Quote:
Originally Posted by looooob
I think part of the problem (and I say this as a long time Albertan , but definitely a proud Canadian more) is that despite Alberta having 'paid into' equalization for quite a long time now, the province is a convenient bogeyman for several political parties with powerbases in the Centre (ie having the sitting prime minister refer to Alberta/Albertans as 'different' from the rest of Canada, running elections on threats of "Alberta style" healthcare bogeymans when in fact there are probably many more private hospitals/clinics in places like Quebec, BC etc)
there are some Albertans that don't do this provinces reputation any favours to be sure, but I can see where some of the attitude comes from (even if I don't share it myself )
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Yup, but one of the main reasons for that is that Alberta always supports the same parties federally, and always elects majority provincial governments. For the conservatives traditionally, there was never a need to do much for Alberta, because they'd vote conservative anyway. The reform movement changed this slightly, but not a lot. For the liberals and NDP, there's never much point in catering to Albertans, because the right-wing powerbase is so established. So if you're going to cast a province as a bogeyman, chose the province that won't support you no matter what you do. I think this is starting to shift, as recent success by the Liberals in Calgary at a provincial level will start to catch the attention of federal parties (not the current liberals, who I think are more than happy to continue to cast Alberta as a villain).
Quebec, on the other hand, has three parties that can legitimately take control in both provincial and federal elections. So these parties all work hard to win votes in Quebec, and as a result, Quebec benefits from more attention than any other province.