Jack Layton Hates Alberta
August 17, 2005 · By Tom Cerber
In response to the US’s refusal to abide by a NAFTA panel’s decision in favor of the Canadian softwood lumber industry, Jack Layton (and others) have suggested retaliating by putting an export tax on oil and gas.
Isn’t that convenient. Punish Alberta industry, after 2 years of having the US border closed to cattle, as a way to punish the US. Layton knows he can’t win any seats in Alberta, so he has nothing to lose advocating harming the Alberta oil and gas industry. This is why he doesn’t advocate export taxes on the Canadian auto industry, which would also get the Americans’ attention.
Crossposted to Civitatensis.
[...] Crossposted to ThePolitic.com. [...]
This is nothing new for Layton. Here’s an article from 2004.
http://www.notacolony.ca/0204n.....dvises.htm
J.: Unfortunately, that article doesn’t indicate which sectors he’d target in retaliation. In principle, I’m not opposed to taking some form of retaliatory measures against American protectionism. But I think they should be targeted against those states that benefit the most from softwood lumber protection. The strategy should be to divide the American electorate against domestic supporters of protectionism, as the Wall Street Journal advised yesterday.
[...] But his visit also needs to be understood in the context of the recent sparring over the US’s softwood lumber protectionism. Klein made it very clear that Canada cannot use oil as a bargaining chip over the softwood lumber dispute. I suspect clearer minds in Ottawa understand that Canada would be shooting itself in the foot if it tried (i.e., Jack Layton is not one of those clear minds). [...]
Sure, there’s nothing wrong in principle with playing with the US at the same game, however, you can’t be selective about what or when you choose to play the same game. In other words, a socialist system (Canada) cannot operate in a free market against a liberal democracy (the US). You can’t play “socialist” (state subsidies) when it comes to softwood and “capitalist” (export tax) when it comes to oil. One or the other ladies and gents, one or the other.
We have clear proof that the government of Alberta is corrupt and that they are involved in a very serious conflict of interest relationship with CGI, a company that is majorly involved with private insurance companies in Canada. The solid and abundant evidence we have clearly supports that the Alberta Government allows CGI to use it’s public services and access to Albertan’s private records and specifically private health records, to defend claims and lawsuits filed by Albertans against CGI private insurance clients. We are involved in a major medical malpractice lawsuit and CGI, through it’s very significant contracts with Alberta Health and Wellness, have very clearly doctored our Alberta Health benefits paid statement to very strategically remove more than a dozen appointments that support our case, as well as to add 2 fake charges that predate my being injured by a Calgary health professional, to attempt to build a fake defense in our lawsuit. I have reported this to Iris Evans, the current Alberta Health Minister, and it has been completely ignored. We have solid evidence proving everything needed to prove that the record was doctored, and it is completely doctored in favor of the defense in the lawsuit, and CGI and Alberta Health and Wellness are the only ones with the power to have done it. CGI also has numerous other significant contracts with the Alberta government and actually are identified as in partnership with the Alberta Government in Government documents relating to the health system in Alberta, as well as many significant contracts with the Canadian Federal Government which abundant evidence also clearly proves that CGI use as well to serve their private insurance industry interests to deny Canadians the justice and compensation they deserve. This situation affects ALL Canadians and needs to be exposed and stopped. CGI is using government/public service contracts to serve the private insurance industry in Canada and that is unethical and illegal and we have clear evidence that clearly proves this to be fact. Investigate it yourself, or contact me for furhter information.
[...] politics has gone the way of Soviet Russia are in vogue just now, and everyone’s got someone else to [...]
[...] Source: The Politic–2005–Jack Layton Hates Alberta Instead of forging a united parliamentary opposition to Stephen Harper on climate change, the NDP plays its own game, whose cynical goal is all-too-obvious. The NDP hopes to make Harper look better than he really is, and wants to make the Liberals look worse than they are now prepared to be. This has everything to do with setting the stage for Jack Layton’s next election campaign and nothing to do with achieving real action on climate change. [...]