Perhaps he wrote that before he had a chance to see how much Trudeau was
doing for the province. Maybe he assumed he was doing as little as
Premier Jason Kenney. Either way, there isn’t any way to establish this
tiresome rhetoric as belonging to anything other than a Postmedia
newspaper.
Mr. Kenny’s notion that Alberta is paying Quebec’s bills simply isn’t true. Mr. Hopper crunches the numbers
for us in the article expecting us to believe it. Still, there are
three kinds of lies which are just as prevalent today as the first time I
heard them. There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
As some MLAs prepare to consider a private members’ bill on pension control on Monday, the Opposition says the Alberta government is withholding a key report that could shape their decisions.
According to law, an all-party committee of the legislature is supposed to discuss and release the annual report of the Heritage Savings Trust Fund by June 30 each year. A committee meeting scheduled for last week was cancelled and the report remains secret.
The Opposition NDP is accusing the United Conservative Party government of playing politics by delaying release of the latest report on Alberta’s $18-billion long-term savings fund.
Tristin Hopper wrote in the National Post that if Canada doesn’t like Alberta complaining, they can always send back our money. He says we are getting fleeced by Ottawa. This article was written on April 11th. Perhaps he wrote that before he had a chance to see how much Trudeau was doing for the province. Maybe he assumed he was doing as little as Premier Jason Kenney. Either way, there isn’t any way to establish this tiresome rhetoric as belonging to anything other than a Postmedia newspaper.
Mr. Kenny’s notion that Alberta is paying Quebec’s bills simply isn’t true. Mr. Hopper crunches the numbers for us in the article expecting us to believe it. Still, there are three kinds of lies which are just as prevalent today as the first time I heard them. There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
With Kim Siever’s permission, here is his recent video, “Debunked: Alberta doesn’t Send the Most Money to Ottawa.”
One might ask why Mr. Kenney, and some of his allies, continually promote the equalization formula as being wrong, even though it was he and Mr. Stephen Harper, the former prime minister, who developed the formula.
Robert W. Firestone, Ph.D., psychologist and author, has an article published by ‘Psychology Today’ that addresses this. He wrote, “when people attempt to rationalize their anger and then feel victimized, they get stuck in the angry feelings in a way that leads to an unpleasant kind of brooding that alienates others and is dysfunctional.
“Therefore, in terms of action, people need to drop certain words from their vocabulary like “fair,” “should,” “right,” and “wrong.’”
Recently the government announced a report from a panel of people who were chosen to determine how Alberta can get a fair deal within Canada. Yes, the “Fair Deal Panel” report reminds people every time the words are spoken that Albertans have been victimized by the federal government and the rest of Canada, with us being left to pay for all of Quebec’s bills.
The first item in the report is a referendum on equalization but other than a waste of time and money, there is very little that can be accomplished with this. It will keep us angry though. We get reminded of this referendum quite often in the news. The rest of the items in the report are similar in that they remind us how unfair the rest of Canada is to us. Poor us!
If the UCP government can keep us engaged in this way more than having us worry about cuts to healthcare, job losses, and the destruction our educational system, we remain dysfunctional. Even though there isn’t much we can do in some of these areas, we can get behind Mr. Kenney to show the rest of Canada how dissatisfied we are.
Just as Mr. Siever debunked how much money Alberta sends to Ottawa, many of the items in the report could stand some scrutiny. Maybe the entire UCP government needs a good hard look too. As politicians go, I’d say we didn’t get a fair deal in the last election. That makes me angry.
