As a columnist, I like (need) to think I’ve made my share of compelling arguments. With the right combination of facts and rhetoric, I’ve changed at least a few people’s thinking on an issue of substance, whether that’s carbon pricing or climate politics. But I also have to acknowledge when I’m beat, and that’s pretty obviously the case in my quixotic quest to get Albertans to abandon their obsession with grievance and victimhood. 

The phrase “our grievances are legitimate” has been uttered so often in this province lately that the separatists might want to try it out as their national anthem. Trying to struggle against that tide is a pretty sure way to drown, and I’m not that strong of a swimmer. And so, rather than continuing to fight the culture of grievance, one whose roots are as deep as anything here in Alberta, I’m going to try a different strategy: redirection. 

For all the complaints about equalization, the National Energy Program and Justin Trudeau’s climate policies, Albertans have some very legitimate — see, I can play this game too — grievances with their own provincial government. First and foremost, their government has failed to protect their shared finances from the wild oscillations in oil and gas prices, to the point that those prices single-handedly determine whether the province is in deficit or surplus. The most recent provincial budget assumes that every $1 change in oil prices results in a $750 million swing for Alberta’s finances — and while the recent war in Iran has turned an expected deficit into a surplus for 2026, the now-looming oil glut could reverse those fortunes very quickly. 

It didn’t have to be this way, and it still doesn’t. If Alberta implemented some........

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