# Regional differences in Canada

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regional-differences-in-canada/142031
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [December 11, 2002, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regional-differences-in-canada/142031 "2002-12-11T16:50:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 15

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### Author: ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2002, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regional-differences-in-canada/142031/15 "2002-12-11T18:53:21Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by hansel \*  
> \*\*You seem to be of the opinion that the haves should keep and the have-nots should suffer. Why don’t you just separate, then? Alberta can take it’s ball and play by itself, and keep all that fabulous oil wealth for itself. While you’re at it, leave behind the poor sections of Alberta that don’t contribute to the economy as much as they take; after all, they’ll just be an unjustifiable drain on the rest of the hardworking Albertans. \*\*

I’m not saying that the have nots should suffer. They should be given the opportunity to succeed. I’m asking when does it go past being an opportunity of helping out a neighbour to becoming an unreasonable drain on one part of the country to prop up another who won’t help themselves? If after years of doing things that haven’t worked the governments of those provinces don’t try to do something else then why should we keep paying?

As to separation, why not? That way the money that goes from Alberta to the poorer regions of Canada could go to help our own people in need. What makes the arbitrary markings on a map that people call, ‘Canada’, require us to send money thousands of miles away to others while people a few miles away, or right next door, go needy? And if that is the case then why don’t we send the same amount of money to places like Mexico, which is closer to me than Nfld, to people who need it even more?

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