Alberta Has Been Badly Used

There’s been a curious turn in some of the press commentary on what we may call the Alberta situation — references to “whining” and “complaining,” reminders that other regions have had “downturns,” too, claims that Albertans themselves have been careless in the management of their main industry. Some have actually expressed satisfaction that the province may be forced by its current dilemma to seek alternate sources for its economy, along the vaporous trail of the New Green Economy — whatever that strange beast is supposed to be.

Some of this is baiting, some of it is ignorance, and all of it, in the light of tensions that now exist out West, is perilous. This is not a time to wind up people who are already fully wound up.

Well yes, there have been downturns before. Mines have closed, American bases have shut down, and businesses have gone bust. But the Alberta case is not like that. The burdens under which Alberta now labours are singular, if not unique.

The greatest contribution to Alberta’s downturn, the flight of much of its capital, and the low morale in the industry generally, has been the continuous and furious assault the province, its oil industry, and Fort McMurray in particular, have endured for well over a decade. The globalist international movement of apocalyptic climate change has marked Alberta and its oilsands as its chosen target and symbol. There has never been so concentrated and focused an attack on any industry or project that equals in scale the relentless, propagandist denigration of the Alberta oilsands and the town of Fort McMurray.

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See Also:

(1) The Western mood is hardening fast. Ignoring it will put everyone at peril

(2) Despite attacks, Kenney’s ideas aren’t separatist or dangerous

(3) Survey shows widening provincial divides in Canada

(4) Alberta premier says proposal to pull out of CPP due to ‘hostility’ from others

(5) Federal transfer system debate revived at Queen’s Park