Re: Those unintended consequences, June 14, South Peace News.
He wants a what? Tell Jeff Burgar he might be onto something. It would be a good idea for a number of reasons.

1. It would help us deal with what I can only call a southern urban ignorance of life in sprawling rural areas. Very practical ones I might add.

I was rather surprised when Premier Rachel Notley suggested that we should mitigate the cost of the Carbon Tax by walking more. I think it comes from driving through or flying over areas like ours.

The biggest one was the debacle of the Fort McMurray fire. The premier laughingly accused Wildrose Leader Brian Jean of fear mongering.

In truth, she had no clue. None of them did. I do wonder where all the career people were when they were making all these “slightly” flawed decisions.

Senior staff aside, they mucked it up. No idea how fast a situation like that can develop, and seemingly ignorant of the fact that timber berths were likely going up in smoke. The damage to the town alone could easily have been much worse with loss of life attributed directly to the fire. One girl did die in a traffic accident.

The idea that they would try and save money on fire fighting on such a dry year still amazes me, but if you live in a big city where water is always on tap and all rain does is get your fancy shoes wet…

2. We need that tidal port. The Americans are really upset about the trade deficit. They want a NAFTA that works better for them. They already get a 20 per cent discount on the oil if the premier is to be believed.

The best way for the Americans to decrease the deficit would be to increase their productivity, but I rather think that they are going after “better deals” from their trading partners.

At what point do we decide that it is not worth our trading with them? That is one of the reasons why I think we should concentrate on going green. The work it will provide building and running factories, installing the needed equipment, and whatever else comes up, will make us less dependent on what could easily become an unhealthy dependent relationship.

Stan Peacock and his wife are still working on that biodiesel project.

An interesting sidebar here. One of the Green Party’s bugaboos in British Columbia was campaign financing reform. Apparently, it’s called the wild west. International interests can and do dump money into political campaigns as long as it is six months before the election. If someone gives you a million dollars I am sure you will still be grateful in six months.

One thing you have to consider, Jeff, is how you are going to carve up your own ridings. As sparsely populated as ours is, they will have to be smaller if you are going to have enough MLAs to fill all your cabinet seats. Then you will have the same problem you are on about now.

I think you will have to gerrymander a bit to keep places like Grande Prairie [your new capital?] from overwhelming the rural. Fort McMurray will be a nightmare. On the upside, the new government will be much more accessible and responsive to the people.

If High Prairie had its own MLA and Slave Lake…

We have a resource rich region and we ought to be able to manage it our own advantage more than it is currently done. I have relatives in the oilpatch, and worked in a sawmill for years, and friends and family who still farm. We have people who can and will succeed. Getting caught in the political crossfire is not another obstacle we need.

The idea may seem scary at the moment but I think when the American carpetbaggers want a 40-50 per cent discount on our oil, I don’t think it will seem to have been so bad. Remember when they put an embargo on beef because of the mad cow disease and it eventually emerged that the cow who tested positive came from America?
Eva Sartorius,
High Prairie