View topic - SPA Updates :: Free Dominion - Principled Conservative - Party and Canadian Politics

Posted: 07/ 14/ 04 8:34 pm Post subject: SPA Updates

Jul 12 2004

Separation politicians gear up for Alberta election

By susan zielinski

Advocate staff

Rocky Mountain House resident Bruce Hutton will lead the Separation Party of Alberta into a provincial election if it's called before the end of the year.

The interim leader said he recognizes the thought of Alberta separating from Canada still makes a lot of people "squirm."

But Canada has an "out of control" bureaucracy that Canadians can't afford, said Hutton, who is semi-retired from promotional work.

"This isn't selfish. It's just good business sense," said the once proud Canadian.

Alberta must hang on to all of its oil and gas revenue or 30 to 100 years down the line it will become one of the have-not provinces, he said.

Alternative energy elsewhere is growing strong, meanwhile Premier Ralph Klein continues to put "all the eggs in the oil and gas basket" and has ignored other sectors of the economy, Hutton said.

"We're going to be in a terrible situation when oil and gas are depleted."

In 2003, $11.1 billion in oil and gas revenue went to Ottawa, he added.

"That's the net cost of being Canadian."

The other political parties registered in Alberta all want to facilitate change within confederation. Not even the development of a firewall others talk about to prevent federal intrusion into provincial jurisdiction would stop the economic drain on Alberta, Hutton said.

"We are the only separatist party," Hutton said. "They talk about the short term. We want Alberta to survive the long term."

The federal government isn't living up to its commitment to fund 50 per cent of health care costs, the national gun registry was never necessary, and the Kyoto Accord will devastate Alberta's oil and gas industry, he said.

"Nothing is going to change. Albertans are disgruntled. They're not happy. But they don't know why."

Keeping billions in oil and gas revenue out of federal coffers would give Alberta the funds to become a leader in health and research, boost social programming and diversify its economy, Hutton said.

If other Western provinces join Alberta, interprovincial trade barriers could be eliminated for the good of all their economies, he added. Even if Alberta had to go it alone, Hutton expects the U.S. would help out because Albert sells the U.S. 17 per cent of its gas and oil.

That means Alberta wouldn't need its own army, he said.

The Separation Party has between 200 and 300 members, with most of the support in East Central Alberta, from Lloydminster down to Hanna, according to Hutton.

"That's primarily farm. It's pretty easy to see why they're upset."

Support is also growing in Calgary, he added.

Separation members are working to organize in 19 constituencies. Rocky Mountain House area members will put an executive in place on Wednesday.

Hutton said Klein would win "hands down" in a fall election, but the Separation Party will run quality candidates, rather than trying to run in all the constituencies.

And it will stay the course until the 2010 election, he added.

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This message is brought to you by the Separation Party of Alberta (SPA)

www.separationalberta.com
_________________
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. -- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776--"If You Haven't Suffered Enough It Is Your God Given Right To Suffer Some More" Wm. Aberhart Alberta Premier

Posted: 07/ 14/ 04 8:38 pm Post subject: More

PUBLICATION: Calgary Herald

DATE: 2004.07.10

EDITION: Final

SECTION: Comment

PAGE: A15

COLUMN: Danielle Smith

BYLINE: Danielle Smith

SOURCE: Calgary Herald

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Alberta: Its own nation?

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In the National Post this week, a little known leader of a little known party issued a rallying cry for Alberta, one that shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

Bruce Hutton, interim leader of the Separation Party of Alberta, wrote: "For a Canadian nationalist, last week's federal election results will prove devastating. For an Alberta separatist, the results were the best thing that could happen in 40 years." Judging by the flood of commentary in this paper, many Albertans have taken the repudiation of the Conservative party personally.

As if that weren't enough, Conservative leader Stephen Harper emerged from his week of rest to generate the headline: "Harper to Steer Party to Centre." If true, Hutton may have received a boost that could take his movement from fringe to mainstream.

The Progressive Conservatives already tried this tack, and in attempting to become centrist enough to win the East, they only succeeded in alienating the West. Let's face it: Torontonians rejected Harper's Conservatives, but embraced socialist NDP Leader Jack Layton. Albertans aren't the ones who are extreme -- Torontonians are.

