In the wake of the recent federal election that added fuel to a nascent Alberta separatist movement, and the pledge by Premier Jason Kenney to hold a referendum on equalization and revisit whether the province should remain in the Canada Pension Plan, the response from some corners has ranged from confusion to glib dismissals as to why many Albertans are angry.
I am a born-and-bred British Columbian who has spent half his life in Alberta. I know something of its political culture and present circumstances. Briefly, Albertans, as with others on the Prairies, have long possessed an entrepreneurial spirit and an openness to new ideas and political reform.
That combination explains why the early suffrage movement took hold in Alberta before anywhere else. It is why Alberta’s early ranchers, farmers and oil wildcatters, and everyone else until the recent energy boom ended in 2014, thought the future was wide open.
But this positive belief in a limitless future is now why many Albertans have reached peak frustration: They correctly grasp that their livelihoods and futures are being circumscribed by a minority of unrealistic politicians and anti-energy activists who want Alberta oil and gas dead.
To add insult to the relentless attack, it is hard-earned Alberta wealth that for at least a half-century, has paid for a greater share of Canada’s federal bills compared with any other province. As Robert Mansell and Tim Hearn from the University of Calgary’s school of public policy recently chronicled, Albertans have contributed $611-billion to Confederation on a net basis between 1961 and 2017.
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See Also:
(1) Andrew Scheer’s trial by religion
(2) The futility of carbon offsets
(3) Conservatives to try and force Trudeau’s hand over western alienation
(4) What it would mean for pensioners if Kenney creates an Alberta pension plan
(5) Kenney’s ‘fair deal’ plan ‘would completely change Alberta’ if successful: political scientist
Jack’s Note: Whatever Quebec gets from confederation, Alberta should get also. It’s only fair (and that will really put the cat amongst the pigeons).
