{"id":2489,"date":"2005-07-12T02:04:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-12T02:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=2489"},"modified":"2018-02-16T10:27:33","modified_gmt":"2018-02-16T16:27:33","slug":"the-fifty-first-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2005\/07\/12\/the-fifty-first-state\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fifty-First State"},"content":{"rendered":"

It won’t be Puerto Rico<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A University of Alberta professor I know sent me a lengthy article he’s trying to get published, entitled: “Let’s get while the getting’s good.”<\/p>\n

In it, Leon Craig, professor emeritus of political science, lays out a case for Alberta to declare unilateral independence. And he lays it out well.<\/p>\n

Craig makes no bones about it.<\/p>\n

Alberta, he says, should go it alone.<\/p>\n

Almost overnight, we would become one of the most prosperous nations in the world.<\/p>\n

But — and this is his key point — the main reason to secede is not because Albertans would have more money. Not that there’s anything wrong with money.<\/p>\n

More importantly, we would create a country that reflects our own political and social beliefs, values and traditions, and our understanding of the common good.<\/p>\n

Canada, says Craig, has been so badly governed since the Trudeau era, it has doomed itself to a Third World, banana republic fate. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When the Quebec referendum was held a decade ago, one of my co-workers predicted the biggest consequence of a free Quebec would not be one more annoying Francophone country in the world, but the states of Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and Manitoba.<\/p>\n

Just think, we could drive to Alaska without a passport again.<\/p>\n

Come home to US, western Canada. You can finally charge American dollars for hockey tickets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It won’t be Puerto Rico: A University of Alberta professor I know sent me a lengthy article he’s trying to get published, entitled: “Let’s get while the getting’s good.” In it, Leon Craig, professor emeritus of political science, lays out a case for Alberta to declare unilateral independence. And he lays it out well. Craig […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19539,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489\/revisions\/19539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}