People gather in support of Alberta becoming the 51st U.S. state during a rally at the Legislature in Edmonton, on May 3.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press
For sale
Re “Sunoco makes $7.7-billion bid for gas station owner Parkland” (Report on Business, May 6): Why would the United States annex Canada when it is so much easier to just buy it on the stock market?
David Steele Saskatoon
Inside view
Re “Pierre Poilievre to run for Alberta seat after losing Ontario riding” (May 3): Having grown up in the Battle River-Crowfoot constituency, I can tell other Canadians a little about Pierre Poilievre’s new political home.
Noteworthy Canadians to come from this quadrant of Alberta include k.d. lang, Nickelback, the Sutter hockey clan, former deputy prime minister Don Mazankowski and the Horner political clan. Please pardon any omissions, but it is not a long list.
With only one community, Camrose, with more than 10,000 people, it is a sparsely populated, affluent, rural agricultural economy, supplemented by oil and gas. Folks are hard-working and family- and community-focused. Immigration, crime and cost of housing are not everyday issues.
It is also the undisputed heartland of assertive right-wing, anti-Ottawa, “Alberta First” sentiment in this province, if not Western Canada. He can do all Canadians a service in bringing awareness of the potential dangers to the unity of our country and institutions that his new constituents represent.
Jerome Slavik Edmonton
How many?
Re “One in four people in Alberta identify as Albertans first, Canadians second, Nanos poll finds” (May 5): A different heading could have been: “More than 75 per cent of Albertans identify with Canada over province.”
And this hasn’t changed noticeably over the last number of years. A huge majority of Albertans continue to like Canada first. So why the panic?
Ian Follett Calgary
I live in British Columbia, I have lived in Alberta and Ontario, yet I call myself Canadian. I would like to know what Albertans of the separatist mindset want?
What don’t they have that is being hoarded by Ottawa, or directed toward other provinces? It can’t be the threat of one language’s dominance, even if some of them sound more like Americans.
It can’t be oil revenue: Don’t they keep most of it? It can’t be transfer payments, or representation in Parliament. What then?
Why do Albertans feel so unfairly done by the rest of Canada, or by Ottawa? Are they worse off than the coastal people in Newfoundland and Labrador? Are they as marginalized as (perhaps) those in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the Yukon may think of themselves? I don’t hear them wanting to separate.
So please, tell me, what does Alberta want?
Michael Cox Vancouver
I am not a separatist. But after living through two prime ministers Trudeau, I understand why they exist.
If Alberta oil was located in Quebec and Ontario, would we have had the National Energy Program? Would the environmental goalposts have kept moving to stop the Energy East and Trans Mountain pipelines, to the point where taxpayers had to foot the bill for Trans Mountain instead of private investors?
Better yet, if Quebec and Ontario’s hydroelectric capacity was located in Alberta, would we have had an NEP-style policy for that energy? As well, transfer payments are a federal program, but who do we think pays the federal government?
Since Alberta doesn’t have access to tidewater, I believe we have two options: Stay in Canada or join the United States. I am for staying in Canada, but this argument gets harder and harder for me to make with each Trudeau-like prime minister.
Dan Petryk Calgary
Shifting tides
Re “The decline of the NDP, and the rise of the centre” (Opinion, May 3): Just months ago, nobody would have predicted a strong two-party system here. Far more likely, in the event of a Conservative majority, would have been a scattered multiparty Parliament like in the 1990s.
Electoral patterns can change. In the 1970s, the Liberals under Pierre Trudeau were a supermajority in Quebec, and the central Montreal ridings — Mount Royal, Outremont and what was then simply called Westmount — were impregnable Liberal “elephants” that trampled all opposition and third-party candidates, often by tens of thousands of votes.
Over the decades, that changed. Many big Liberal ridings became competitive. Brian Mulroney’s Conservatives won Outremont in the free-trade election of 1988, then the NDP’s Tom Mulcair repeated the feat in 2007.
In Mount Royal, the Conservatives have repeatedly challenged the Liberals. Even the Westmount Liberals got a scare in the Orange Wave of 2011.
It is unhelpful to extrapolate short-term trends much into the future.
David Winch North Hatley, Que.
First step
Re “Hospitals across Canada installing weapons detection systems amid apparent rise in ER violence” (May 5): The threat of violence in Canadian emergency rooms is now, sadly, a constant with huge implications for human and economic resources. The willingness of hospital administrations, in the right circumstances, to install weapons detection systems is a partial but important signal to clinical staff that our safety and wellness matters.
It should be noted that the introduction of such systems, in the Canadian context, is largely after the fact: They do not prevent a nurse from being punched in the face. Furthermore, they do not prevent staff from being verbally abused and denigrated.
Hospital administrations should take their responsibility to ensure staff and patient safety more seriously and adopt a universal comprehensive strategy for violence prevention and mitigation. We can no longer afford to lose emergency physicians and nurses because of fear of injury at work.
Acceptance of violence is not part of the job we signed up for.
Alan Drummond MD, Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians Ottawa
Well actually
Re “Western discontent is a growing problem after Liberal election victory” (May 3): Much is made of the unity of Alberta and Saskatchewan in resentment of uppity Eastern Canadians. However, I suspect much of this unity is only chaff-deep.
I am grateful for the hybrid vigour bestowed on me by parents from Alberta and Saskatchewan. I live peacefully in the Eastern Canadian diaspora.
A few years ago on a train in Spain, I was engaged in conversation in German with a fellow passenger. A pair of young Canadian backpackers took the next seats, and then invited an American to join them.
Taking me as a foreigner, they began telling the American about how wonderful Alberta was — in contrast to the neighbouring province of Saskatchewan, whose miserable inhabitants were seriously inbred. I quickly offered myself as a refutation.
Greg Michalenko Waterloo, Ont.
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