Is Conservative and Prosperous Alberta a Redneck Refuge or a Populist Pioneer?

It was only a tongue-in-cheek letter to a newspaper. But the suggestion to trade Alberta to the United States--perhaps for Minnesota--got a lot of Canadians thinking about this idiosyncratic, occasionally un-Canadian province.

Alberta is Canada’s oil field, its cowboy country, headquarters for its anti-gun-control lobby, stronghold of its right-wing political movement. In the American West, it might fit in comfortably; in Canada--well, Alberta is different.

“Albertans feel good about Alberta,” said Thomas Flanagan, political science professor at the University of Calgary. “If we can just be left alone to run our own affairs, and be taxed as little as possible, we’ll be fine.”

The Toronto-based Globe and Mail, which circulates across Canada, recently published a letter from Toronto reader John Firth, who bemoaned the Alberta government’s opposition to gun control and its reluctance to embrace gay rights.

“Clearly the time has come to expel this right-wing cuckoo from the Canadian nest,” wrote Firth, who proposed trading the province to the United States for “one of the more civilized border states”--preferably Minnesota or Vermont.

Dozens of letters have flowed to the Globe and Mail in response, some accusing it of disseminating hate literature, and almost all of it defending Alberta.

Rather than expel Alberta, why not send Ottawa-based federal politicians and bureaucrats to Alberta, reader Jack Tate suggested. “Both the country and they would benefit from their exposure to clear mountain air and clear thinking.”

But Melanie Anderson, part of Alberta’s left-of-center minority and head of its Planned Parenthood chapter in Calgary, says critics of the province are on target.

“Other Canadians do look at Alberta as being very redneck, and unfortunately I’d have to agree with them,” she said. “To tell the truth, it’s very embarrassing to be from Alberta when you go to a national conference.”

At the moment, Alberta ranks as Canada’s most conservative province and its most prosperous. Many Albertans would link those two achievements.

A Province With Many Distinctions

Among Alberta’s distinctions:

* It is the only province with no sales tax.

* It is the bastion of the right-wing Reform Party, now the largest opposition faction in Parliament. The governing Liberal Party can claim reasonable support almost everywhere else in Canada; in Alberta, it won one seat in last year’s national election while Reform won the other 25.

* Alberta initiated a legal challenge to federal gun control legislation that will require registration of all 7 million firearms in Canada. Three other provinces joined the suit, which is likely to reach Canada’s Supreme Court.

* Alberta has been a pioneer in providing public funds to private schools, several of them run by conservative Christian churches.

* It implemented a no-frills policy at its jails--rationing toilet paper, removing pool tables, eliminating bacon from breakfast menus--that prompted one offender to request a 24-month term in a federal prison rather than 15 months in an Alberta jail.

* It is crusading for radical reform of Canada’s largely impotent Senate, saying members should be elected rather than appointed by the prime minister. In October, the province elected two “senators-in-waiting” to fill Alberta seats in the chamber whenever the rest of the country wises up.

* Alone among the provinces, Alberta waged a long legal battle against offering specific protection to homosexuals in its human rights code. The Supreme Court ruled against the province in April, rejecting its claim that the issue should be decided by politicians, not judges.

Shaped by Populist Ideas from the U.S.

Murray Billett, an Alberta activist involved in the campaign to bolster gay rights, said the provincial government has complied with the high court ruling only grudgingly and is studying ways to limit homosexual rights in other areas.

“This is a province that was 20 years behind the times, guilty of state-sanctioned discrimination,” he said. “It’s a time to be mending fences, not building them. But look what they continue to do.”

Flanagan, the University of Calgary professor, says Alberta’s unique political character dates back more than a century, when early settlers included ranchers and U.S. Mormons.

While most of English-speaking Canada was entrenching British parliamentary traditions, Alberta was influenced by American populist ideas, Flanagan said. More so than the rest of Canada, it believes in voter-initiated ballot proposals and seeks politicians who are more loyal to their constituents than their parties, he said.

Those traditions have been strengthened by the boom in Alberta’s energy industry. Oil and gas companies are constantly moving personnel and ideas across the U.S.-Canadian border while seeking a low-tax, low-regulation political climate that might not mesh with the interests of eastern Canada.

Alberta’s popular premier, Ralph Klein, was the first major political leader in Canada to mobilize public support for slashing budget deficits. His efforts starting in 1993 led to a huge budget surplus for Alberta while prompting copycat budget-cutting by the federal government and most other provinces.

Now, says Flanagan, Albertans see themselves as economic victims, sacrificing part of their prosperity so federal authorities can finance welfare and social programs in less affluent provinces.

“The frustration leads to occasional spasms of separatism,” Flanagan said. “But, actually, we have been making considerable progress. . . . Through the Reform Party, we’ve been having an effect on what happens in Ottawa.”

Billett, the liberal political activist, who has lived and worked in most of Canada’s other provinces, finds Alberta a stimulating challenge.

“Alberta is slowly coming along,” he said. “I take great pride in being part of the process of making them understand the realities of the diversity that is here.”