Nelson: Five million reasons why PM Carney must act
Finally, there's something to celebrate in Alberta: our province just cracked the five million mark.
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Some lucky soul this past weekend made history, though they'll never know it, as the population numbers relentlessly tallied by StatCan are gathered anonymously.
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Thus, that magic five-million milestone arrived without any fanfare, late on Sunday. (As I write, we're already diligently working on our next five million — Alberta's population now stands at 5,000,648 and counting, according to Canada's real-time population clock.)
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It's an important milestone, nevertheless, and one we should take a moment to acknowledge.
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Because it was the various struggles and triumphs of those millions who came before us that collectively turned this province into such a unique slice of Canada.
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It's likely most Canadians would say the same of their province: how special it is. Still, there's something about Alberta that is indeed different.
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Most Canadians beyond our provincial borders would probably describe it as a conservative place. It isn't. Sure, Albertans have voted Conservative for decades — the recent federal election cementing that political tradition.
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But in its wider connotation, we're not conservative at all. Not in the least. That lowercase noun implies an adherence to the status quo: keeping things the same with an aversion to change. Really? When was that ever part of Alberta's DNA?
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No, at its heart, this is a radical province: the most radical in Canada by a country mile.
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All sorts of political and social movements were born or blossomed here, from the United Farmers, to the CCF — forerunner of today's NDP — to the wild and wacky world of William Aberhart and Social Credit, and the more recent rise of the Reform party. When Emmeline Pankhurst, the famous leader of the British suffragette movement, toured Canada in 1917, it was in Calgary where she received the most vociferous welcome.
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Yes, that radical and populist strain has run through Alberta from inception, which is why anyone who dismisses the current push for a vote on separation as a silly sideshow makes a dangerous mistake.
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This undercurrent to go it alone isn't new. It has always flowed below the surface. It took a decade of Justin Trudeau's antagonistic federal rule to turn it into a raging torrent.
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