Sand Storm
Thank you for Don Gillmor’s article on the Alberta oil sands (“Shifting Sands,” April). From my vantage point in humbler British Columbia, there is no question that Fort McMurray is king and that Albertans are riding the wave of big oil into what they deem to be a most certain future. Gillmor’s article also speaks to a curious irony: as the rest of the country is talking about shedding its addiction to fossil fuels and getting on side with the Kyoto Protocol, Alberta is embracing oil with gusto.

Furthermore, just as we are demanding that Canada develop a knowledge and service-based economy, debt-free Alberta seems content to be not a hewer of wood and drawer of water, but an extractor of oil and a polluter of rivers. As China and the United States duke it out in the oil sands, Premier Ralph Klein and the oil industry are drooling over a bidding war. Where is regulatory Ottawa, and who is protecting Canada’s interests?

The case of Alberta, and now Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, clearly illustrates what happens when provincial governments have possession and control over natural resource wealth. The fact that these provinces feel no obligation to the rest of Canada speaks volumes about the emptiness of our various mottoes, whether “from sea to shining sea” or “the True North strong and free.”

In the next election, perhaps some adventurous politician will put forward the idea of truly sharing the wealth. This may require getting rid of the provincial order of governments altogether. Such a move would have the added benefit of allowing the federal government to properly fund cities, which, despite what the Alberta hinterland might think, are still the engines of growth and cross-cultural understanding. It would also allow us to have fewer elections, which might translate into better governance.
Christopher Simpson
Vancouver, BC

Thanks for the interesting article about our home area. We would like to add that the retail industry in Fort McMurray has an extremely high turnover rate, due in large part to the high cost of housing. Those who don’t work at the plants, or for contractors who provide supplies or services to the plants, usually exist on poverty wages, which in Fort McMurray is considered to be anything less than $70,000 a year.
Murray and Pam (last names withheld)
Fort McMurray, Alberta

Divorce Me, Please
Nearly six years have passed since the local Catholic tribunal annulled my first marriage. Joan Bryden’s article (” ‘Til Decree Do Us Part,” April) brought back the outrage and cynicism I felt at the time. My ex-husband and I were both raised as Protestants, but after our marriage ended in divorce, he initiated annulment proceedings so that he and his new wife-to-be, a practising Catholic, could be married in a Catholic church. I got a letter from a tribunal I had never heard of, stating that The Defender of the Bond, someone I had never heard of, had “determined in the affirmative.”

The word annulment was never used. Instead, the letter vaguely alluded to a discussion concerning my marriage. It seemed arrogant that an unidentified group of strangers would sit around discussing the relative merits of my first marriage. I contacted them to no avail. The whole process seemed false and empty, a case of hubris and hypocrisy directed at me—and, by fallout, at my children.