The Rich Kid

Alberta is somewhat of a puzzle for most Canadians. How can a province be so chronically unhappy with its place in Confederation when it is so prosperous, so blessed with natural resource wealth and has just posted a $5 billion surplus for 2004/05? What is it with those guys, anyway? For Albertans themselves, however, there is little mystery. Western alienation reflects the history of a province that spent its first 70 years on the margins of Canadian life, and then found itself with the financial capacity to play a major role in Confederation. Albertans responded to this opportunity with enthusiasm, but their efforts to come in from the cold met with little success. They were the princi- pal architects of a Western Canadian strategy of national inclusion—“the West wants in”—but today that strategy is in tatters.

Thus the central question for Albertans as they enter their second century as a Canadian province is this: if the “West wants in” strategy has been...