 1990, dot-con recession or the 2007-2009 recession? There have been at least one if not 2 recessions in every decade I’ve been alive, and after each one I did not notice an increase in radicalization. Not until the advent of social media.
Wow! Just wow! What a tremendous amount of history you have written about in this article. I have a feeling that I will be spending my weekend looking up all the different aspects of Canadian and world political and economic history that you have mentioned. Can I just say… As a teacher… There is no way that the sound bites that TV or radio news can come close to this level of journalism. People need to read, read, read! Thought provoking, intriguing and important! Thank you!
Thank you very much! That is really gratifying to hear.
The quote, “Let those Eastern bastards freeze in the dark,” attributed to former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed was actually made by former Alberta premier Ralph Klein, who also said after some bank robbers were caught, all with Eastern addresses, “Send those Eastern creeps and bums back where they belong.”
Thank you. I will update it.
This was on T-shirts at the time. One was given to my husband just before we went to Queen’s University in Kingston.
We arrived there and saw middle aged people working fast food joints because they lost their jobs. And Westerners were saying “freeze in the dark?”.
What is Canadian about that? Nothing. Zero. We are Canadians, not PEI, not BC, not MB, not just white, not just brown, not just indigenous, but Canadians. All of us first nations and all immigrants from the 1600s on. The T-shirt became a cleaning rag. I say this as a born and raised Albertan. I was dismayed at the lack of empathy from Alberta. Some of my family now lives in Ontario (born in Alberta as they are). Does that make them less? Shame on UCP, Shame on Danielle Smith for denying Alberta born Canadians. Wow, if, imagine if she had actually left the province and resided in any other part of Canada for more than a vacation? She’s never done it, not the north, not PEI, not Ontario, not BC. Nothing.
First Nations treaties preclude any such "Wexit" dreams. Get a grip, people.
Party before country, this is the authoritarian's creed. This is the same ideology as the GOP in the US.
Great article. Smith is a sociopath in my opinion. She is a useful tool as part of a larger order called the International Democracy Union with democracy being described by Stephen Harper here in Canada as anything not liberal. A supporting cast of Presto Manning, Tom Flanagan (MAGA mole), Skippy Poilievre (pretend politician) and drinking and driving enthusiast Scott Moe, is buttressing Smith’s dissociative identity disorder as she navigates the troubled waters of Alberta politics. Peter Lougheed has to be shaking his head at Smith’s pathetic attempts to be the Premier of the great province of Alberta. I am sure saner heads will prevail but in the interim let the shite show continue.
She's a previous Fraser Institute intern. That is all, you really need to know. Object: get higher on their "Economic Freedom Index." Shrink govt to the size you can ___ in a bathtub.
Received another education tonight from you Mr. Lamont. Thank you. What can we do about the mis/ and dis/information being savagely promoted?
I would add, write newspapers and politicians, radio stations, especially in Alberta. Write to Smith. Share this on social media, and encourage others to do the same.
Write your MP, your Mayor, the Premiers, the AFN and Indigenous organizations in your province.
Thanks Dougald. I’ve already started to share.
Share, share, share
So grateful for your analysis
Thanks Doug. This is fantastic.
Thank you for all the juicy tidbits, very informative and good to have some background stories... The discussions at the family table are important and it is good to know what one's father or grantfather was up to in life.
The mendacity of Danielle likely borders on sociopathy and the question is, for people that had face to face exchanges with her, is whether that tinge comes through at times? Asking for a friend.
As for the tendencies in population following depressions, I like Gabriel Rockhill explanation:
Liberalism & Fascism: The Good Cop & Bad Cop of Capitalism
https://www.blackagendareport.com/liberalism-fascism-good-cop-bad-cop-capitalism
One think doesn't though make sense to me:
"It resulted in U.S. refinery closures. When OPEC drops its prices, it makes U.S. and Canadian oil less competitive - which has an impact on refineries profitability.
This report on the U.S. losing refinery capacity illustrates the problem.
First, it is possible to make billions of dollars as a company, but to lose money consistently in an individual refinery. We have seen this happen a lot with East Coast refiners that didn’t have access to cheaper oil from the U.S. shale boom. They had to continue to procure crude oil on the international markets, and that put them at a competitive disadvantage."
So, if the crudebecomes cheaper when OPEC drops prices, the impact should be on those extracting in North America. Refineries on the other hand, buying cheaper oil from abroad, on the east coast, shouldn't be able to make a bigger profit? Or is the fact that the margins, slims as they are for refiners, are based on the crude price and a percentage from a smaller number is smaller than the percentage of a larger number. If that is the case, this needs to be better articulated in the article to make it hold water and not seem to go against logic.
I would suggest the conflict is between those who create value and pay taxes, and those who live off these same taxes. With the productivity increase the value creating bunch becomes smaller and smaller (think farmers), and the leaching majority can elect whoever would increase taxes and their share. Hence the conflict.
Yeah that’s complete Ayn Rand social Darwinist horseshit. It’s not an explanation, it’s a justification.
