Dear Editor
The current Liberal government thinks the oil tanker ban (Bill C-48) is only important on the west coast of Canada and not the east coast, because Quebec gets their oil by Venezuelan and Saudi Arabian oil tankers that travel up the St. Lawrence Seaway. What Quebec wants, Quebec gets. Quebec is the spoiled child of Confederation. The Energy East pipeline that was to feed crude oil refineries in Atlantic Canada was stopped at the Quebec border because Quebec did not want it. Quebec has enjoyed billions of dollars of oil revenue from the West, yet continues to get its crude oil from countries with dictatorships, poor human rights records and poor environment laws. Bombardier gets hundreds of millions of dollars from the Liberal government. Quebec is given $13.2 billion of the $19.1 billion equalization grant. Economic benefits that Quebec gets from the oil patch go on and on, and it is not appreciated by Quebec.
The next ruling party of Canada will probably be determined on Oct. 9 by the time the voting gets to the Ontario-Manitoba border. Eastern Canada outnumbers the west, so Western Canadian interests are not important to Eastern Canada. We need the prairie premiers and the premiers of northern Canada to get together and look at terms of separation for western Canada. Only when we divorce ourselves from Confederation will we be masters of our own destiny and captain of our own ship.
Gordon Dykstra
North Battleford
