There is a sense in which Albertans are different from other Canadians. This has been recognized by many scholars and other commentators over the years. One of the factors that some have indicated distinguishes Albertans is a similarity to Americans that other Canadians don’t share. This factor certainly would not apply to every individual Albertan, but it has been noted in a general sense. Being like Americans is, of course, considered to be a really bad thing by many Canadians, especially those on the left..Political scientist Richard Avramenko of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has written about the identification of Albertans with Americans and its implications. His 2013 his article, “Of Homesteaders and Orangemen: An Archeology of Western Canadian Political Identity” was published in the book, Hunting and Weaving: Empiricism and Political Philosophy. That book – edited by Thomas Heilke and John von Heyking – was produced in honour of Barry Cooper of the University of Calgary – the foremost theorist of Western Canadian identity, and an internationally-renowned political philosopher..In his article, Avramenko analyzes the federal election campaign that ran from November 29, 2005 through to January 23, 2006. During that campaign, certain attitudes about Alberta and Albertans were on clear display from two major political parties. Both the Liberal Party and Bloc Québécois played on fears that Albertans were bad guys, just like the Americans..For example, in the midst of the campaign, infamous abortionist Henry Morgentaler was brought out to publicly declare the Conservative Party to be a threat to abortion rights. As Avramenko explains, “The Conservative Party, of course, was led by an Albertan, Stephen Harper. Abortion was not even an issue in the election, but the meaning is clear: Not only do these Albertans dwell on a lower moral plane, they are like Americans.”.More disturbing was the rhetoric of Gilles Duceppe and his Bloc Québécois. According to Avramenko, “pointing to the West, and Alberta in particular, as the enemy is de rigueur for Quebecers.” During the 2005-2006 election campaign, the West was “symbolized in Duceppe’s ads in Quebec by a cowboy hat over the word ‘Calgary.’ Albertans, Quebecers are being told, are outsiders, and, with their interest in oil, they are decidedly Texan Americans.” .The Liberals, of course, couldn’t resist their natural anti-Alberta posture. Avramenko writes that, “then-Prime Minister Paul Martin invoked the anti-Alberta rhetoric during the campaign, suggesting the Alberta-led Conservatives had plans to create ‘two-tier healthcare,’ which everybody knows is code for ‘American.’ Anti-Albertanism, not surprisingly, is predicated on the same identity-giving premise the Loyalists and Orangemen brought to Upper Canada: anti-Americanism. Americans, after all, are gun-toting, money-grubbing, selfish, religious nuts, are they not? Just like those Albertans.”.Avramenko points out that the identification between America and Alberta has some plausible support. It is commonly known that individual rights and personal liberty were major themes in the American War of Independence. He sees some of those same philosophical emphases in Alberta. Accordingly, after America became independent it was left with “a tradition strongly imbued with liberty associated with self-reliance, personal responsibility, and rugged individualism. In this sense, Alberta is like America. The immigrants who arrived on the prairie were the tired, the poor, the wretched, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” In fact, many early immigrants to Alberta, were in fact Americans. .Avramenko concludes his article by noting that what is known as “Canadian identity” is largely based on the experiences of Central Canada, especially the narrative of the French-English conflict. As he writes, “The effort to construct a national identity based on problems descending from this conflict is inappropriate for the West. Albertans have an identity – an identity that might very well be symbolized by a cowboy hat. It is not an identity and tradition needing to be invented, nor one for which apology is needed.”. Bloc Quebecois advertisementAn advertisement run by the Bloc Quebecois in Le Journal De Quebec in 2006. .Avramenko is not alone in making a connection between America and Alberta. Barry Cooper (mentioned above) also refers to the phenomenon in his 2009 book, It’s the Regime, Stupid!: A Report from the Cowboy West on Why Stephen Harper Matters. In particular, Cooper critically analyses the views expressed by Doreen Barrie, who also teaches political science at the University of Calgary. Explaining Barrie’s perspective, he notes that, “As a symbol, ‘America’ and ‘Americans’ loom large in what is wrong with Alberta and especially with Calgary, ‘the most American city in Canada’s most American province.’”.Cooper provides more details of Barrie’s description of the province’s image in this way: “Compared to the ‘pan-Canadian political culture’ Alberta supplies a negative stereotype, ‘as unsophisticated cowboys, as right-wing rednecks who care little about their fellow Canadians.’ They are social conservatives, homophobic, and against both abortion and ‘gun control.’”.As Cooper explains further, Barrie believes that Albertans need to change in order to become proper Canadians. This was amply illustrated when Toronto’s Globe and Mail ran the front-page headline, “Alberta steps into the present” after the Progressive Conservatives elected Alison Redford as their leader and premier in 2011. .Part of this change involves adopting the same attitude toward the United States as Central Canadians holds: “The ever-elusive ‘national unity’ has been subverted by the friendliness of Albertans toward the United States. The patriotic duty of Albertans is to become as anti-American as Easterners, especially Loyalist Laurentian Canadians, and to do so in the name of national unity.”.In both Ontario and Quebec, the ideal of Canadian identity includes a particular negative conception of the United States. However, the anti-Americanism such an identity requires has never held sway in Alberta, at least not to the degree that it exists in the East. On this point, then, Alberta sticks out like a sore thumb and is excluded from a particular core aspect of “Canadian identity.” Generally speaking, there is a gap between Alberta and central Canada in how they view the United States. This is another cultural feature that distinguishes Alberta from much of the rest of the country..Michael Wagner is columnist for the Western Standard. He has a PhD in political science from the University of Alberta. His books include ‘Alberta: Separatism Then and Now’ and ‘True Right: Genuine Conservative Leaders of Western Canada.’
