People in the rest of Canada often perceive Alberta as a monolith. You know those Albertans: they all vote Conservative, they have all that oil money and want more, they do not care about the environment, they pay no sales tax, they are more American than Canadian, and now that they are running the federal government they are ruining our image as a progressive, peace-loving country. Of course, there is also an admiring counter-narrative of Albertans as the most entrepreneurial Canadians who are driving the national economy and reducing the emphasis on government while increasing personal economic freedom and restoring the military to its proper place in Canadian society.
Central Canadians are probing westward in an effort to engage constructively with the emergent power of Albertans. Too often their starting perception is that Albertans are a unified block of like-minded people that can be accessed through either Calgary or Edmonton on the assumption that if you...
Harvey Locke served as president of the Liberal Party of Alberta and national president of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. He was the Liberal candidate in the federal by-election for Calgary Centre in November 2012. He now lives in Banff, where he works on the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative and the global Nature Needs Half movement.
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