Globe and Mail Campaigning for Martin, Against Alberta
October 25, 2005 · By Tom Cerber
The Globe and Mail put these 2 stories front and center on today’s front page:
“Calgary gets paved with black gold”
“Martin seeks a ’sign’ from U.S. on softwood”
The 1st story is all about all the conspicuous consumption going on in Calgary, all at the expense, implicitly told, of all you hard working Torontonians. See here for some balance.
The 2nd story reminds the reader that the way to deal with softwood lumber is to threaten Alberta’s oil industry. Albertans are just greedy anyway. And they like Americans to boot.
[...] Tom Cerber points to a piece on the riches of Calgary found in the Globe and Mail: “Just across the street, there’s a similar story at Mercato Foods, where the parking lot is filled with expensive cars and the customers don’t balk at paying $6,000 a kilogram for white truffles — or even when the price rises to $10,000 a kilogram the next week.” ….. The trophy hunter has little time for the nuances of vineyards and vintages, as the staff at Bin 905 found out a few weeks ago when a prime example walked in the door, and snapped out: “I want to spend $5,000 and I have 15 minutes. Go.” [...]
It’s funny that Martin has chosen to pick another fight with the American at this point in the history. It’s not like the Liberals haven’t had almost four years to solve this problem. No, in typical Liberal party fashion, they’ve revved up the anti-American rhetoric so that it can be used as a tool against Alberta and to get re-elected in Ontario.
If the Liberals were really concerned with softwood lumber, they’d be back at the negotiating table discussing how both parties can come to terms with the original 1996 Softwood Lumber Agreement.
This however, wouldn’t be favourable to the Liberal election strategy and wouldn’t enable them to use Alberta’s oil wealth as a expendable asset to carry favour with Liberal voters in Toronto.