It is surely not going to be taken as a principle of discussion that "Maritimers did not create this problem"

Yes, Maritimers created the debt while Ontario flourishes from our lost talent. Will you please acknowledge that.

Every maritimer who leaves to work in Toronto should bring their share of Maritime debt ($14,000?) with them as a transfer to the province of Ontario's budget deficit.

Atlantic Canada as one province - how about one Atlantic Canadian country. And a new tarrif on access to St Lawrence seaway!

Also, I am running out of money trying to make a living here in PEI and will probably end up in Toronto in a year or so.

If you want to entertain the investment in rearing, then are you going to deduct for the premier, much of CBC and all the professionals who work in PEI but were born in the rest of Canada. Not to mention those who move what are not productive but, say, end up in jail in another province. That analysis has to stand up to auditing.

On the other point, Ken, it would be interesting to divide Ontario it would be either into three or four. Barrie south to Toronto from Ajax to Oakville as "Metro", West of Barrie "The South", East of it "old Ontario" and above Barrie The North. East and North could be one. But to what end? There would still be the net transfer out of the group and a failure of Atlantic Canada to self-assess towards self sufficiency.

Here is the real question: why ought PEI not fall to the fate of Cape Breton, depopulated and living on what it earns? What is the economic difference? If it is only a status argument - provincial status says the Island is inherently owed - you are in for a continuingly cool reception from Federal Finance Minister Goodale.

Alan

You seem to think that Toronto was made all by itself and not with the help of the rest of Canada, we just hold it back.

Toronto has gotten so big it doesn't need the rest of Canada now.................hhhhhmmmmmmm, this reminds me of another state/country. ;-)

I don't know what that means, Chris. Is there an unpaid moral debt somewhere owed to Atlantic Canada that is never possible to be paid out? Does it absolve the provinces from administering their fiscal affairs lucidly? That is the important thing at the moment - where funding for the deficit and debt will come from. I know my VISA card doesn't include a set-off for the dramatics of my moral stance.

I prefer to send only criminals to Ontario, keep lawyers here ;)

Halifax is Cape Bretons Toronto, drawing what they want from it (coal, people, culture), rejecting the rest.

The depopulated dead zone you always invoke, would that be dotted with thriving cities as it is now? No, the nation would suffer along with Cape Breton, Acton, and Tignish.

In short sir, we float your boat.

It is a false dichotomy to seperate a nation by it's budgets - municipal or provincial. They reflect political regions.

Take your CBC, and the CRTC with it. I'll be on the air within a week, and what I broadcast will not reflect some producer in Toronto's worldview.

A PEI free to negotiate nationally with France, US, Japan and the remainder of Canada would have advantages - I would vote to realize them if given the chance. Besides the cost of raising workers for Ontario, factor in the cost of soothing our nationalist desires. You laugh?

Stop the transfers of cash to us, we'll do the rest.

wow...this has been interesting so far.

Are we using the right measuring stick here? I don't think we can call a winner in an argument like this until someone can look back, say, 200 years from now.

Here's my 2 cents. PEI's deficit was 20 million, then it's $83 million, and last I heard is was more like $50 million. Between the expectation setting that goes on between the provincial government and constituents, the negotiating that goes on between levels of government, and plain out posturing, misfiguring, and fudging - the numbers start to mean a whole lot less. Anyway, guiding through these matters requires a moral compass as well as a calculator.

For all the so-called riches of Southern Ontario, they have a huge social deficit and a crumbling industrial complex (that's already overflowing with environmental malaise and whose regular maintenance, daily hazards and eventual disposal depend on public monies). This includes the cost of a machine-like cyclical approach to work that leaves, for all but a few, little time and little extra money for real living. These are the problems that people in Southern Ontario should be dealing with and Atlantic Canadians aren't the ones to blame for them. The tax breaks handed out on Bay St. last week could pay of our entire provinical debt. Now that doesn't mean we aren't accountable for our own finances....but perspective is everything.

