Given that, the previous Alberta government was Social Credit for a huge number of years (sorry I don't have the exact number) who could hardly be accused of being left wing. The conservatives have been in power since the early 70's, so they right has been in power for decades now.
Check the dates...it's all been conservative all the time. SoCreds too. They were taken over pretty quickly. Look at your history though. You shifted with Leduc and you shifted a little further with the NEP.
Don't feed us all that crap about the NEP either. You had a sure market for your oil, just not at OPEC prices and you had to sell it in Canada. Oh, boo hoo. There were plenty of Canadians who went broke because of the energy crisis and plenty more who would have if it hadn't of been for the NEP. I know that your cowboy culture glorifies truckers, for instance...
More than that though, the feds pours tons of money into Alberta. The tar sands, pipelines, r&d money. That's my frigging tax money, Blue. I'm still paying interest on some of it. I expect a return on the investment. Pure business. You claim to understand that business thing.
The last election, Ralph was probably at his most vulnerable, and still won a massive majority.
The seats he got were a lot more massive than the popular vote, and a lot of people never voted at all.
You miss the main point, and that is once people get to Alberta, they generally buy into the culture and social aspects of Alberta due to the vast majority of benefits available in this province due to the good fiscal management of the right.
I've talked to a lot of people who feel very differently. That might explain the democratic deficit I mentioned above.
This is even after granting teachers and nurses virtually everything they asked for in the last round of negotiations for each group in this province.
He had to or they wouldn't work for him. Then his attempts to destroy Canadian health care would be all for naught.
Your premise that the more people move to an area the more liberal the area becomes may be true when they move to a liberal area, but over the years here, I think it can be said that once people move to Alberta and experience the benefits of the conservative culture, the more they appreciate it and agree with it.
Fine, ignore history. Ignore demographics. Politics has nothing to do with traditions or advertising after all. Oh wait...those are the foundations of politics.
And your mention of the NEP is something that will not go away for generations to come.
Less than half of your population lived in Alberta when the NEP was in force. Many of your recent arrivals have families who benefitted from the NEP. That number swings a little more in the favour of the rest of Canada every day.
It was an outright rape of one area of the country, pure and simple.
It was a recognition that you are as much a part of this country...and need to contribute as such...as anything else. You keep demanding a political voice, yet your main political rallying cry is how the rest of Canada screwed you.
People lost jobs, businessess, homes, and even lives due to that piece of crap.
Why? Because they only got paid a good chunk more than before? Nobody took anything from you. You had to sell at less than an inflated value, but you were still making more than before.
You wanna know the really funny thing? The whole thing was brought on by the US reaching their peak oil. You guys are still denying that peak oil scenarios are possible and still trying to be more American.
At the time there was talk about you joining OPEC. Now you stand against OPEC and support racial profiling, which discrimiates against the citizens of OPEC nations.
And I don't care if you believe me or not, I was in a job that was influenced by the NEP, and have first hand knowledge of everything I mentioned above. Do not insult and disrespect those individuals who lost everything by sayingthat the NEP was justified.
Ooops, too late. Lots of people lost their jobs then though. You blame it the NEP, others blame it on the NEP not being strict enough. Truckers at the time bitched about everything from grade rates to the railroads. The railroads blamed the farmers, the Crow rate, and the lack of auto sales. You want me to go on with this? Likely not.
Was not then, and if something similar is attempted now (read carbon tax) it will not be tolerated again.
What carbon tax?
The NEP is the reason the liberals will never be in power in Edmonton for at least the next two generations, assuming Canada is still together in two generations.
I knew you could get back to the subject. Don't come whining to me when your riding goes NDP. Read some history instead.
