From fork-admin@xent.com Tue Oct 8 00:32:02 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: yyyy@localhost.spamassassin.taint.org Received: from localhost (jalapeno [127.0.0.1]) by jmason.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 07AF716F03 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 2002 00:32:02 +0100 (IST) Received: from jalapeno [127.0.0.1] by localhost with IMAP (fetchmail-5.9.0) for jm@localhost (single-drop); Tue, 08 Oct 2002 00:32:02 +0100 (IST) Received: from xent.com ([64.161.22.236]) by dogma.slashnull.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g97NQTK21525 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 2002 00:26:30 +0100 Received: from lair.xent.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by xent.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id EF30E2940A1; Mon, 7 Oct 2002 16:26:03 -0700 (PDT) Delivered-To: fork@spamassassin.taint.org Received: from jamesr.best.vwh.net (jamesr.best.vwh.net [192.220.76.165]) by xent.com (Postfix) with SMTP id A152A29409A for ; Mon, 7 Oct 2002 16:25:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 59714 invoked by uid 19621); 7 Oct 2002 23:23:42 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO avalon) ([64.125.200.18]) (envelope-sender ) by 192.220.76.165 (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for ; 7 Oct 2002 23:23:42 -0000 Subject: Re: erratum [Re: no matter ...] & errors From: James Rogers To: fork@spamassassin.taint.org In-Reply-To: <3DA1E514.9080807@permafrost.net> References: <200210071841.LAA25074@maltesecat> <3DA1E514.9080807@permafrost.net> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Evolution/1.0.2-5mdk Message-Id: <1034034330.14068.144.camel@avalon> MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: fork-admin@xent.com Errors-To: fork-admin@xent.com X-Beenthere: fork@spamassassin.taint.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Friends of Rohit Khare List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Date: 07 Oct 2002 16:45:30 -0700 On Mon, 2002-10-07 at 12:48, Owen Byrne wrote: > I suppose Canada, which is supposed to be a "loose confederation" of 2 > founding nations (French and English) can be cited as a success. The > jury is still out, but so far only a few brief rebellions and > referendums and such, still together after 130+ years. Alberta, and to a lesser extent some of the other Western provinces, is definitely not happy with the current arrangement. Some of this has to do with the strange way the Canadian government is structured. When I was last up in Alberta (a month ago), the newspapers were reporting something like 70% of Albertans favor separating from Canada, and over several distinct issues. The problem is basically that while Alberta is an economic powerhouse that is propping up the weaker economies of the Eastern provinces, their interests are openly and unapologetically ignored by the government in Ottawa. While Alberta sends something like twice the tax dollars to Ottawa per capita of the average Canadian, they only have token representation in the federal government. While I'm not clear on exactly how the government works up there, representation is not entirely based on population, and it works out that some eastern provinces with populations smaller than the city of Calgary alone have substantially more representatives in the legislature than the entire province of Alberta. The long and the short of it is that the eastern provinces use Alberta as a personal ATM machine for their social programs while not even so much as throwing Alberta a bone, and are able to do so because even the sparsely populated eastern provinces can out-vote Alberta despite having fewer people. Or something like that. The Canadian government is less restricted than the US government, so they can do strange things, like having restrictive regulations that only apply to certain provinces, Alberta being on the receiving end of many such obscenities. It is essentially a much worse version of what is happening in the inter-mountain West of the US. Unlike the US case though, the rest of Canada would really be hurting if they weren't receiving all those tax dollars from Alberta. OTOH, Alberta would probably thrive. I have friends in Alberta, and visit occasionally, but I'm not totally clear on everything that goes on in that country, due to my partial unfamiliarity with how the government works up there, so I'm a little fuzzy on some of the details. What I do know is that on average the Albertans are quite unhappy with their current position in Canada and the sentiment has been getting worse over the years. Cheers, -James Rogers jamesr@best.com