I recently returned to the Island after ten years in Toronto (and a brief sojourn to San Francisco) and I am so far really enjoying it. One of the reasons I'm enjoying it is because I've seen some positive changes. Lots of those young brains in fact aren't leaving (which I pleasantly discovered). Lots of them are coming home. Lots of them are coming to visit, liking what they see and feel, and are staying. We are becoming a haven for corporate drop-outs. Certainly, we are not a region made up exclusively of farmers and fisherman anymore. I believe that we have to be our own fiercist critics, I do. But let's not let old sterotypes and old measuring sticks taint our view of the future.

Funding for the debt will come when the rest of Canada stops with its false view of the Maritimes. This will bring more investment to the region thereby creating a larger monetary base.

If this view does not change, Atlantic Canada will continue to lag.

I have the solution to all of PEI and the Maritimes' economic problems - Canada needs to build a military industrial complex similar to the US and former USSR.

Just look at what DOD spending did for states such as Alaska (oil notwithstanding), Wyoming (ditto), Idaho (well, dept. of energy there), Montana, the Dakotas - heck even tiny Rhode Island and Delaware have/had large military bases there. Aroostook County, Maine was largely modernized since the 2nd world war as a result of Loring AFB.

The Kamchatka Peninsula would be all but depopulated if it wasn't for the Red Navy & Soviet AF presence.

Canada should have tripled or quintupled the number of bases back in the 90's, rather than cut them back. That way defence spending becomes an indirect transfer payment, just like US social policy is done. How would upstate NY fare without Ft. Drum, or Omaha without Offutt(sp?), etc.

We should have kept CFB Summerside, then had expanded naval presence in most major ports in eastern Canada - Sydney, Shelburne & St. John's all had naval stations at one time. Bases in Cornwallis, Moncton, Chatham, St. Margaret's, Barrington, Mill Cove, etc. and even the US ones in Stephenville & Argentia shouldn't have been shut down....

/in jest!....

Let's be a little realistic about the nature of the provinical debt; first of all it is not created by corruption or by poor decisions by provincial governments; although there is some of that it is generated by economies that cannot support the level of service demanded by the populations they serve. The cost of Health Care alone in PEI is $340,000,000 per year(btw 176 doctors alone get about $50,000,000 of that, yes yes it pays for their offices too yadayadayada). Federal government after Federal Government pledged to insure a relatively even level of service delivery across the country and still do yet the PMO and the Cabinet let the Civil Service play cute with the fiscally weaker provincial governments in order to achieve the broader goals of Dept of Finance and to make the Gov of the Day look good. This is what pols and bureacrats do.

From the day this country was formed the powerful provinces of Que and Ont have had a continous stream of beneficial government policy bolster their economies at the expense of the East and the West; it started with John A's National Policy and it continues today with things like RRSP. RRSP's you say whatever could you mean? the last time I looked PEI contributed something on the order of $90,000,000 annually to their RRSPs, the vast majority of this cheap investment capital goes to benefit the economies of the have provinces.

We have been victimized by base political realities and the solution is not to shrink the region's provinces or population to fit the economy but for the Federal Government to make wise and fair policy so that all Canadians can enjoy eqally the benefits of being Canadian Nobody owes a us a living but its not our fault and we shouldn't have forfeit our heritage because of it and we shouldn't have to sit in the back service delivery bus because of it either.

However if it means Alan is in Ontario we can forgo $1.98 of transfer payments

I would also like to put my vote in for splitting up Ontario, as well, I think we should sell Toronto to the Americans for say $50,000,000,000Can and split up Que while we are at it.

But what I really like to dream about is for the Maritimes and Newfoundland to leave Confederation; could it really be any worse? All the Fed Tax money stays, all that RRSP money stays, we make economic decisions that reflect our reality not Alberta's......hmmmmm how bad could it be?

here is some punctuation to throw into missive #1 ,,,....:::!!;;;

Peter, you've ignited a seperation movement!

