As D. Atkins notes, the Harper Tories have given $27,000 to Report Magazine to support its contributions to "Canadian Heritage".
Report Magazine? Never heard of it. Let's zip on over and take a gander!
Whoa! Look at that cover story!
David Crutcher – accomplished engineer, proud family man, energetic political activist and happily ensconced Calgary resident speaks with a barely noticeable accent reflecting the land of his birth, Great Britain, as he calmly states that, after 131 years, Canada should no longer exist.
David Crutcher is Executive Director of the Western Business and Taxpayers Association (WBTA), one of the latest manifestations of Western Separatism. I've written about these guys a couple of times, if you remember. They were the gang that wanted to use the Calgary flag for their new Alberta-centered state, and that (briefly) had a B.C. representative that wanted to help American sniper teams target Liberals in the event of a U.S. invasion of our country.
Hey! Look who else gets positive coverage in this same story:
"Our ultimate goal is the union of all four Western provinces into one country," says a resolute Doug Christie, a Victoria, B.C., lawyer who heads the Western Block Party. "It's been shown time and time again that reform is impossible," Christie continues. Recent events in Ottawa have only underlined that fact, he says. "Many of us have come to the conclusion that we don't wish to extend any more futile time and effort trying to reform a system that can't be reformed. We're not interested in wasting any more effort on it."
Yeah, that's this Doug Christie (not this Doug Christie).
Also, a nice piece on the magazine by Paul Wells from a couple of years ago. Apparently, Harper is a subscriber, and Report has been helping "push" the Tory line over the past several years.
Have they any connection to the Western Concepts Group - wanting to separate Man/Sask/Alta/BC and NWT from Canada and who wanted to preserve Christian and European values? Diane Ablonczy was an active member of this group at one time.
ReplyDeleteKind of hard to describe what they are. They seem to see themselves as providing financial support toseparatist parties, rather than being a party as such.
ReplyDeleteInteresting - in wiki I read about Ablonczy about 2 years ago and her involvement in Western Canada Concepts - it has now been changed to -for a short period of time.
ReplyDeleteThis indicates that this could be a sore issue for the Cons.
Offhand, "The Report" looks like what sprang up to fill the gap after the Byfield family's Alberta Report/Report magazines collapsed.
ReplyDeleteMost of the same writers, and the editorial content looks very similar.
RuralSandi: Since the WCC was/is Christie's creation, there's definitely a connection there.
As for Crutcher, well, let's just say he hangs out with the perpetual malcontent conservative crowd in the area. They are extreme right wing in all respects.
Do you have any idea how sick of this Calgary bullshit BC'ers are?
ReplyDeleteThe political heart of British Columbia is coastal and it is resolutely federal.
The nutjob Calgary separatists (I call them "Albortions") have this idea they can pull this off and not be landlocked.
When world oil prices are up they're arrogant and mean. When the bottom falls out, they're just mean. Their province is a roller coaster of economic instability, a one trick pony with a bum leg.
Remember when Ralph Klein wanted no ceiling on Alberta oil prices but also wanted a floor - a minimum price Canadians would be bound to pay? And that was back in his drinking days when he was likeable!
How is this different than giving tons of federal money to Quebec separatists, e.g. films and the like?
ReplyDeleteNot that I approve in either case.
Suzanne,
ReplyDeleteWe have a specific example here. Could you be specific?
Like, Lib. govs.giving money to magazines that actually give help and comfort to Que. separatists.
I recommend Joel Garreau's Nine Nations of North America for anyone who hasn't read it.
ReplyDeleteWhen visiting Canada, I've often tried these out:
1) Canada is more different from the USA than most Americans think.
2) Canada is more like America than many Canadians think.
3) But, if we had to start from scratch, the East-West boundary might get replaced to more North-South ones, akin to Garreau's map.
After all, "La La Land", which often refers to Los Angeles (or sometimes California as a whole), also seems to apply to Vancouver, and Denver & Calgary certainly have similarities.
See also Cascadia independence movement, Ecotopia, and US state secession proposals. See especially 27 attempts in California to split us up. And there's the Alaska Independence Party.
John Mashey has a point. I think if BC was to separate it would be to enter a union with Oregon and Washington. California has never been an integral part of that deal because it would dominate all the others. For reasons I don't grasp (other than their taste in governors) Alaska isn't included either.
ReplyDeleteI can attest to an affinity between British Columbians and the people of Washington and Oregon. We're all centre-left. It's unlike anything I've seen in any other part of Canada. We'd probably be the only nation in the world that could meet it's energy needs with hydro-electric and geo-thermal.
Then we Cascadians can live happily ever after selling you outsiders really poorly written software and delightful airplanes as well as fish, minerals and good softwood lumber.
Oh yeah, California. Eventually southern Cal will revert to Mexico (it really is theirs) and we'll take everything from Monterey and Big Sur north.
Up the revolution!
All this talk of Cascadia and other regional blocs is pure nonsense. it reminds me of when people talk about redrawing Africa and the Middle East to replace the European-imposed borders with ethnic or tribal ones. Many of those "artificial" countries have been around for just long enough that they are at least as real as any other way of dividing up the map.
ReplyDeleteJust try redrawing a few borders there and see what happens. Or recall what happened the last time folks down south tried to change borders in the US.
It would not be too long before a newly "independent" Alberta would find itself fighting off separatists in the north or incursions from outside. There are still enough people out west whose first loyalty is to Canada to make that a certainty.
That's the sort of thing that happens when you start tearing up long-standing contracts.
There's a good reason that treason is considered such a serious crime.
re: Mound of Sound & Cascadia
ReplyDeleteNorcal (which is different from Socal) is sometimes included in Cascadia/Ecotopia proposals: note that Garreau used San Francisco as the Ecotopia capitol. If you follow his split, you get Silicon Valley as well.
Really, you need not take Los Angeles to get SF.
Even better, maybe we'd get direct flights from San Francisco to Kelowna, B.C. which would be nice for those of us who ski at Big White.
Evil Brad:
ReplyDeleteLighten up!
There is a strong tongue-in-cheek element to the Cascadia discussion.
If Quebec hasn't managed to leave, Cascadia isn't likely to either.
However, the *realistic* part of this discussion is that which caused Garreau to write his book in the first place:
different areas have legitimately-different economies, politics, and worldviews, and those areas sometimes cross political boundaries, which can lead to confusing politics.
Garreau was trying to explain the politics of places like Colorado (the Eastern half of which is ~Kansas) or California, in which he viewed Sacramento not as a real capitol, but a border town between warring philosophies (or something like that).