Alberta the New Economic Engine, I Hope Not

I have been thinking a lot lately about why it bothers me so much when people refer to Alberta as the new economic engine of Canada. I have realized there are two reasons for this: the first, the nature of the sources of the wealth; the second, what the province did or is doing with the wealth.

In the case of the first: the wealth in Alberta is resource based and the owners of those resource companies, primarily the oil companies, hold sway over the economics and politics, and therefore the lfestyle, of the people of the province, and more and more of the nation. When Ontario and Quebec dominated the economy, and I hope they rise again, the auto industry may have been prominent, but it was paralleled by a very diverse manufacturing sector, and while companies may have had a lot of economic and political influence, both the unions and the owners had political clout. As well, the overall economy was very diversified and this created a rich texture to the politics and the lifestyle of the people of Ontario and Quebec, and as a result, Canada. I also venture to say that a great deal more of the wealth remained in Canada when it was created in Ontario and Quebec.

The second: what the provinces are doing with the wealth. We know that the economic philosophy (I would call it ideology) of the Alberta government/oil companies has not so far included concern for the lifestyle of its citizens. The unparalleled wealth has not gone into affordable housing, accessible health care, excellence in education, well-maintained infrastructure; nor has it gone into quality of life institutions like those that innovate and inspire in the areas of arts, culture, heritage. They don't even seem to stand out in sports. And on the dark side, hard drugs and related gang activity have become an enormous problem, one which no one really seems to want to acknowledge.

On the other hand, when Ontario and Quebec held sway, we had the development of all our major cultural institutions, music, literature, history, theatre, opera, ballet, museums, art galleries, the film industry, great restaurants, a rich diversity of cultural sectors, large and small, excellence in education, innovative architecture, and a focus on affordable housing and infrastructure, and this spread to the rest of the country.

There is something about countries or regions with a strong arts, culture and heritage identity that gets under the skin of other countries and regions which focus primarily on money. Look at how the American oil types under Bush hate the French. You can see that with Alberta - the richness of these things under Ontario and Quebec's leadership stuck in the craw of Albertans and still does (I think this is why Harper has attacked the arts from day one). Through Ontario and Quebec, and to a lesser extent the Maritimes, Canada created its identity. Alberta is not offering us another one, nor is it adding to the richness of the one we have. Like Harper's passion to destroy the Liberal party, the Albertan zeitgeist seems simply to destroy that which makes them feel inadequate, the very essence of who we are as Canadians.