You may recall from a few years back, the peroration of Ralphie Klein, King of the Republic of Alberta, and his oil-fired curse about “leaving the eastern bastards to freeze in the dark” having to do with his province’s sharing of the goodies with respect to the oil flowing beneath the footsteps of Albertans.

Well folks, Cousin Ralphie is at it again, taking down his pants and mooning his unique interpretation of what it means to be a Canadian, while extending his far right middle finger in the usual salute.

While either in his usual well-oiled state, or perhaps in just a moment of rare candour, Cousin Ralphie, Lord of all the Rednecks, allowed as how he weren’t about to share his province’s windfall in oil prices with any other Canadians, noway nohow.

Let us be clear. It is not through any particular act of genius on the part of Ralph or any of his flunkies that the Alberta Treasury is currently buried in huge windfall profits generated by the misery of Hurricane Katrina. It is simply because Albertans, due to natural forces occurring millions of years ago, are sitting on major gas and oil fields.

It still costs exactly the same amount to refine a gallon of gas, but as speculators drive up the price at the pump by furiously bidding up the price of oil and natural gas at the wellhead, Alberta’s royalties soar into the financial stratosphere.

Them what has inevitably get richer, while national economies tumble and the rest of us pay the shot. It is the “invisible hand” of the free market at work, do you see.

The results are windfall profits and boom times in that province.

The rest of the country pays for them in hiked gas prices at the pump and with what could be a fearsome winter of furnace oil prices for a great many people.

Ralph is unconcerned. He is adamantly unwilling to help other provincial governments ease the financial burden on Canadians. He would rather “let those eastern bastards freeze in the dark.” Some, especially the aged and the poor (the same sort of people who suffered and died in New Orleans), most certainly will.

Ralph characterizes the suggestion that he open his bulging treasury just a mite, as whining — “give me, give me, give me” — defining other Canadians as the contemporary Canadian equivalent of a bunch of Oliver Twists holding forth their bowls and begging. “Please Sir. May I have some more, Sir?”

And a wonderful Fagin he does make, he who once lectured homeless men to go out and get a job while full in the belly and drunk to boot, while visiting them in their shelter.

Such are the sentiments of one “compassionate” Canadian conservative.

So where is one to look for help in what will be a crisis situation for many as the cold creeps southward from northern climes?

Not to the federal government, apparently. Prime Minister Martin is too busy lecturing and hectoring the nations of the world on their democratic and financial responsibilities to pay much attention to matters in Moosegroin, Saskatchewan, or Crapaud in Prince Edward Island.

As usual, he was long on florid, meaningless rhetoric, and bereft of specific commitments from Canada to aid world hunger, just as he is devoid of assistance to Canadians that his government could well afford.

For, if Ralph Klein’s treasury is the chief beneficiary of windfall profit from unreasoning speculative greed, then the federal treasury is next, with its seven per cent GST levy on every gallon of gas sold. As the price goes up, so does the flow of cash to an already overflowing federal tax coffer.

But that apparently doesn’t mean spit to Mr. Martin and his federal Liberal confreres, even as Canadians face a winter with double the home heating costs of last season. In PEI, the price of home heating oil has rocketed from 45.3 cents per litre to 88.6 cents as of this month. That kind of increase will drive municipal and school budgets into the deficit margin, because it cannot be accommodated with cuts elsewhere.

PEI Premier Pat Binns and Energy Minister Jamie Ballem haven’t proposed any relief either. Mr. Ballem says the Feds should do something, a statement giving the old phrase about “cold comfort” new meaning. But, says he, the government is working on a plan for easement to be revealed by the end of the month.

Meanwhile, Robert Ghiz and his tiny band of opposition Liberals, have one upped Mr. Binns and his Tories, releasing a four-page policy statement containing some very specificmeasures, and a one year cost projection of $4 million to the government treasury.

Mr. Ghiz would provide direct assistance on heating oil to all PEI families making under $40,000 a year. That would include most of them.

The Liberal proposal would also cut property taxes, and financially assist families making energy saving improvements to their homes, as well as cutting back on gas tax increases recently incorporated into the revenue side of the provincial budget.

Mr. Ballem says he’ll give the opposition proposal a look, but he’s not crazy about the concept of government simply sending a cheque to Islanders. For one thing, simply sending a cheque tends to work against the conservation of energy. It can simply pay for the profligate use of petroleum in cars and homes, rather than encouraging more efficient use.

The problem for provincial governments across the country, is that they are at present the place of last resort and unless direct assistance is handed out, the populace gets restive and inclined to blame government for ignoring basic needs.

There’s another and more injurious effect of government using handouts to keep the voters quiescent: it means the taxpayer is funding the windfall profit taking of Ralph Klein’s government, the federal government, and especially the oil speculators driving the price of petroleum ever upwards towards greater and greater riches.

It is the unrestricted and unregulated free market at work, with the “invisible hand” tightly gripping the throat of those who are the easiest victims and strangling the life from them.

And all the while, our elected leaders look on for all the world like eunuchs in an ideological harem.