Why would Albertan oil-sands development appeal to anybody who “looks askance at government involvement”? AFAICT, the Albertan and federal Canadian governments are hugely involved with the province’s oil business.
Not only do they and “the Crown” own a significant chunk of the resources in question and nearby areas as public lands, as well as most of the subsurface mineral rights, but they get large chunks of their revenues from oil development via legislation about “oil royalties” and so forth.
Publicly-owned and state-regulated fossil-fuel resources in Alberta are one of the biggest government teats in North America. It’s kind of comical to see conservatives arguing that scrambling for a place to suck on that teat somehow constitutes sturdy self-reliance and independence of government involvement.
Does anyone, conservative or liberal, think there shouldn’t be controls on how public resources should be developed? It is a major source of revenue and should be used to develop infrastructure so that the economy can diversify. You know, stuff governments should do. But, I was referring to government involvement in their lives at an individual more personal level, in any case.
Well then, if it’s agreed that there’s nothing especially conservative-friendly or anti-government about oil-resources development, and that Alberta’s current immigration boom is being driven mostly by people attracted by jobs in oil-resources development, then I can’t see why we should infer that the immigration boom is attracting a disproportionate number of conservatives to Alberta.
Which is what you seemed to be suggesting with your hypothesis that perhaps “it is the conservative elements that are moving to Alberta”.
I’d been hoping that a thread asking about electoral results would stay focussed on that issue, rather than degenerating into a platitude-filled dogfight of lefty-righty.
Since that focus has been lost, I’m asking the mods to close this.
What the heck does oil resource development have to do with who moves where? People move to where jobs are. I’m quite sure if Nfld had a boom in the fishing industry people would move there for work. I suggested that people who are moving to Alberta could well be conservative minded, not because Alberta is currently conservative, but because a person with a conservative mindset would probably be the first to move. Why? Because a person on the right would more likely take matters into their own hands vs. waiting for the government (their own provincial government) to do something for them.
The demographics of the province will effect future elections which is what you’ve asked about. It is entirely on topic. Even a discussion of the policies of each provincial party would be on topic.