Be Careful What You Wish For, Rachel

With an election looming and Jason Kenney breathing down her neck, Rachel Notley is spending millions of dollars, 23 million, her government doesn't have to demonize British Columbia as the bane of Alberta's existence.

One of Rachel's brain farts is to depict BC as, to use Joe Oliver's word, "inimical" not only to Alberta but the entire rest of Canada as illustrated in this made-in-Alberta graphic.

Using BC as her whipping boy is sleazy. Rachel Notley is a sleazebag.  Then again, as a coastal British Columbian, I look at Notley's graphic with a sense of, oh I don't know, whimsy? For Notley rekindles warm memories of British Columbia's own Rafe Mair, who, a few months before his death, penned this, a call for this province to finally rid ourselves of Canada:

I find I no longer come close to sharing the values Canada now stands for – I’m not talking about opinions but a philosophy of life, a set of basic values. 

As a core value, I value the environment above the desire of bankers and developers to make money and bought and paid for politicians to support them. I accept the need for societal sustenance but do not accept plunder in the name of progress. 

The flashpoint is the Trudeau supported revival of the Alberta Tar Sands and the Prime Minister compelling BC to sacrifice both principle and its environment to the transport and sale of Tar Sands product to places that will be under no constraints as to its use. I believe Canada must accept responsibility for safeguarding water, land and air in places it exports products and services. I cannot be loyal to a country that has no such values.

...We have to work, eat and survive. But to the Canada exemplified by Trudeau, development, without more than cynical word service for the values I care about, trumps everything. Bear in mind throughout the balance of what I have to say that the Precautionary Principle is the law of Canada. 

Definition – The precautionary principle (or precautionary approach) to risk management states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public, or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus (that the action or policy is not harmful), the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking that action.

...These aren’t political quarrels I have with Canada, though I have lots of them. No, these are fundamental values I can’t live without and Justin Trudeau can’t live with. None of these values destroy industry but put it, and what we are deeply committed to in British Columbia, on a level playing field where he who would impact the very essence of our homeland has the onus of proving he will do no harm or none which we whose home it is will not accept. 

British Columbia, my home, has been pushed around the 85+ years I have lived, worked, served, loved and, yes, loafed in her. To be called a bad Canadian because I want to protect her wild life and their habitat and don’t want to assist uncaring capitalists and their captive governments to spread ruin here and elsewhere has finally become too much. 

I hope you understand but that’s irrelevant, “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise.”

Rafe's gone. Here I stand.