How the west was won

– WARNING – bias small town political commentary

Well friends, after a couple months of intensive analysis, I’ve determined how the Liberals defeated the Conservatives in the last federal election. They got more seats. How did they get more seats you ask? Well it’s largely due to winning most of the ridings in the big cities, which pretty much dictates who wins the election. Why do the big cities vote Liberal? I guess it’s for several reasons.

Perhaps it’s because they’ve been led to believe Canada’s 5% contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is ruining the planet. Maybe it’s due to dependence on social programs and free Covid bucks. Maybe it’s due to a sense of loyalty from those who’ve immigrated to Canada in the last decade? Maybe it’s because Conservatives by their nature are slow on the uptake of what’s considered acceptable? Maybe it’s because the Conservative leader isn’t a new-school thespian with royal liberal lineage? Maybe it’s because Justin didn’t have to burn a gallon of gas campaigning west of Toronto? Yes my friends there could be many reasons for the Liberal win.

What does this mean in the long term? Well, it all comes down to who and when the piper needs to be paid. Continuing to spend more than is taken in at rates never seen before will undoubtedly be the Liberals undoing. When the economy crashes, the interest rate boogieman forces people to turn their home and business keys over to the bank, and we need to right the economic ship, the voting tides will turn in favor of the Conservatives. Whether that’s in time for our carbon taxes or China’s greenhouse gas emissions to peak (i.e. 2030) will depend on how fast economic climate change occurs, or if it’s just a hoax, and the unicorn farting all the new money will make us all dependent on social programs and our voyage into socialism goes beyond the point of no return.

If old Harold’s learned one thing over his decades, it’s never live downwind of the outhouse. The political outhouse can make a stink so bad, it drives away industry and your desire to live where you do. Turning the West around under Eastern rule could depend on the balance of power. Where power is generated determines where value-added industry thrives. Gas and oil are burned to generate power and exporting these commodities fuels false economies elsewhere. Capping production for national and international export, and shifting the balance of where power is generated to gas and oil producing provinces could incentivize and attract blue chip industry. Coinciding with this would be continued advancements in carbon capture, and green energy development to mitigate impacts on climate change. All this would seemingly have no downside. Provinces with the desire to reduce environmental footprints could do so in a responsible manner, and learn to exist on locally fueled green power generation. Provinces with non-renewable fuels could use these to responsibly support value-added industries, and replace high paying jobs lost due to partial capping of primary production.

Surely a government bold enough to eliminate all its agricultural research capacity would be open to an outside the box strategy such as this. And for a coup de grâce, maybe we could use fossil fuels to pump water into hydro-electric reservoirs to generate electricity exempt from transfer payment calculations!

Have a great daylight savings time.