It doesn't serve you well calling names, just because you disagree. Sometimes it's worth considering alternative viewpoints. I grew up in the USSR, went through all sorts of indoctrination, read lots of Lenin; and your writings remind me just that. Lenin was an evil and hard working genius. The result of his work was untold misery and suffering. The only work of Ayn Rand I've read was 'We the Living'. And I can tell you this book was 100% for real. Check it out.
Then all you’ve done is replace one monstrous, murderous, dehumanizing ideology based on theft and oppression with another.
I haven't done anything. I merely expressed my personal opinion. As for my ideology... I could express it in one word, Accountability. Every person, including politicians, should be accountable for their actions. You wasted $10 million in your department? You went $1 billion overbudget? You go to jail for theft.
That's not accountability, that is heavy-handed punishment, and a horrific abuse of the law that has no place in a free country.
Public money is far better accounted for than private money.
There are tons of mechanisms for accountability in place at the Federal and Provincial Governments: Auditor Generals, Ombudsmen, policies, and the public accounts.
It *IS* a crime to breach the public trust or write cheques you are not authorized to do.
Politicians are held to account by their constituents and in elections.
We don't live in the Soviet Union. The Government in Canada doesn't run the economy.
The law can be changed.
A self proclaimed “progressive Liberal” says it all!
“Calhoun’s insight,” Rothbard explained, was “that it was the intervention of the State that in itself created the classes and the conflict,” not the labor relations of the economy, as previous thinkers believed. Calhoun saw “that some people in the community must be net payers of tax funds, while others are net recipients.” (In today’s parlance, makers and takers.) By his theory, the net gainers of tax monies were “the ‘ruling class’ of the exploiters”; the net losers of tax funds were “the ‘ruled’ or the exploited.” In other words, Calhoun and Rothbard inverted how most people would construe who had power over whom. A man whose wealth came from slavery was a victim of government tax collectors, and poorer voters were the exploiters to watch out for.
MacLean, Nancy. Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America (p. 2). (Function). Kindle Edition.
I appreciate the quote, never heard of Calhoun or Rothbard. My original comment came from my own thoughts, not influenced by these thinkers. It went like this: if 100 people work for the government (or are contracted/subsidized by the government, directly or indirectly), while 60 people working the fields, it would be rather normal for the 100 to vote (and win) for their own interest, which is more taxes, and expanding the government.
Taxes don't pay for the government and never have. One of the crucial lessons we have learned over the centuries is that attempts to balance budgets (when one is a currency issuer) lead to recessions. In fact, a healthy government, which issues its own currency, always runs up a deficit which is never paid down, and is never covered by the taxes of the populace. Taxes, at best, take care of the interest on the debt that governments incur. Governments pass spending bills, and then create money to pay for that spending.
The sad fact is that money is not accounted for in neoclassical economics. So most people (including, amazingly, most economists) do not understand how money works, which means they do not understand how taxes work, which means they do not understand how governments work. The Marxists are just as bad at this as everyone else, because Marx and co, Lenin included, never really question classical economic theory, which excludes how money is created. The usual theory is that money replaces barter, which is incorrect. You can read Debt, the First 5000 years, by David Graeber, to gain a clearer picture.
That's not fact- or evidence based.
"leaching majority"
This is a very loaded word and its use and abuse have brought to the world untold misery... this is how fascist parties and KKK start up.
Agree, this is a loaded word that may offend good people. However, let's face it, the entire system wants more and more money not offering any real improvements in return. Take a close look at any govt activity and you will immediately spot waste, and no one is really accountable.
You don't understand how money works.
If you really had any sort of real world, comprehensive understanding of this “waste” concept you adore, you wouldn’t focus it strictly on “govt activity” or, by inference, public sector spending. Organizational inefficiency and incompetence is rife in the boardrooms and managerial offices of this world. Malfeasance, corruption and greed, too. Your focus on the public sector is a strong sign you are probably an ideological crank.
What proportion of the Alberta labour force work in the fossil fuel industry? What proportion in agriculture? I expect that most of the wealth generated in the oil patch Is redistributed and mostly leaves the province. (A feature of rentier economies). Agriculture employment generates a larger share of wealth that stays in the community. If Alberta's understood this it would undetermine most of DS's case!
Agent orange and d bag saudis are doing it again with the oil. Good thing we got Carney this time.
The irony of high oil prices fueling our economy while most of us want low gas prices. We just can't have both.
I put this off for a bit because it was a long read but was worth it.
I wish her all the bad luck in the world.
What if we fix the electoral system? Even the simple addition of ranked ballot would improve things. Are we really that dim?
If shocks like this radicalize people then why didn’t that occur in the 50’s from the post Korean War in 1953-1954? Or the Eisenhower recession 1957-1958? Or the recessions in 1960-1961, 1969-1970, 1973-1975, 1980-1982, the early 1990’s double dip recession, the early 1990, dot-con recession or the 2007-2009 recession? There have been at least one if not 2 recessions in every decade I’ve been alive, and after each one I did not notice an increase in radicalization. Not until the advent of social media.