Just how does a federal party "moderate" itself enough to bridge the divide between a riding such as Wetaskiwin, where the Tories won 74 per cent of the vote, and Toronto-Danforth (where they won six per cent), or Quebec (where they won no seats at all)? While the big brains in Harper's inner circle attempt to work that one out, Alberta's separatist movement intends to capitalize on the chance to advance its cause.

How worried should the rest of the nation be? Probably more than they are.

On June 9, 2004, the Separation Party of Alberta announced it had achieved official party status and intends to run a full slate of candidates in the provincial election. This will be the first test of the movement's strength. (As Green Party leader Jim Harris showed in the federal election, running candidates in every riding is a fast-track to credibility.)

And as we learned from Quebec's sovereignty drive, these movements can gel and advance extraordinarily quickly, given the right political climate.

Rene Levesque wrote the essay -- For an Independent Quebec -- in the July 1976 edition of Foreign Affairs magazine, on the eve of the election that would install his Parti Quebecois in power for the first time.

He described the conditions that led to the rise of his sovereigntist movement, primarily the second-class status of the French in Quebec and Ottawa's stifling control: "More than half of our public revenue and most of the decisions that count were and are in outside hands, in a federal establishment which was basically instituted not by or for us, but by others and, always first and foremost, for their own purposes."

Through the '60s, Quebec had a "dialogue of the deaf" with Ottawa, similar to what Alberta has with the federal Liberals: insistent on greater autonomy but ineffectual in achieving it. For most of its history, Quebec also had the occasional stirring of nationalist sentiment, like Alberta's Western Canada Concept.

Levesque became the catalyst that pulled it all together. He quit the provincial Liberals in 1967 after the party rejected his call to embrace sovereignty. Once political independence appeared, not as a dream, Levesque writes, but as a project, it very quickly become a serious one. "This developed by leaps and bounds from easily ridiculed marginal groups, to semi-organized political factions, and finally to a full-fledged national party in 1967-68."

In the Parti Quebecois' first election of 1970, it won 24 per cent of the popular vote and seven seats; in 1973, it won 30 per cent of the popular vote and six seats; in 1976 it formed a government.

Alberta separatists are still a marginalized and easily ridiculed lot, and no Levesque-style leader has emerged to pull the factions together.

However, Albertans have become the new second-class Canadians, handily demonized by the ruling Ottawa elite whenever it helps to win elections; called on to provide $11 billion more each year to the general revenue kitty than it gets back in federal services; ignored on key issues such as defence, family values, the gun registry, the Kyoto accord, health-care privatization, property rights, parliamentary reform, debt repayment, political pork-barrelling -- and this is not an exhaustive list.

Hutton may not be wrong to be so optimistic.

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This message is brought to you by the Separation Party of Alberta (SPA)

www.separationalberta.com
_________________
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. -- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776--"If You Haven't Suffered Enough It Is Your God Given Right To Suffer Some More" Wm. Aberhart Alberta Premier

Posted: 07/ 14/ 04 8:44 pm Post subject: More

Upcoming Constituency Meetings

July 14, 2004 7:30pm

Constituency Meeting: Rocky Mountain House

Walking Eagle Inn

Rocky Mountain House, Ab

Bruce Hutton 403-845-3949

July 21, 2004 7:00pm

Constituency Meeting: Strathmore Brooks

Strathmore Public Library

Strathmore, Ab

Gilbert Wenstrom 403-934-3663

July 26, 2004 7:30pm

Constituency Meeting: Edmonton-McClung

Kilkenny Community Hall

14910 - 72 Street

Edmonton, Ab

Al Romanchuk 780-428-3486

For more information on our meetings: http://www.separationalberta.com/upcomingmeetings.asp

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This message is brought to you by the Separation Party of Alberta (SPA)

www.separationalberta.com
_________________
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. -- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776--"If You Haven't Suffered Enough It Is Your God Given Right To Suffer Some More" Wm. Aberhart Alberta Premier

Posted: 07/ 14/ 04 10:30 pm Post subject: Re: SPA Updates

Posted: 07/ 14/ 04 10:38 pm Post subject: Re: SPA Updates

Posted: 07/ 15/ 04 1:03 am Post subject:

Jul 13 2004
Separatism not palatable for most Albertans

Mary-Ann Barr
Red Deer Advocate

It's not the separatists who threaten Ralph Klein and his associates - it's the right-of-centre conservatives who could spoil his fun.