Other issues that come to mind:

The empty federal buildings - lease them as world trade centres and embassies to represent foreign governments such as Canada, US, France.

Three provinces instead of counties, each with a capital.

Fishing Rights! Fishing Rights! Fishing Rights!

Two international airports!

Offshore banking legislation.

Trade deals with european's instead of NAFTA, what would we lose since potatoes and beef haven't been sold to the US for years!

Peter, you should start a new sub-blog to investigate and discuss all the possibilities.

What does it take to have a referendum?

Letter to the editor

Our Island as a Nation

Farmers, Fishers, Islanders - our oldest industries are at a low point, we are more dependant on Ottawa than ever and more than ever our destiny is in central Ontario’s hands. They will call the shots and in twenty or fifty years we will still be serving their interests first. I love Canada, however, our place in it is that of poor cousin. We invest in our children only to see most of them flourish on the mainland. Our RRSP contributions total $90,000,000 a year which is invested in institutions that serve us last. We cut call centre deals that are sold as IT jobs, but are digital sweatshops in reality.

We cannot recruit doctors directly from abroad, when citizenship draws new talent that talent lives in Toronto. Our image to the rest of Canada is that of a have not province. Why not take destiny into our own hands and become instead a small force of a nation? Nothing to lose being out of NAFTA, our produce has been prohibited from the US for years, let’s trade with Europe. Let’s have fishing rights without RCMP intervention. Unlike Quebec, our absence probably wouldn’t upset many because we are so few. And instead of blame from the mainland, we could only blame ourselves.

Ken Williams

Tyne Valley

Interesting that several things seem, to me, to have driven provincial deficits (and debt) up in recent years.

When Chretien/Martin were elected in 1993, Martin decided to tackle the federal deficit. How did he do this? Transfer the costs onto the provinces, who transfer it to municipalities/citizens, & municipalities then transfer the rest onto property owners. I have to wonder about those big real-estate booms in larger centres with assessments getting ever larger - will there always be a population to drive the demand there, even after the boomers are in nursing homes and property taxes are through the roof?

- in the early 90's many federal gov't accountants/economists realized the burden of health care funding and the demographics of the baby boomers wasn't going to help in the 2010-2030 period

- also med. schools made a decision at about this time that there was an oversupply of doctors so admissions were more restrictive for several years, this came back to bite us obviously. Another problem is the restrictive regulations imposed by colleges of physicians & surgeons across Canada on foreign-educated doctors

- prior to 1993 there were separate federal transfer payments directed to health care, post-secondary education, welfare & other social programs, etc. and there wasn't a lot of hay made about it by the provinces, so obviously it was sufficient/adequate to get the job done (remember the days of cheap(er) tuition?

- Martin & co. @ fed. finance decided the sum of the transfers was too great, or would grow to be too much in the future, given the demographics, so to avoid a messy political image problem for Chretien/Martin, they decided to "roll everything into one lump sum payment" (reduced somewhat from the overall total) - this is now called the Canada Health & Social Transfer (CHST)

- provincial gov'ts don't care too much about post-sec students (who will supposedly become future wealth generators) & welfare recipients (who continually drain money - their thinking, not mine), so with free reign on this CH&ST money (as opposed to before when it was directed), more went into health care, less to universities & colleges, social programs, etc. & coupled with the rising health care equipment costs & technology, doctor salaries, outdated hospital infrastructure, retirings & subsequent patient abuse of emergency rooms from not having family doctors.... you get the present mess where provinces don't have the money to resolve all the problems

- Chretien/Martin picked up where Mulroney/Wilson/Maz left off in keeping the GST (Chretien/Martin merging the GST & PST in NB-NS-NF through strong-arming those liberal gov'ts at the time with threats & promises) GST has been a boon to Dept. of Finance - friend of mine works @ S'side TC & she gave me a # one time of the total they pull in a week at that one centre & it's multi-billions

