Good post! You are absolutely right: Albertans have screwed themselves by electing the same tired, stupid, conservatives year after year. Growing up in Calgary in the 1970's, I witnessed 3 oil booms. My Dad had a small oil company. The streets were awash in money. Peter Lougheed, the last good and best Premier Alberta had, built a Heritage Savings Trust Fund. Subsequent conservative Premiers pissed it away. I remember bumper stickers "Please God give us another oil boom- we promise not to piss this one away". But they did. No sales tax in Alberta - we'll just dip into the savings account to keep Alberta taxes low. And we will do no infrastructure capital improvements. Let the ND's do that then kick them out of office for spending too much money. BUT, Albertans have an attitude that they deserve to be rich and if they aren't they want someone to blame.
I decided to have a look at the economic dashboard of the province of Alberta. What economic factor is causing this sense of dread? What makes people feel that things are so bad that they need to separate?
I was expecting runaway inflation, stagnating wages, unemployment approaching 10%, etc. etc. None of that is the case. Wages are growing slightly faster than inflation, inflation around 2 % with a small uptick due to high gas prices recently, unemployment 1% above historical average, but far from catastrophic. Consistently growing oil exports. What is the issue in Alberta? Most provinces would be quite happy with these numbers.
What is causing all this gloom, and why is it the federal government’s fault? Can somebody from Alberta explain it to me?
For decades, starting in the 70s, the province has plowed huge amounts of oil money into municipal budgets. This was a deliberate choice to help the cities grow faster than they possibly could from their own funding sources. Alberta needed the growth. It was good policy.
However, the right wing governments have embraced their own “taxes should always go down” mythology to such an extent that they’ve played every possible financial trick to technically lower the provincial tax rates, regardless of where it shifts the cost. This is how Alberta has ended up with some of the highest utilities and fee costs in the country.
The biggest victim had been an almost complete cutting of municipal subsidies.
In order to simply maintain funding levels, municipalities have been increasing their taxes by 5-10% year after year as the province cuts their contribution. The actual budgets aren’t going up, but the visible tax bill is. Combine that with utilities and fees going up at the same time people feel like they’re being hammered.
It’s mostly people earning 6-figure incomes that are upset because their income no longer gives them the lifestyle they are used to. Although O&G has been increasing production, the jobs have been decreasing due to technology and automation. Increasingly, low educated individuals can’t find those sweet, 6-figure jobs anymore.
The problem is political elites who have convinced them that southern capitals (they misdirect by saying "east", but 70% of Canada's population is south of the 49th) are the problem, all while lying about the fact that they are themselves a southern capital manipulating the north.
Political elites wanting more power for themselves -- nothing more complex.
Provincial jurisdiction over natural resources baked this in decades ago, with races-to-the-bottom on regulation and royalty rates ensuring that much of the proceeds from extraction would be exported. This self-impoverishment continues to get reinforced; look at how BC's current attempt to increase natural gas revenues is being met with the threat of a capital strike: https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vaughn-palmer-ndp-drive-to-change-bc-natural-gas-royalties-faces-industry-pushback This is the worst part of Canadian federalism, working neither in practice nor theory.
As an Edmontonian who has now lived in Ottawa for decades (like the PM haha), I am not only still an Oilers fan, but also still an Albertan at heart.
Every time I visit my family there, I see a happening place full of energy and dynamism and wealth.
Driving down Hwy 2 to Calgary then Banff, you see the distant, hazy Rockies grow ever closer, and suddenly they're right there, looming all around you.
That's Alberta: a young, wide open place with boundless opportunities and dreams as big as those massive rocks.
Western alienation is as old as the dinosaur fossils in the badlands.
But, even though I know the centre rarely even thinks about the hinterland, I feel heartsick at the never-ending-referendumb farce that Pandora Smith has unleashed.
I have no sympathy for separatists who are playing right into the tiny hands of Trump as the US tries to divide and weaken us to grab our resources at an even cheaper rate.
I have no sympathy for Smith as she uses the referendum strategy to extort the federal Liberals and pander to anti-immigrant racists.
I have no sympathy for the UCP as they dropped AB to last place in per capita education funding, haven't built a new hospital in Edmonton (since the 80s!), and hit pause on booming renewable energy to protect O&G.
I have no sympathy for Smith as she uses separatism as a massive distraction away from the healthcare kickbacks corruption scandal that is nipping at her heels (Panama anyone?)
