Opinion: Alberta's strength isn't a grievance — it's a privilege

Edmonton Journal

17-07-2025

Whenever the debate over Alberta's place in Canada heats up — usually when oil prices fall or equalization cheques make headlines — one familiar grievance always returns: 'Why should we pay more than we get back?'
It's a fair question. Alberta is, by any accounting method, a net contributor to Confederation. We send $44 billion to $47 billion more to Ottawa each year than we receive in services and transfers. That's real money.
And, yes, it's frustrating when it feels like we're paying for programs we didn't ask for, or when provinces that block pipelines benefit from our prosperity. But here's another take: maybe Alberta's overcontribution is something to be proud of. Not a grievance. Not a problem to fix. A sign of strength.
A friend put it well in a recent conversation: 'At the very least,' he said, 'it would be nice if the rest of Canada just said thank you.' And I understood where he was coming from. There's a quiet resentment among some Albertans that we're taken for granted — that we build and others benefit. But then I asked him something that stopped us both: 'Thank us for what, exactly?'
Should the rest of Canada thank us for being lucky enough to live above a massive, hydrocarbon-rich sedimentary basin? For the geology that blessed us with oilsands, gas reservoirs and bitumen the world happened to want — and still does? Because let's be honest: that's the root of Alberta's fiscal power. Geology. Not just policy. Not virtue. Not some uniquely Alberta work ethic.
We didn't earn our resource base. We were born — or more accurately, drawn — into it.
I wasn't born in Alberta. Neither was my friend. Like so many others, we came here for opportunity. For the jobs. For the boom. We came because Alberta had something the rest of the country — and the world — wanted. If that same energy wealth had been discovered under northern Ontario or the Northwest Territories, we'd have gone there.
If the Athabasca Basin had never existed, Alberta would be a very different place.
Smaller. Quieter. Probably poorer. Still beautiful. Still agricultural. But not the engine of national growth it is today.
Without oil, our story would likely resemble Saskatchewan in the 1990s — a province with flat population growth, high debt and few levers to pull in Ottawa. Saskatchewan spent much of that decade wrestling with budget crises, closing rural hospitals and relying heavily on equalization. It's an incredibly beautiful place, and the people are hard-working and hearty — but those were tough years in the Land of Living Skies.
Their young people — like so many from across Canada — moved to Alberta in search of opportunity. Let's not rewrite history: if the resource map had been drawn differently, it might have been us looking east instead of others looking west.
And so, when I hear people say Alberta deserves thanks for its federal overpayments, I wonder: Do we really want applause for having hit the resource lottery? Do we want to pretend we'd still be donating billions to the rest of Canada if the geology had broken another way?
This isn't about undermining our success. It's about contextualizing it. Because when we recognize how contingent our prosperity is, it should make us more thoughtful, not more bitter. Yes, we've built strong institutions.
Yes, we've taken risks, attracted talent and grown our economy. That matters.
But none of that erases the role of luck, or of Canada. We grew within a national framework that provided capital, infrastructure, labour mobility and rule of law. It was Alberta's energy, but it was also Canada's scaffolding.
And that's what grievance politics forgets: we didn't do it alone. Grievance demands repayment. Pride demands stewardship. If Alberta truly wants to lead — not just complain — then we need to reframe our role.
We are not Confederation's victim. We are its engine. And sometimes engines run hotter, carry more weight and burn more fuel than the trailers they pull.
That's not a burden. That's leadership.
We have the chance to show the rest of the country what prosperity used wisely looks like. That means investing in future industries. Supporting national resilience. Being a fair partner, even when we could take more than we give. There's power in saying, 'Yes, we contribute more. Because we can. Because that's what leadership looks like.'
Let others shout about fairness. Let Alberta show what strength really is.