Coming Soon to Canada, "Fortress B.C."

The CBC's Stephen Smart sees rough waters and rocky shoals ahead for Ottawa-B.C. relations after Tuesday's provincial elections.

Perhaps for the first time in his reign our eastern ruler may be confronted by a province spoiling for a fight.

Most of the past dozen or so years can be seen as the golden era in B.C.’s relationship with the rest of the federation.
Former premier Gordon Campbell went to exhaustive lengths to maintain good relations with other provinces, especially Western provinces, and also with the federal government.

...But that was then, this is now. That golden era had already started to tarnish in the run-up to this election and, depending on the outcome of Tuesday’s vote, it could come to a complete end with much more of an us-versus-them mentality dominating B.C.’s attitude toward some of its key provincial and federal partners.

...While playing nice might get B.C. more in the long run, British Columbians have often rewarded past leaders who are seen to stand up for their province.
Given the positions of both Clark and Dix recently, they seem to be very aware of that reality.
The stakes are, arguably, higher this time, given the commercial importance of Alberta’s “landlocked” oil and the Western political base of the Harper Conservatives.

Fortress B.C.?  Sure.  Never in this province's history have the people had such good cause to feel imperiled and set upon by their distant, federal government.   Canada has morphed in to a petro-state and Parliament is full, on both sides of the aisle, with petro-pols whose only vision for the future entails sacrificing our coast and our way of life to peddle bitumen to Asia.

Ottawa wants to force British Columbia into submission, a state of  political occupation where the overwhelming view of the populace is suppressed and subordinated to the will of that distant authority.

We are confronted with a government whose henchmen have already dismissed the views of a solid and growing majority of our people as "extremist" and who have branded us as "inimical" (hostile to/enemies of) to Canada.   They have proclaimed our disagreement a "battle."   And now they're intent on political occupation of our homeland.

Any people subjected to occupation are moved to resistance.  Fortress B.C., perhaps, but only if Ottawa leaves us no other choice.

British Columbia's Sordid Premier

There's something really sleazy about BC premier Christie Clark.   Faced with growing public opposition to the Northern Gateway and Kinder-Morgan bitumen pipeline trafficking, she sat mute for months as her own and her party's fortunes tanked.

Finally she stood up on her hind legs and announced the pipeline/supertanker business was just too environmentally risky for British Columbia.   Then the other shoe dropped when Crispy said she might look the other way if Alberta and Ottawa cut Victoria in on the action and, of course, pretended to make the whole thing environmentally safe (har, har).

Our unelected, unelectable, outgoing premier gave Alberta premier Alison Redford a perfect opportunity to scream "shakedown."  Redford said there'll be no backdoor profit sharing with B.C.  

Opposition Wildrose leader Danielle Smith made it sound like a hostage taking.

Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith said sharing energy revenue with B.C. would be “problematic for Alberta because we don’t do that.”

“Alberta can’t allow any of its resource revenue to be shared with other jurisdictions because that’s not how it works,” she said. “If B.C. wants to have that discussion, they need to have it with Ottawa.”

And, to keep the fires stoked in British Columbia, Alberta Intergovernmental Relations Minister Cal Dallas compared leaky bitumen pipelines crossing British Columbia and supertankers threatening our coast to Alberta allowing British Columbia forest products to be shipped across the Wild Rose province.  Nice one, you sphincter.

Now it's Harper who has his nuts in a vise.  He's got to cut some deal with B.C. very soon because Crispy and her pack of used car salesmen will be out of work next year and the incoming NDP government has promised to kill the pipelines.   So now you've got cheesy meeting greasy.   Hey, isn't that the recipe for political poutine?