Project Alberta

Canada leads the world in this area and yet we do need to protect more of a diminishing resource that is the wild.

Every province and nation should strive to follow the lead of Ontario who has 10 wilderness areas with 800 hectares regulated under the Wilderness Areas Act and almost 9% of their land classed as park or conservation reserves.

Hopefully provinces like Alberta can equal or exceed that….Oh wait Alberta already has almost 13% of its area classed as park or conservation reserves and almost 22,000sq/km or 2.2 million Hectares classed as wilderness area.

Hopefully every province will strive to equal and exceed Alberta’s commitment to preservation.

I think we should take the National Parks back. I object to paying fees to Ottawa to travel in Alberta.

Which is the main reason I haven't stopped in Banff for a good many years

How do we go about taking back territory which Alberta never had ?

I appreciate what you're saying and why, but last time I checked any map these areas fall within Alberta boundaries. I have a mind to tell them at the gate I'm not paying $9.80/day to travel in Alberta.

Alberta not only had all of Alberta but all of the West along with others who were here. Rupert's Land was not the empty wasteland when administration of it was transferred to Canada in 1870.

There were many people living here at the time and while administration was being transfered as well as most of the land claimed by Hudson Bay Co to Canada the rights and claims of those people were not.

As history shows us Canada was less than honourable in their treatment of these people resulting in Canada sending the military in to squash local, and fortunately for them isolated, uprisings. Canada has always portrayed the colonisation of "Empty" Western Canada in the best light (and why would they do any differently?) but history shows that there were people already here.

The many people living in Ruperts Land at the time included Aboriginals, Europeans and Metis. The Metis were Aboriginal/European, mainly Scottish/British outside of French/Aboriginal pockets in what is now the Winnipeg/Selkirk area.

That the people living here in the Territory felt they had rights and claims and that they were being violated resulted in first a province and then a territorial government in 1897 and then two more provinces in 1905.

As to the idea that Alberta never had that territory, has no current rights of control, administration or ownership I would refer one to a map of Canada that shows the North-West Territories before 1870 and after.

If Alberta does not have rights all the land within it's current borders then neither does Quebec have rights to anything beyond a little strip along the St Lawrence.

Our claim to this land and how we choose to administer it, is unquestionable....unless of course history repeats and troops are used to force capitulation. But that has always been the way of history.

As to our "National" parks today: My beef started when I was young and told the jobs that I wanted get were given to young people from Quebec. Even today I cringe a bit when in Alberta I have to deal with someone who makes no attempt to hide their accent or in one case poor understanding of English.

There is no better example of our colonial status that having these key jobs being filled by people from the mother country rather than locals. Of course Canada needs it that way in case they choose to visit. They prefer to not have to learn the language of the locals, that is not required as they can force their language and culture on the colonies.

Such is the advantage of power. I'm sure they would have no problem (or at least no more problem) with us doing the same should we come to have power over them.

Sorry - "Alberta" did not exist prior to 1905 - the aboriginals are not "Nations", and the Metis, not a race !

OOOOOK, I guess like the dinosaurs all that history could be put there to lead us astray. Why then did they bother with Athabaska, oops sorry, forgot, to lead us astray maybe?

For most of us there was an Alberta before 1905. Of course the Mother Country rarely acknowledges that there was anything in their colonies before they took over. In this case though even the mother country will agree there was an Alberta before 1905, after all they claim to have created it, LOL.

But regardless of what a region is called or by who at what time, if there were people (and even if there wasn't) there chances are the region, the people, has rights of autonomy, or representation, particularly in the case of Western Canada were there were lots of people (compared to Baffin Island or the Arctic for example).

But I would agree that Metis are not a race. Technically there is only one race and that would be the human race. We killed off, or outlived, all others that could be called different races. What we are left with are different cultures, ethnic groups, from different parts of the planet but certainly not distinct races.

In Canada we have races. It is archaic, even offensive, but the government classes everybody by race, giving special status to those races, one in particular, they deem worthy. The USA had a civil war to address those issues, I expect we can avoid that by giving every "race" or Nation equality but.....

Using the Canadian political definition of Nation the Aboriginals are not just a Nation but many Nations, as are the provinces (Tupper called the provinces Nations before Confederation). Many groups of people in Canada are Nations. This is the Canadian definition in common and legal use. It is the understood English definition: A nation is a grouping of people who share real or imagined common history, culture, language or ethnic origins. Alberta has a very real and different history from Canada and the other Canadian Nations.

Alberta is a Nation and a Colony with Nations in it. I would suggest an empowered Albertan knows this is a Nation, in a Confederation with other Nations, who also have Nations within them.

Even though those Nations are not politically distinct or able to defend their borders from military attack (a common American understanding of Nation) they are Nations.



I used the term "hide the accent" in a previous post. This phrase is more than it appears. It comes from a Quebecois friend of mine who used it to mean not respecting the local language/people (he meant French of course). In Quebec (and all of his Canada) he expected people to speak French or try. If they can speak French then they have to learn the accent. Failure to do so would result in him speaking only French. BTW he claimed he could always tell and had no problem with such people not getting jobs, education and so on. "Hide the accent" is expected in Quebec and many agree with the concept, though use different terms.