- Chretien/Martin also privatized airports, seaports, CNR, avoided buying major purchases like ship-borne helicopters, undertook major program reviews for federal civil service which was cut/frozen for most of the 90's - you name it

- BUT, here's the kicker - Atlantic Canada accounts for 8% I think (was 10%) of Canada's population & we bore the brunt of almost 30% of Ottawa's cutbacks under Chretien/Martin, a large part of that being base closures and reductions in transfers (by adopting CH&ST, etc.) without corresponding programs to counter these effects... DND accounts for largest fed. spending & they took it in the nose during the 90's

I agree on the discussion re. RRSP's. A friend of mine in the GTA, well her family somehow knows the guy who created CI Mutual Funds & they apparently give very aggressive sales pitches here in Atl. Canada because they know we hoard money & don't consume in big box stores like the other provinces (at least not as much - go to Halifax or Moncton somedays and you'd think not).

Harry Baglole & David Weale might have some input on independent island nations' economies...

Indeed, the Small Island Institute at UPEI could give us some guidance in relation to the pursuit of distinct policies for the benefit of the citizens of the jurisdiction. That may not necessarily mean independence from the rest of Canada, but rather using our own legislative mechanisms to achieve our own goals. The term for this is the "gift of jurisdiction" and has helped the Cayman Islands, Ireland, Iceland and a few other small Islands around the world to prosper.

Jurisdiction, I like it. Could we have jurisdiction over immigration, the ability to search for and invite talented immigrants to live and stay here, without the option of going to a big Canadian city. Their residency would have a PEI jurisdiction only.

Does anyone know if PEI gets new immigrants at the same rate as the rest of Canada? I'm tired of the same old faces, and would love to have lunch in Chinatown, visit a bookstore in Little Poland, or walk the Brazillian district of Charlottetown.

My tastebuds are grateful for Cedar's Eatery et al, and there's much more to this notion than just restaurants.

Jurisdiction issues are raised in Tim Carroll's monologue on Ideas back in July 2000 called "Sovereign Islands."

----------------

Sovereignty (2000) $26.00, 2-pt "Micro-states" CBC Radio Ideas, 5 July 2000

What is the "right size" for a nation? What counts most – Geography? Language? Economic self-sufficiency? The case of Quebec is familiar, but two other examples aren’t. In Micro-states professor Tim Carroll examines the case for the independence of Prince Edward Island. A Charter for Toronto, with former mayors John Sewell, David Crombie and Barbara Hall, urban guru Jane Jacobs, and academic economists, asks what would happen if the city separated from the province.

"Economic sovereignty for Prince Edward Island" by Tim Carroll, Institute for Research on Public Policy

"We need new approaches to managing fisheries capacity in Canada" by Warren Brown, George Richard and David Balfour, Institute for Research on Public Policy

"Maritime Series - Perspectives on Regional Development" by Donald Savoie, et al, Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development

Quebec has had its own deal on immigration for ages.

PEI does have its own deal on Immigration as do all provinces now.

Here on PEI we have a provincial nominee program which allows us to fast track a certain number of immigrants who can brings skills or businesses or investment to PEI.

There has always been a big problem, not attractuing immigrants but keeping them. What people are often looking for is a critical mass of other people who are from their home country...the Chinatown or little Poland that Ken is looking for. That is beginning to exist for some cultural groups here...but not enough to make this a really attractive place for enough groups.

But if you are worried that people aren't paying attention to the fact that immigration could help this province, worry no further.

As a matter of fact, they have been looking for a replacement for Alan ever since he moved to Kingston. :-D

With it being over ten months now, I can only sympathize with your enormity of the task you face, Ann. On the upside, the problems with storm surge and the coastal areas have gained a cruical one or two tenths of an inch of relief with my departure.