I have no sympathy for politicians who are putting my homeland at risk of QC decline or Brexit disaster for the sake of MAGA fantasies.
I can only hope the Conservative civil war, begun with the Reform Party in the 90s, continues to rip the UCP into two parties, sinking Smith along the way.
Leader of official opposition born and raised in Calgary and only worked in Ottawa as part of the Reform movement.
Clearly the northwest isn't "in", right? <sarchasm>
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I'm a southerner (born in Sudbury, lived in Ottawa since '87, both south of the 49th where 70% of Canada's population is), but wanted to add.
When I've done a research deep-dive, it has indicated that the political elites that drive the UK Reform party and the MAGA movement used as a model the grievance culture manipulations that allowed the Canadian Reform party to take over the federal Progressive Conservative party.
And then there is the regular suggestion that the northwestern alienation (they drop the north part to try to avoid the hypocricy of what the southern provincial capitals do to the True North) grievance culture grew out of the Quebec/Lower Canada grievance culture that political elites there stirr up that relates to France ceding all Doctrine of Discovery land claims to the mainland in Treaty of Paris (1763). France retained only the tiny islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon for fishing rights. Yes, there are two islands near Newfoundland that are part of France, for anyone who didn't notice.
Rather than thinking what Alberta and other parts of the praries are doing as following MAGA, we might want to think about the influence that all this political elites driven grievance culture has had on other countries. I am curious if MAGA would have been launched if not for the experiments with smaller populations that demonstrated how easy it is to do.
The UCP is merely provincial branding for the Reform grievance culture movement.
Bloc is primarily a split from the federal Progressive Conservatives, but is merely the federal branding for the provincial grievance culture movement.
Separate: Without ballot ranking, fear around vote splitting can always be used to manipulate voters. Single-X ballot questions where there are multiple potential valid options to pick from is also deliberate political manipulation by the elites controlling these political parties.
Good post! You are absolutely right: Albertans have screwed themselves by electing the same tired, stupid, conservatives year after year. Growing up in Calgary in the 1970's, I witnessed 3 oil booms. My Dad had a small oil company. The streets were awash in money. Peter Lougheed, the last good and best Premier Alberta had, built a Heritage Savings Trust Fund. Subsequent conservative Premiers pissed it away. I remember bumper stickers "Please God give us another oil boom- we promise not to piss this one away". But they did. No sales tax in Alberta - we'll just dip into the savings account to keep Alberta taxes low. And we will do no infrastructure capital improvements. Let the ND's do that then kick them out of office for spending too much money. BUT, Albertans have an attitude that they deserve to be rich and if they aren't they want someone to blame.
I decided to have a look at the economic dashboard of the province of Alberta. What economic factor is causing this sense of dread? What makes people feel that things are so bad that they need to separate?
I was expecting runaway inflation, stagnating wages, unemployment approaching 10%, etc. etc. None of that is the case. Wages are growing slightly faster than inflation, inflation around 2 % with a small uptick due to high gas prices recently, unemployment 1% above historical average, but far from catastrophic. Consistently growing oil exports. What is the issue in Alberta? Most provinces would be quite happy with these numbers.
What is causing all this gloom, and why is it the federal government’s fault? Can somebody from Alberta explain it to me?
For decades, starting in the 70s, the province has plowed huge amounts of oil money into municipal budgets. This was a deliberate choice to help the cities grow faster than they possibly could from their own funding sources. Alberta needed the growth. It was good policy.
However, the right wing governments have embraced their own “taxes should always go down” mythology to such an extent that they’ve played every possible financial trick to technically lower the provincial tax rates, regardless of where it shifts the cost. This is how Alberta has ended up with some of the highest utilities and fee costs in the country.
The biggest victim had been an almost complete cutting of municipal subsidies.
In order to simply maintain funding levels, municipalities have been increasing their taxes by 5-10% year after year as the province cuts their contribution. The actual budgets aren’t going up, but the visible tax bill is. Combine that with utilities and fees going up at the same time people feel like they’re being hammered.
This does not sound like a federal government problem to me… and yet separation is going to make everything.
It Brexit all over again. Alberta edition.
It’s mostly people earning 6-figure incomes that are upset because their income no longer gives them the lifestyle they are used to. Although O&G has been increasing production, the jobs have been decreasing due to technology and automation. Increasingly, low educated individuals can’t find those sweet, 6-figure jobs anymore.
