Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame
I'm curious to find out exactly why so many people under the age of 50 are incredibly anti-Liberal, as some people around here are (and CP is probably mostly uner 50). Tron admitted that it was practically beat into him when he was growing up that the Liberals created such chaos through stuff like the NEP, was anyone else raised like this? Not that it's a bad thing, I'm just keen to know the effect it's had on younger generations.
I grew up in a conservative household, but never have I associated early 80's federal politics with modern-day centrist provincial politics.
I should hope what happened 25 years ago is not the be-all, end-all for political choice in this country, especially with a generation now removed from that entire incident.
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For those who are not immigrants to Alberta, the demographic of anyone under 50 comes in two flavours: Those that lived through the NEP, and those whos parents lived through the NEP. Either they experienced it themselves, or they saw the aftermath of it in their parents lives and livelihoods. So, even though we are nearing 30 years since its implementation, anyone old enough to vote has experience with the aftermath of the NEP.
Of course, the federal Liberals have done nothing at all to atone for that mistake in the years since. Rather, they've often found ways to continue to insult this province, and the city of Calgary especially. Off the top of my head...
- Folding CFB Calgary into CFB Edmonton at a cost of over $1 billion to prop up Landslide Annie.
- Chretien's absolute disdain for Alberta, as evidenced by not even bothering to campaign in this province, and his statements to the same effect.
- Double standard on implementation of Kyoto. i.e.: Auto manufacturers (Ontario) given certain credits to allow them to continue to polluting with no consideration to the Oil patch (Alberta, Saskatchewan)
- Martin's musings about changing equalization because look! Alberta is raking it in and Ontario and Quebec are whining!
- Refusal to appoint Alberta's elected senators, and then going one step further and appointing Liberals in a Liberal dominated Senate to represent a conservative province.
As a result, federal Liberal fortunes in this province is what they deserve: zero seats.
Provincially, the party suffers from the blowback of this, but also, I can't think of any one of these situations where Taft, or any previous leader of the party stood up and spoke out against the federal party in support of the voice of Albertans.
And that is the biggest problem for me. I am very unlikely to ever vote Liberal federally because the federal Liberals have repeatedly shown that myself, my friends and my family mean nothing to them. Their Canada does not include me except where necessary, and considers me a second class citizen when they have to include me.
But when I look at Kevin Taft today, and Nicol, MacBeth and Mitchell before him, and the party composition as a whole, I do not see an organization that would stand up to the feds if they targetted Alberta again.
Show me a party with a spine - one that will stand up for Alberta - a party with new ideas and a party that will go out and tell me why I should vote for them, not why I should vote against the government, and I'll consider it. Until that time, I'm far more likely to move further right when I become disaffected with the current government than I am to move left.