Perhaps Wilbur MacDonald can be the newly independent PEI's ambassador to the United Nations. Ken, I've lost track of the number of Islanders who've told me how heartily they agree with Wilbur's views on Mexicans, West Indians, and other inappropriately coloured people. One wonders if Wilbur and his admirers feel this way about the Mexican and Jamaican migrant workers PEI now imports to do agricultural work. Look, it's not just lack of opportunity that keeps immigrants away. The fault lies not within our stars, but in our Wilburs.

Wilbur MacDonald, known to me only by his racist rant in the legislature, was just an embarrassement. However, after being rallied behind, re-elected and admired he has now become the David Duke of PEI. Pat Binns did not need Wilburs seat in the house to keep his majority (he held every seat but one) so why did he go so lightly?

Mr. Binns has created in Wilbur a hero to racists.

For the record, from Hansard, 2002-04-19:

Speaker: The Honourable Member from Belfast -Pownal

Bay.

Wilbur MacDonald (PC): Thank you very much,

Madam Speaker, I rise too to talk about this Resolution.

I think we were all shocked last week when we read of

the Supreme Court s decision. It seems to me, Madam

Speaker, that the Charter of Rights and Freedom’s has

made a major change in our society.

We seem to be on track to destroy our society in a

sense. Especially the white human race is fast on a track

which will destroy us, and we don’t seem to be able to

do anything about that. We just...as our numbers are

decreasing our...we’re not at the present time keeping

up with the numbers of people who are in our society.

Great Britain, for example...it was interesting yesterday

to hear that in Great Britain the Birth Control Pill...the

chemical from the Birth Control is now in the water

system in England. Can you imagine what that can do

to a race if that continues. It could destroy the

human...the race and I’m sure they will take some

measures to do something about it.

England for example is being taken over by

British...West Indies people, France is being taken over

by another group of people. It won’t be long in the

United States when they will be...become

part...Mexico...the people from I’m trying to think

what’s another name for Mexico...Spanish people will

be taking over. I don’t what’s going to happen in

Canada, we seem...if we don’t have the population of

other countries moving in and after September 11 th it’s

going to be very difficult to get into Canada. We’re

going to deteriorate in our population too, and if one

wants to look down the road we can see major, major

problems happening with our people. And part of that

I think is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and TV

certainly has not helped in this whole sexual outfit.

You can’t turn the t.v. on now, except sports, the

innuendoes and any program that you watch has got

some kind of humour to it. All the innuendoes they

can’t...there’s no such thing as humour like we use to

see on t.v. if we go back to Red Skeleton and all those

people that had humour. Today the humour has

changed completely, and I think t.v. has a very

deteriorating affect on moral life within our country.

And it seems to be to bad.

Recently I got the Dish, I can’t think of what it is now

there’s two of them, anyway the first six weeks

everything was free. Good Lord, the stuff that was on

the t.v. was absolut...and that’s available for children.

I know there’s ways of blanking that out, but I’m to

stupid on these computer business to know how to do

that. And of course we have no small kids at home, but

if you had small kids to watch what’s on t.v. it’s just

terrible. And to think that the Courts of this country

say that expression is more important, freedom of

expression is more important than the exploitation of

young children. This man, as I understand it, wrote

about child sexual contact with photographs of children

in sexual contact and that was allowed to be put on, to

be more important because it showed freedom of

expression than to try and protect children. It’s no

wonder then that deterioration of our moral society is

taking place and will become worse as time goes by. If

you think about it for a minute.

If you followed t.v. from the 50's when we first had t.v.

in this country and now they’re up to where they are,

what is the next step? You see, they started off very

carefully, just little by little with the deterioration of the

moral aspects of our moral life on t.v. And I just can’t

understand what the next step will be...everything we

see now. Does that not get into the minds of people?

