For the past decade, Alberta’s leadership have chosen their battles on our behalf very poorly. In that time, Alberta’s lot in Canada has not improved. On the contrary, their neglect has only exacerbated an already unfair and intolerable situation..Albertans have been led by what can only be described as “leadercentric” organizations that inevitably become top down. It’s time to break that cycle. The power to determine the path we take resides with Albertans. We must take the bull by the horns or we’ll just get more of what comes out the other end..For decades, Equalization payments in Canada continued without change to the detriment of all Albertans; and now that Albertans could use a hand up – not a hand out – Ottawa has essentially turned its back on us. If we haven’t figured out yet that we need to look after ourselves and start putting our needs ahead of Ottawa’s, we never will..The proposed Energy East pipeline would have benefitted every Canadian, but rather than a mutual buy-in from Eastern Canada, we have encountered legislated and, at times, illegal road blocks when trying to move our Canadian revenue-generating energy east..The reality is that due to the unprecedented events that have taken place around the world recently, a financial storm is blowing that Alberta will not be sheltered from. It’s important that we batten down the hatches and properly prepare ourselves to take control of our future..It’s time for some accountability and soul searching. We have the power to not let ourselves be put in the position we’ve been in for decades. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. Alberta is not only a place where I carve out a living from the land; it’s my home. It’s a place where generations of our families have spent our entire lives; a place that’s being unfairly stolen from us along with many of our freedoms..There are two ways to look at the current situation: it can be the excuse we all use to blame our misfortunes on, or we can look at this as an easily justifiable reason to correct our trajectory before we fly vertically into the ground..Henry Ford once said, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” .Ford created a corporation that has been an industrial leader for over a century. Henry Ford along with the Ford Motor Corporation encountered many failures along the way. In spite of these failures, they took the lessons learned and moved into the future with a keen eye on the ditches of failure..Older readers will recall the old bumper sticker we used to see that read, “Please God, give me one more oil boom. I promise not to piss it all away next time.”.Albertans will soon have an opportunity to figure out what kind of a future we want: a dependent one, or a free one. In the face of all the imminent changes that are about to take place, positive opportunities exist. Let’s take that opportunity and carve the words into the tablets that determine the future, and not continue to repeat the mistakes of the past..Rick Strankman is the former Wildrose and UCP MLA for Drumheller-Stettler
