Albertans have all the luck....

I was reading comments on the small dead animals blog from the liberal trolls about Alberta. They seem to believe that Alberta is the only province that has oil and that this oil stops exactly at the Alberta borders. Alberta Girl (one of the commenters on the site) pointed to an article that upset her that also seems to have this opinion: Albertans have all the luck and lots of money

I commented on the fact that Alberta has consistently voted in a conservative government provincially unlike other provinces and this has made Alberta successful. It is not just the conservative government but the attitude of the voters that voted in the government. That means, in general, Albertans are not looking to the government to take care of us unless we are in great need. Also, those people in other provinces that had some accountability, responsibility, and a hard working attitude that could not find work at home would move to Alberta. This has shaped a very entreprenurial hardworking attitude in Alberta.

Until the conservatives were voted in federally, Albertans were losing hope. As my parents mentioned, other provinces were bankrupting themselves and then looking to Alberta and wanting us to share. That's like a sibling who has spent all his allowance on videogames and then felt his sister should give him some of her part-time job earnings because he was broke and she made more than an allowance.

Now, Canada has voted in what looks to be a responsible government. Separatism has deflated as, although we didn't make a difference, the type of government we feel is right for Canada is in power. This also gave us hope that other Canadians weren't wrapped up in the "sense of entitlement" attitude.

However, we still fear the prevailing socialist attitude of many Canadians and another NEP grab. There are two large socialistic parties out there who are hungry for power and will do whatever they can to get it back. Alberta is still thinking that we better set ourselves up (the oft mentioned firewall) so that if need be, we can separate if socialism prevails. It is good sense considering the past and some of the comments we are hearing.

I could continue but Alberta Girl said it best in the following comment:

Denis - you bring up a very good point that once people move to Alberta their whole view of this province changes - they begin to understand what makes us"tick" so to speak and why separatism still simmers just below the surface. Without a doubt - if the Liberals had been re-elected - separatism would have become a fact. For now - it is off the radar, but any hint that another NEP or any other ideas to take over Alberta's resource revenue will be the deciding factor.

BCL, Zuma and several of the other posters here do not get it - they do not realize that Alberta already "shares" their oil revenue with the rest of the country. They still like to believe that Alberta is the only province in Canada sitting on pools of oil and this is the reason for the wealth of Alberta. They for some reason, fail to grasp the connection that how Alberta has been governed for the past 30 years and especially in the last 13, has a correlation to the success of the province. They fail to grasp that by voting Liberal or NDP governments who believe that governments should be in charge of everything and to allow the citizens to have any responsibility is somehow a bad thing.

So the left consistently looks down their noses at Alberta as some kind of "country cousin" - a cousin who really has no idea about the "real world". But the laugh is on them because the "real world" is happening in Alberta.

Now I don't expect that people like BCL or Zuma or any of the other lefties who like to play with our minds will change because of Kate's site, but it sure is fun to give them the other side of the story.

Thanks to Denis for adding the fact that if Alberta didn't support taking the oil out of the ground we wouldn't be where we are. Hopefully other provinces, under the Conservative government's support for provincial autonomy, will grasp the concept, start supporting enteprenurial endeavours in their own provinces and encouraging developement of their own resources. I won't hold my breath on that though because voters like BCL and Zuma will most likely not see what their provinces could be and will continue to vote in governments that see abdicating responsibilities as reducing their power.

If you continually decade after decade vote in socialist governments, soon the voters in that province do not know any other way and the expectation is that the government will take care of you. The socialist agenda becomes a culture of entitlement that permeates our universities and because our universities turn our our teachers, has begun to permeate our schools and each generation is "taught" that premise.

That is why people who move to Alberta from other parts of the country are surprised to find themselves with a whole new belief pattern after living here. They truly do see things in a new light and begin to realize that what they believed, heard and have been taught about Alberta and Conservatism was not totally the truth.

Posted by Alberta Girl at March 31, 2006 07:05 AM