As an Albertan, I grew up thinking that Liberals hated Alberta, I hated Ontario, and the horror that Ottawa had visited upon our beautiful province. I admired Preston Manning (The guy who created the party that would become the CPC). Then I met a Political Science Prof at Mount Royal College (Mount Royal University now)
I was 24 years old, feels like an eternity ago, but I went to school for Broadcasting. I took 3 electives in my first year, since they were required (I got to choose what I took, I just needed 3 electives) and I chose a 4000 level English class dealing with Science Fiction, and also took an introduction to Political Science. At the start of Political Science, the prof pulled up some official numbers and stats on the board, and started with “If you were born Albertan, you probably believe some things that are simply not true.”
He detailed a conservative propaganda campaign that took place around the launch of the National Energy Program (NEP). Most Albertans believe (because they were taught) that Pierre Trudeau hated Alberta, and the NEP had ruined Alberta.
I found no fault with his statement, that is what I’d be taught, and believed – after all, everyone believed that. But then he pulled up some charts – showing global oil prices from that time period. He reminded us that global markets were the source of oil prices, not politicians. He admitted that yes, the NEP may have made life a tiny bit harder for Alberta, but not for the reasons we’d been taught. Global Oil Prices had tanked badly right around the same time the NEP was introduced. He said, how dare a Canadian Prime Minister tank GLOBAL oil prices!
Which was an absolutely ridiculous statement. Canada is a fairly influential country on the global stage, but not nearly influential enough to crash oil prices. So we went over all the numbers, we talked about what we surmised just from the real data. It was all a lie.
I wondered, if our provincial government was willing to lie about something like that – a pretty huge lie, one that made us angry at our country, rather than their own failure to prepare for a downturn, instead blaming that pain on Ottawa, what else would they lie about? Turns out, a lot. Conservatives lie about a lot. And that was the original PC conservatives, who were socially progressive. The CPC conservatives, who replaced the PC conservatives, are not socially progressive, they’re socially conservative. Like the Taliban.
They lie about pretty much everything. Especially the part where they claim to be good at fiscal management, they (Both PC and CPC over the years) have never shown any ability to manage finances for a province or country. Looking at the numbers is startling.
One person, who brought a simple, well thought out, clear set of diagrams, some numbers, and some understanding of Politics? Showed me in 1 hour how badly we’ve been lied to, and how it was simply for political gain. And it’s been hurting Albertans ever since.
Please note: this is not about the National Energy Program, a deep dive in to that particular program would be interesting, but this is about a provincial government being blatantly and intentionally dishonest with their constituents for personal and political gain, to the detriment of the fiscal and mental health of those constituents. Albertans deserve better.
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