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From: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Low Cost Transportation
Message-ID: <53@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Oct-85 02:22:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.53
Posted: Thu Oct 17 02:22:10 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 17-Oct-85 22:20:12 EDT
References: <2649@watcgl.UUCP>
Reply-To: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 32
Summary: 

In article <2649@watcgl.UUCP> jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) writes:
>
>Why should we, in general, subsidize the air fares of foreign nationals
>Brad?

Why should we subsidize the air fares of Canadians even more, John? We
already contribute $85 toward each passenger on VIA rail. We certainly don't
need to extend this to the airline industry. 

> I don't see how Canada could help but benefit from a stronger
>national identity and it certainly is necessary to be able to travel
>to and/or communicae with your (national) neighbours to feel a sense
>of unity.

I am not totally convinced that travel and communication are enough to 
promote a sense of unity. As you point out the Americans have a rallying
point with their flag and constitution and these symbols are probably
far more important than the uniform, compared to Canada, population
distribution. It is my distinct impression that the Easterners don't
exactly like the Californians and the Californians aren't exactly in
love with the East. Oregonians (sp?) are totally disgusted with Californians
and there doesn't appear to be any love loss between the people from Arizona
and the rest of the US. Then there are the people of New England who don't
like the midwest and its acid rain on their hills. It seems that the
citizens of the US have the same general types of attitudes towards 
other states as Canadians have to other provinces.

As an aside, I am not too thrilled with the idea of real cheap subsidized
air fares. After all I don't want everyone from Toronto out here
every weekend :-).

Donald Acton