The Edmonton Weststar,  Nov 14th, 2012

The East has traditionally been the ‘Canadian’ part of Canada, the West being a dumping ground for all religious, economic, and sexy extremes located within our northern borders. But what comes of the relationship born in such disparity? The East and West are like green and red, two colours that should never be viewed together, but for a large part of the year, you are forced to see them in unity for the sake of sentiment.

It is a bizarre situation that has only been made stranger as Ottawa, the legendary city located deep in the Eastern womb, is controlled by a ‘Western’ man, Calgarian Mr. Stephan Harper. Except he is not a true Westerner, being that he was born an raised in Toronto, Ottawa’s super trendy and annoying little brother. This is not only obvious by a simple Wikipedia query, there are signs of it throughout his demeanor. Which brings me to the purpose of this editorial: How to distinguish Western Canada from Eastern Canada.

The East is defined by existing east of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Friendly city, no doubt, but there is an uncommon amount of general uselessness that pervades that place. The people are occasional-working, complainy, and somewhat disdainful of the hard nosed mindset that Albertans take their biggest pride in. Furthermore, they have in more than one occasion referred to our great province, (in polite terms), a ‘haven for red-necks’; a terrible cursed slander that clearly marks them as Eastern parasitic in breeds who look only to rob us of our valuable assets,  while spitting in our ruggedly bone structured faces.

First of all, Winnipeg, we are not red-necks. You’re a red-neck. Ask Saskatchewan if you don’t believe me.

After Winnipeg, moving even more east you enter into Ontario, a massive, lake flavoured province that contains an uncomfortable, writhing mass of people. Not much is known about the depths of Ontario, other than this is where the aforementioned fabled Ottawa is said to make its incestuous nest. We can only guess at what it may look like, using renders and computer projections to assist us. We do know this is where Steven Harper comes from, so we assume the all the people look like different versions of him. Here the people are ‘city’ folk, similar to Edmonton folk, but instead of hitting pure, sweet open land after driving 40 minutes west out of the city, you hit what looks like Red Deer, after Red Deer, after Red Deer. Terrible thought indeed, but this whole Canadian central nervous system –or CNS to put it scientifically– is an important Canadian asset, as any warring states with our country will target this area first. It is safe to consider them as sort of a decoy, like false eye-spots used to distract any potential threats, allowing the West to dis-attach and run to safety relatively unharmed.

Moving more east you reach Quebec, a.k.a, the ‘French Province.’ Alberta standards of censorship forbade me to go into any depth about this area of North America. They are big, and as arrogant and opinionated as we are, except in exactly opposite ways. They are said to have mountains, but to what extent is still a mystery.

After Quebec, we get into what is known as the ‘Maritimes.’ This is where you are going so far east, you start getting west again. Our relationship with these provinces is pretty good considering their terrible taste in Eastern geography. There are at least four different provinces here, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland (also known as Eastern North Alberta). I feel even now that I’m missing one, but it is up to that mystery province, if it exists, to let me know. All that is known about these provinces is that the people truly know how to have a good time.They have taught us well, and their preference for the use of the word ‘right’ in all sorts of sentences, sometimes unnecessarily, has moved favourably into the Albertan dialect. This adds an East coast flare that only adds to our impeccable ability to have sex with each other.

After the Maritimes, there is the Atlantic ocean. It contains no Easterners, thankfully, but water, hurricanes and whales. We assume these whales to be cosmopolitan in nature, as they tend towards a nomadic, back-packer lifestyle where they can see first hand what our combined industrial activities are doing to their home. These whales have yet to prove diplomatically useful to Alberta, but we hoped continued efforts will prove them fiscally conservative.

This was written as part of The Edmonton Weststar’s ‘Editorial Series’

14/11/2012