Friday, August 18, 2006

"Go West, Young Man..."

There’s a wonderful piece in The Wall Street Journal today about how Canada’s western provinces are cutting tax rates and growing rapidly. The combination of supply-side tax cuts, free trade, and the oil sands boom has created quite the economic boom up there.

You couldn’t have a bigger contrast between the western provinces (British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan) and Canada’s high-tax, high-spending, over-regulated eastern provinces like Ontario and Quebec. And, remember, it was the conservatives in western Canada that really elected conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

I often wonder why the western part of Canada doesn’t join the United States.

And then, to be consistent, maybe I should be wondering why the northeast here in the U.S. doesn’t just go ahead and lock arms with the lefties in eastern Canada. Think of it.