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Commentary: Olds mayor's Remembrance Day speech applauded

Mayor made a plea for unity
mvt olds remembrance-09
Wreaths laid during the community Remembrance Day ceremony in Olds. Doug Collie/MVP Staff

OLDS — During his 2019 Remembrance Day address, Olds mayor Michael Muzychka said what needed to be said.

During that address, Muzychka called for unity in the wake of anger over the re-election of the Liberals and talk of “Wexit” from the rest of the country.

Muzychka admitted that Albertans have had some “trying times politically and economically” in recent years.

However, he said people must remember that Canadians from all regions of the country fought together for the freedom we have today.

“It’s not Eastern Canada and Western Canada; it’s Canada as a whole,” Muzychka said.

“It was Canada together that stood up against tyranny all over the world and won those wars," he added.

“My message today please, is remember we are one united Canada and please let us remember today all the important sacrifices that gave us the quality of life that we have. Lest we forget,” he said.

That is so true.

Albertans have every right to be frustrated with where we are economically. Wth no new pipelines being built yet and thus lack of extra capacity to ship our oil to markets we're forced to accept prices that are even lower than the world price for oil.

And it's true we seem to be sidelined by the priorities of vote-rich provinces like Ontario and Quebec who appear to care little for our needs and concerns.

But quitting Canada won't solve any of those problems.

In order to get our product to market we'd still have to battle with jurisdictions like B.C. and the U.S. northwest. The majority of the population in those jurisdictions don't want any more pipelines built or oil tankers off their shores.

And as others have noted, as an independent country we'd have to renegotiate all kinds of agreements and pay for programs like the Canada Pension plan out of a population of only 4.3 million people versus Canada's total population of 37.5 million.

Muzychka is right that it wasn't just Albertans who went to war to fight against tyranny. All Canadians did so, and they fought as residents of one country.

Whatever our future is -- economically and otherwise -- it's in our interest to face it as Canadians.

Doug Collie is the Olds Albertan editor.


Doug Collie

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