Quote:
Originally Posted by jammies
There's many people outside Alberta that prefer the fantasy that stopping pipelines is stopping GHG and pollution. There's an equally deluded Albertan contingent that thinks you can ram thru mega-projects against such determined, ideologically-based opposition by pointing out the economic benefits.
The oilsands are a symbol, opposing them is a war on what they are perceived to stand for, which is uncaring environmental destruction for profit. The only real way to win that war from the oilsands side is to find a more fitting symbol for people to hate. Until then, in Canada you'll have a choice of Conservatives pretending to expedite the pipelines, Liberals barely keeping up a pretense, or the NDP not even bothering to pretend.
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I hear what you're saying, but I don't know if I agree with it.
Frankly right now you're starting to see a two way shift.
Lets be honest Albertan's are freaking out right now, they've seen something like 60,000 jobs lost, and its probably going to get worse now. They're seeing their taxes increase, and a carbon tax coming in, an ineffectual government. And now a Federal Government that has taken what is going to be perceived as a very anti-oil stance against not only Alberta, but Saskatchewan.
On the other side, you've got people obsessed with the GHG debate, that is putting the strict blame on the Oil Sands, because they're getting barraged with propaganda both warranted and unwarranted.
There is literally nothing in the middle, and there is literally nothing that is going to remove the focus of both sides. They're like two boxers punching each other in the face with malice and glee for all eternity.
But the anger and resentment is going to get worse as the economic picture gets worse in this province, both against the standing provincial government, but we're also starting to see a real stirring resentment that Codorre stirred up with his asinine stupidity. Its going to be quicker to explode because the scars of the damage inflicted by the NEB and Trudeau's brilliant but vindictive and arrogant old man.
To people standing on the edge of the cliff economically or at least the feeling that they are. Things like essentially killing or delaying pipelines even further for example will stir up a great deal of resentment, both internally and externally and that emotion is going to need somewhere to go, and as easy as it is to say, give them something else to hate. In reality it never works that way.
I would expect that as things get delayed and if the NDP continue to fumble, and if Trudeau for example sticks to his, I'm going to give you this pittance billion in infrastructure spending while giving the same amount to one Quebec company that the resentment is going to boil over and you will get a separatist movement in Alberta and Saskatchewan again.
I mean the perception from out East is those Dirty Westerners and their dirty oil, and they're rich and should give us more of their money.
Out west is the perception that those Quebecers are addicted to federal money and they sponge off of us, and now they're blackmailing us for more and screwing us over.
There is no target that you can give these two groups that will remove the focus from the above. The resentments are too old and the scars are too deep.