But if you look at the stats, weekly earnings averages have gone up steadily, despite perhaps the shift skill demands.
The problem is political elites who have convinced them that southern capitals (they misdirect by saying "east", but 70% of Canada's population is south of the 49th) are the problem, all while lying about the fact that they are themselves a southern capital manipulating the north.
Political elites wanting more power for themselves -- nothing more complex.
https://r.flora.ca/p/legal-fiction-democracy
35% want separation
That’s the same percentage as the MAGA faithful. No matter what trump does it doesn’t shift.
Treaty Rights
The need to consult.
The rest is posturing
Provincial jurisdiction over natural resources baked this in decades ago, with races-to-the-bottom on regulation and royalty rates ensuring that much of the proceeds from extraction would be exported. This self-impoverishment continues to get reinforced; look at how BC's current attempt to increase natural gas revenues is being met with the threat of a capital strike: https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vaughn-palmer-ndp-drive-to-change-bc-natural-gas-royalties-faces-industry-pushback This is the worst part of Canadian federalism, working neither in practice nor theory.
As an Edmontonian who has now lived in Ottawa for decades (like the PM haha), I am not only still an Oilers fan, but also still an Albertan at heart.
Every time I visit my family there, I see a happening place full of energy and dynamism and wealth.
Driving down Hwy 2 to Calgary then Banff, you see the distant, hazy Rockies grow ever closer, and suddenly they're right there, looming all around you.
That's Alberta: a young, wide open place with boundless opportunities and dreams as big as those massive rocks.
Western alienation is as old as the dinosaur fossils in the badlands.
But, even though I know the centre rarely even thinks about the hinterland, I feel heartsick at the never-ending-referendumb farce that Pandora Smith has unleashed.
I have no sympathy for separatists who are playing right into the tiny hands of Trump as the US tries to divide and weaken us to grab our resources at an even cheaper rate.
I have no sympathy for Smith as she uses the referendum strategy to extort the federal Liberals and pander to anti-immigrant racists.
I have no sympathy for the UCP as they dropped AB to last place in per capita education funding, haven't built a new hospital in Edmonton (since the 80s!), and hit pause on booming renewable energy to protect O&G.
I have no sympathy for Smith as she uses separatism as a massive distraction away from the healthcare kickbacks corruption scandal that is nipping at her heels (Panama anyone?)
I have no sympathy for politicians who are putting my homeland at risk of QC decline or Brexit disaster for the sake of MAGA fantasies.
I can only hope the Conservative civil war, begun with the Reform Party in the 90s, continues to rip the UCP into two parties, sinking Smith along the way.
A silver lining in this dark cloud?
PM born in NWT and grew up in Edmonton.
Leader of official opposition born and raised in Calgary and only worked in Ottawa as part of the Reform movement.
Clearly the northwest isn't "in", right? <sarchasm>
--------
I'm a southerner (born in Sudbury, lived in Ottawa since '87, both south of the 49th where 70% of Canada's population is), but wanted to add.
When I've done a research deep-dive, it has indicated that the political elites that drive the UK Reform party and the MAGA movement used as a model the grievance culture manipulations that allowed the Canadian Reform party to take over the federal Progressive Conservative party.
And then there is the regular suggestion that the northwestern alienation (they drop the north part to try to avoid the hypocricy of what the southern provincial capitals do to the True North) grievance culture grew out of the Quebec/Lower Canada grievance culture that political elites there stirr up that relates to France ceding all Doctrine of Discovery land claims to the mainland in Treaty of Paris (1763). France retained only the tiny islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon for fishing rights. Yes, there are two islands near Newfoundland that are part of France, for anyone who didn't notice.
Rather than thinking what Alberta and other parts of the praries are doing as following MAGA, we might want to think about the influence that all this political elites driven grievance culture has had on other countries. I am curious if MAGA would have been launched if not for the experiments with smaller populations that demonstrated how easy it is to do.
The UCP is merely provincial branding for the Reform grievance culture movement.
Bloc is primarily a split from the federal Progressive Conservatives, but is merely the federal branding for the provincial grievance culture movement.
Separate: Without ballot ranking, fear around vote splitting can always be used to manipulate voters. Single-X ballot questions where there are multiple potential valid options to pick from is also deliberate political manipulation by the elites controlling these political parties.