The formal founding of the Separation Party of Alberta a few months agois noteworthy, but Premier Klein will not have to spend any of the debt-free rivers of money that flow to the province to fight separatists.

And Prime Minister Paul Martin won't need to send in the Maple Leaf flag wavers to remind us it's our great fortune to be Canadian.

The Separation Party of Alberta has as much chance of thriving as a grasshopper in a monsoon.

Their leader, Bruce Hutton of Rocky Mountain House, admits to no great surprises.

He agrees that the Klein government will win "hands-down" in an anticipated fall election. Still, the party is intent on running some candidates.

But unless there's another National Energy Program in the works, Albert separatists are destined to the fringes of provincial politics.

Albertans like being Canadians, too, and are proud of it.

Albertans get peeved about who is running the country, how they do it and paying more than their share, but that's not the same thing as wanting out.
The separatists are only a voice in the wilderness - with only a handful of stray coyotes listening. And many of these are just people who think behaving like Quebec - threatening to leave but never actually doing it - is an advantage.

It's a great ploy, but Quebec already has that angle all sewed up.

The debt-stomping Klein government has more to fear from the Alberta Alliance Party than from provincial separatists.

It's not fear of being re-elected to power - everyone knows that the Conservatives could run a dead horse and still win - at least under the realm of Klein, who may be facing his last election before voluntary retirement.

Albertans may be ready for some change, but separatism isn't it.
To beat the Conservatives in Alberta, you have to be, well, more conservative. Most Albertans are not able to look left when they vote.
That's where the Alberta Alliance Party comes in. It derives much of its constitutional roots from old Social Credit policy.

The longer a party is in power, the greater its chances of losing that power.
For the first time, conservatives are a little weary of Klein. His health care posturing late in the federal election was blamed by some as the reason Stephen Harper and his Conservative party didn't beat the Liberals.
Voters got cold feet over the thought that Klein and Harper had it in for health care.

Albertans, if they are think it's time for small changes, may be ready to throw more votes toward the Alberta Alliance, which also has a leader from Central Alberta, Randy Thorsteinson of Red Deer.

He's has been kicking around politics for some time - being involved with Reform and Social Credit.

Thorsteinson doesn't have the high profile it takes to lead a party to great places. But if he's able to draw enough credible candidates to run in the election, it could make for some close races, especially in ultra-conservative areas.

Klein would much prefer to win this next election stronger, rather than weaker, as it could be his last before retirement.

But he may have his mind's eye on the golf course or his favourite fishing hole. That would be entirely to the advantage of the Alberta Alliance.

Mary-Ann Barr is the Advocate assistant city editor.

Posted: 07/ 15/ 04 1:15 am Post subject:

That's good, because underestimating the emeny is the first and most fatal mistake of any battle.
_________________
The sins of this country are so great that they can only be purged by secession.

Posted: 07/ 15/ 04 7:47 pm Post subject: Good

I remember posting here not so long ago about the Independence minded in Alberta and was doused with a bucket of cold water. Fair enough, everyone is entitiled to their opinion. But amazingly the little ember smoked and sputtered and burst into flame. Since last year the SPA has went from an ember to a registered party in Alberta and they now have 19 Constitiuency assoc. forming up and more coming very quickly all in about the last 1 and 1/2 months. Something is going on. Mcllend and the Libs are buttering up old Ralph and are getting ready to pay him off for the screwing he gave to Harper. He is also jumping up his election and will drop the Writ in August for a Sept vote, or so my sources say. All Albertans know Ralph will win this one but his and the PC tide has crested and starting to recede and in Alberta this will happen very quickly. He is going to be weakened by the AA and the SPA are going to elect a couple as well. The fish rots from the head and Liberal Ralph is starting to stink.
_________________
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. -- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776--"If You Haven't Suffered Enough It Is Your God Given Right To Suffer Some More" Wm. Aberhart Alberta Premier

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