And you see advertisements on television and there

will be the flash in front of your eyes just for a couple

of seconds of something to do with sex, even if they’re

talking about a car or talking about anything. It’s put

into your mind whether you’re just....and you’re just

sitting there relaxing you know, and what does that do

to young children and they’re watching the same type

of thing all the time. Everything has to be sold by

using sex somewhere’s in the thing.

So then we have these people who have this tendency

t o be paedophiles and other things which are being put

into their mind in a bigger way by t.v. I think radio has

still got...you know 99 percent of radio is still the way it

was in the 50's or even before that. But t.v. has gone

beyond all comprehension of what it use to be. I’m not

a person that goes to see the movies at all. I don’t

know what our movies are like now. I guess there is

some movies that you can see, but you can’t see. And

it’s no wonder, I got this Cable thing because I could

watch the horse races, and I think it’s about the only

thing you can watch on it besides sports that you can

sit back and enjoy without having that innuendoes

pushed at you all the time. And when I get a chance I

watch the horse races, I don’t care, these other things.

It’s so different.

So it seems to me that our society is deteriorating, and

it’s all done for the case of money. It’s money behind

everything. They write the books so they can make

money. And this man who wrote about child sexual

contact and make photographs as I understand it, of

that, and that’s expression. It’s hard to understand.

It’s hard to understand where the Court came from and

I didn’t understand it until today. I thought that was

the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and I was

already to blame the former Government of British

Columbia who has certainly deteriorated the Province

of British Columbia. It’s no wonder British Columbia in

its moral aspect has gone back so far or perhaps some

people would tend to tell you that it’s gone ahead but

in my mind it’s gone back, and no wonder British

Columbia is in trouble today because of some of the

things that’s happened out there.

So, Madam Speaker, I agree with all the speakers who

have spoken and some of the WHEREAS’s, like the

WHEREAS the recent Supreme Court rule and put the

Rights of Freedom of expression for child

pornographers above the rights of children to be

protected from sexual exploitation. It’s no wonder the

Honourable Member from Souris-Elmira’s sister who

lives in what I use to consider the beautiful place of

Ontario, Toronto, has to go outside with her children.

I can remember when I lived in Toronto, it was just like

living in Charlottetown or PEI. You could go out and

lay on the lawn at night time it was so hot sometimes

and go to sleep, just laying on the lawn. People

enjoyed each other. And I lived on a street where there

was people from Holland and all over as Toronto is.

Today you wouldn’t even go out and close your eye

on the lawn. You mighten wake up again. Because

we’ve lost some of this society that we use to have.

It’s getting worse, the cities are getting worse all the

time, and I don’t understand why that’s happening. So

some how or another we got to trace it back to

something, and to me t.v. is one of the worst. It may

not be it all but it’s certainly one of the worst.

Ken, thanks for your public service in posting Wilbur's shameful speech of April 19, 2002. Too many people either agree with his ravings or make excuses for them (he was "misunderstood," was "misquoted," he "misspoke," etc). When you see the Hansard record, his meaning is very clear indeed. More shocking is that his colleagues are recorded helping him out on details, and their applause is recorded at the end of the speech. That day in the legislature, nobody said a word to contradict him. Since then, as you say, he's been hailed by shocking number of people as a homegrown hero. God help us.

"They shall be judged by their

WORDS"!!

George W. Bush

Be fair to poor Wilbur. He had his Oprah moment on tv and shed some tears. Luckily Pat Binns is a Tammy Wynette kind of guy.

http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/CBC/2002/04/22/pei_racism020422The last sentence of this story makes me sad.

http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/CBC/2002/04/23/apology_020423

There is also a video link

Just thought I'd mention what I saw on the Island News Direct TV channel....

Tyne Valley's Ken Williams

asks the burning question:

"Why not take destiny in our

hands and become a small

force of a nation?" Ken says

we won't miss NAFTA, our

produce is banned in the USA

anyway, and we could fish

without RCMP intervention.

How did this happen? Was your letter to the editor was picked up?

See the message on their online billboard here.