Lassen Sie uns den Phoney Alberta gegen Kanada -Unsinn fallen lassen. Die Provinz hat den Feind getroffen – und sie sind sie

Look, Alberta’s economy has always been designed to extract oil. Whatever revenue is generated is reinvested to extract oil. Our industrial institutions, from chem phds to our construction firms are all touched and affected by oil.

Oil has infected everything. People who moved here in the 80s boom extracted cash in some indirect way, which in turn made more growth to attract more people to push oil more.

Ontario’s apathy towards Alberta makes sense- it’s a satellite drawing oil and therefore prosperity for the nation. Alberta should be left to it’s own devices to distribute and innovate their society, given it’s own skimming off the top of revenue.

But oil is pervasive. The market demands it chief among absolutely anything. Drillers make double of the salary of teachers, who in turn teach the kids of the drillers. Our employment is contingent on it, and our government has to keep things oil friendly: not necessarily for a nefarious reason, but to keep the well-being of our people intact. Any cash made is cash that can be reinvested in oil.

So what’s the divide? Alberta remains staunchly conservative because our economy is so utterly reliant on oil that even moderately environmental moves, or economically centralizing policies, wreak havoc. You can’t invoke an oil recession- people’s lives depend on oil money.

This is why separation is floated- some Albertans think they can go on an independent oil binge and not reap consequences for it. Even in the greatest dreams of ridding Ontarian yoke, and gaining pipeline cash down south and west, the oil will run out, the oil market will collapse, and the province is left a rudderless mess. Add on annexation by America, and Alberta reverts to a rust belt type deal.

Follow the cash, not the culture.