SUITS AND BOOTS: We are a federation, but right now that aspect of our country, and of our economy, seems to be forgotten
The
following message from Jeanne of Victoria (a former Alberta resident), was sent
to Suits and Boots. They have approved
the reprinting of it here:
I used
to live in Alberta. I now live in Victoria BC, land of retired civil servants, but
my family and friends still live in Alberta.
Bill
C-69 matters to me because I know it is wrong to eliminate the livelihood of
some people in Canada, to benefit the narrow ideology of a few ... especially
at a time when a majority government can push through what it wants.
If
there is a purpose to the Canadian Senate, it is now to give a sober, second
look at a flawed bill and send it back. This is what I ask, and here is why. We are a federation, but right now that aspect
of our country, and of our economy, seems to be forgotten.
When I
was living in Alberta, our family earned a livelihood in a part of the province
where gas and oil development was one source for a healthy economy -- side by
side with agricultural. Family still
work there in agriculture.
Those
who worked directly in oil, gas and agricultural earned their money, and then
bought our construction services. We made enough money to send our children to
university, and eventually to retire here to Victoria, the land where income
comes from government earnings, tourism, and taxes from house sales.
No need
for primary industry because Victoria relies on cruise ships, and family money
often earned elsewhere.
Last
year, I went down to the Victoria harbour to see the largest cruise ship to
ever dock in BC. This is in a harbour which last year welcomed 250 cruise ships,
between April and September, with some 600,000 passengers.
Environmental
problems ... pollution ... threat to sea life ... fuel spills? But cruising sounds gentle; and tar sands
sounds harsh.
Two
years ago, I visited friends in Newfoundland. I saw and commented on all of the
beautiful new homes, often sitting beside an old, weather-beaten one. I was
told of the many in Newfoundland, who had left to work in Alberta, returned
with their earnings to their home province and built these homes for the
families they supported there.
Recently
I returned to Alberta to visit family and friends. I commented on the level of
health care, hospitals, recreation centres and schools -- all the result of an
economy that is now under attack from Bill C-69. This Bill has clauses that are
meant to restrict, and likely eliminate, resource development.
I said
how unfair Bill C-69 was to some retired friends here, after I came back to
Victoria. The other four people in the conversation said the people of Alberta
deserved their now slowed economy – deserved it because they had misspent the
money from the ‘good years’.
Their
questions to me was, “Well are those
facilities, rec centres, and hospitals sustainable?”. And my answer to them was, “They will be if they are allowed, in that
province, to do what people elsewhere want to do -- earn a living for
themselves and their families?”
I was
appalled at the narrowness of their belief.
We are
a federation ... a federation of provinces.
To
destroy the environment in one, impacts all; to destroy the economy in one,
impacts all!
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