We’re not really wanted

If you're interested in politics, no one can say things are boring in Nova Scotia right now.

And confused.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has dared Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to sue the federal government over the Atlantic Accord. Saskatchewan is suing Ottawa, and the two Atlantic provinces are considering joining in.

It's as bad as the New Minas village commission in recent years.

All this after Harper has piled loot into Quebec and come to agreements with the First Nations.

We have to ask: does Canada want us in the federation?

Let's be clear. Nova Scotia never wanted to be in the Canadian confederation. Joe Howe and most other Nova Scotia best and brightest opposed the province's forced entry into Canada, until it became an irrevocably done deal. Some, including Howe, tried to make the best of a bad situation. Still, the province elected successive secessionist governments for much of the decade after 1867 - to no avail. The reasons were largely economic - we needed trade routes to the world and freedom for our industries.

Central and western Canadians - those who've even cared enough to comment - have scoffed at our wish to tie back into the north/ south trade patterns with the United States’ eastern seaboard.

Well, it's not that simple.

With our history - a millennium and counting - and our location out in the middle of everywhere, our past and potential ties aren't confined to New England, the Mid-Atlantic States or even the Caribbean.

Whatever people say of Asia - yes, it's a growth area (has been for 5,000 years) and, with the Kyoto Accord, will have free license to pollute to its heart's content - the real future is Africa. When that continent gets its political, social and economic institutions in order, look out. It's not going to take the Africans as long as it did the Western Europe/ North America region.

Central and western Canadians also don't comprehend the biggest make-work projects in the country were the transcontinental railway, the St. Lawrence Seaway and Ottawa: all negatively impacting on the Maritimes. We now have Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty urging Harper to hold fast against Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Saskatchewan.

That's rich.

Given what Ontario gets out of the federation - not to mention what Quebec receives - that's almost obscene.

Let's look at real alternatives to Stephen Harper and his Tories.

Well, there's Stephane Dion's Liberals: soft on defense, foreign affairs and just about everything else that adds backbone to the country and our place in the world.

There's Jack Layton's federal NDP - not to be confused with the Nova Scotia NDP, which has been taken over by the grownups. Whatever disappointments we may have with Harper, they pale before the expectations some of us had for Layton. At a time when Canadians should be looking at realistic social democratic means to enhance our economy and its industrial capacity, he's out advocating parleying with terrorists.

No, folks. We're in a fix here in Nova Scotia - but nothing we haven't faced before.

It's just that it all takes away from the task at hand: the socio-economic development of our region.