Viva 'Progressive' Canada!

"The federal government must recognize the exclusive role provinces and territories have over the management of our non-renewable natural resource development or risk creating a Constitutional crisis."
"[Bill C-48 in particular] will have detrimental effects on national unity."
"Bill C-69, as originally drafted, would make it virtually impossible to develop critical infrastructure, depriving Canada of much-needed investment."
"Our [provincial] governments are deeply concerned with the federal government’s disregard, so far, of the concerns raised by our provinces related to these bills. As it stands, the federal government appears indifferent to the economic hardships faced by provinces."
"Immediate action to refine or eliminate these bills is needed to avoid further alienating provinces and their citizens and focus on uniting the country in support of Canada’s economic prosperity."

"Our five provinces and territory stand united and strongly urge the government to accept Bill C-69 as amended by the Senate, in order to minimize the damage to the Canadian economy."
"We would encourage the government of Canada and all members of the House of Commons to accept the full slate of amendments to the bill."

Premiers Doug Ford (Ontario), Blaine Higgs (New Brunswick), Brian Pallister (Manitoba), Scott Moe (Saskatchewan), Jason Kenney (Alberta), Robert McLeod (Northwest Territories)

"I think it's absolutely irresponsible for conservative premiers to be threatening our national unity if they don't get their way." 
"The fundamental job of any Canadian prime minister is to hold this country together."
"Anyone who wants to be prime minister, like Andrew Scheer [leader of the Conservative official opposition], needs to condemn those attacks on national unity."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has no one to blame but himself for the current strains on national unity."
"He has claimed the fundamental responsibility of any Prime Minister is to bring the country together yet his actions point to the contrary."
"He’s pushing legislation widely criticized by most provinces, industry groups, prospective investors in Canada and Indigenous leaders as clear violation of provincial jurisdiction and a profound threat to [the] future of natural resource development, economic growth and prosperity in our country."
"His government’s legislative actions have caused more division in Canada than we have seen for years, and today’s comments only further inflame those tensions."
Jason Kenny, Premier, Alberta 

The Hibernia platform in Newfoundland's offshore is one of the province's offshore facilities. (HMDC)

Well, actually, it's not just Conservative premiers -- who represent over fifty percent of all Canadians -- and whose provinces' natural resources have buoyed the Canadian economy since Confederation that have run afoul of the federal Liberal government's action plan on the environment clashing head on with resource development, since signatories to a previous letter sent to Trudeau were former Liberal premier Rachel Notley, and leader of the Alberta Liberals, David Khan. Furthermore, an Angus Reid poll found 50 percent of Albertans are so enraged over the federal government's stance on resource development in the oilfields they would support secession.

In Saskatchewan, over half the population would consider secession, according to an Environics poll, reflecting the evisceration of both provinces' plans for petroleum resource development that have gone awry as international investment has dried up in response to the federal government's slow and steady withdrawal from support of the oil industry, not to mention its deep-sixing of critical oil pipelines to deepwater ports for export abroad, preferentially leaving Canada's huge oil deposits untouched, a gift to strident environmentalists who prefer it that way.

A sign is located near a Trident Exploration natural gas well near the community of Didsbury, Alta. Trident blamed low commodity prices and a lack of export pipeline capacity, among other reasons, for shutting down this week. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

The wealth generated to date by the oil and gas industries in Canadian provinces, including Newfoundland and Labrador, and particularly Alberta for many decades in tax transfers to the federal government paid the lion's share of 'equalization payments' to Canada's so-called 'have-not' provinces to ensure that all provinces in Canada would be able to offer equal services to all Canadians no matter where they live. With the Liberal government's steady encroachment on the Alberta government's responsibility for its natural resources, and its continual imposition of new environmental bills effectively halting extraction and pipeline activities, employment has plummeted and revenues along with it.

Lacking efficient export capabilities leaving Alberta to the use of trains to transport fuel to market rather than pipeline transfer, has made the province vulnerable to accepting pricing well below market value, a huge loss both for the province and for federal coffers for a government which has been profligate in other measures of spending for social welfare programs. Much like Quebec which has ever since equalization payments have been handed out, receiving the largest percentage of transfer payments to any province, enabling it to provide social programs far in excess of its own prosperity level.

Little wonder the petroleum product provinces are up in arms over the injustices they are now undergoing at the hands of the federal government. Justin Trudeau's agenda has been underhandedly undertaken, and it has impoverished the provinces that have been the engines of economic growth for the nation. He has alienated western populations by ignoring the needs of their provincial governments and putting huge numbers of people employed in the petroleum industry out of work. He is single-handedly managing to reverse the prosperity that Canada's potential promises.

And he has the unmitigated gall to charge those provinces' leaders with harming Canada's interests, with injuring national unity. We have this Liberal government to thank for social-improvement projects so dear to 'progressives' where euthanasia is now legal in Canada, as is the gateway drug to harder drug consumption at a time when the country is reeling under the ubiquity of overdose deaths, and where divisions have taken place in society over the narcissistic 'feminist' imperatives of Justin Trudeau.

A government which hands out millions in tax dollars to Islamist jihadis, and grants citizenship to convicted terrorists, while refusing summer employment funding to any organizations failing to unreservedly support abortion with no restrictions, and penalizing those in academia who refuse to use gender-neutral language in reference to LGBTQ2 demands. More, much more, all of it headache-inducing and heart-breaking for a unified Canada.