The Alberta Syndrome

December 17, 2023

Explaining to the World just What is Wrong with the Place.

I wrote a blog post last spring, before the election in Alberta. It got mediocre reads at the time. Just lately I cited it when I commented about an article predicting that the Alberta NDP (New Democrat Party) leader, Rachel Notley, was going to resign the next day.

For some reason this generated a walloping response. The post now has the third most reads of any I have written. It got several comments, including someone who planned to translate part of it into French.

I have a policy of updating and polishing my best work, and I have promised to do so with this piece. I will rewrite it, focussing on the main theme which interested people. That is, why Alberta is the way it is.

I also touched on what is wrong with the NDP. I have written more about that in other blog posts, which I may soon update. There could not be a more useless political party.

The prediction of Notley’s resignation does not seem to have happened. The NDP and its failed, incompetent leaders seem to go on forever. Why the Canadian New Democrat Party is never replaced with something better is one of the great mysteries of the universe.

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As those who have read my output for awhile know, I am originally from Alberta. I escaped to Ontario almost thirty years ago now. I still have relatives in Alberta, follow its politics, and visit occasionally.

I left Alberta because it is an especially dangerous place in which to be disabled. Especially, to be among the ‘invisibly disabled’. Of course all parts of Canada are a difficult place for a ‘useless eater’, especially in the neoliberal age.

Alberta seems to be the Canadian home base of the crypto nazi/eugenic mentality. I have made some study of why that is so. There is a story to tell about it, and stories are best to begun at the beginning.

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The way in which the prairie provinces were promoted to prospective settlers, and the kinds of people who were attracted, naturally shaped the prairie culture. The “Triangle” was oversold; it was never going to be more than a resource and agricultural hinterland, and a route to the pacific. The area should have been made one province, not three.

The problem with large scale immigration, then as now, is that it often attracts the wrong kind of people. You get criminals freeing justice. You get people who were not succeeding where they were, for specific reasons.

The Canadian government of the time could have been more careful about how they promoted ‘Canada West’ as the place of ‘freedom’ and ‘new beginnings’. The question is, freedom from what, or to do what, or to start what over again? People who are looking for freedom because they feel persecuted where they are, often have mental disorders.

People who had been privileged within a particular social order tend to see their loss of privilege as an injustice. At the time of the original settlement, serfdom was disappearing in eastern Europe, indentured servitude had disappeared in England, and slavery had ended some time ago in the United States.

It can be seen from the behaviour of many early settlers, that they saw the Canadian west as a place where they could reestablish the kind of life they felt entitled to. They were often resentful when they discovered they could not. They were not meant to work, lesser people were obligated to work for them.

They could easily acquire farmland, but they had trouble forcing other people to work it for them. The Canadian government, plus the railroads at the time, knew that the new territory would be much more productive if occupational farming were encouraged, rather than the formation of estates. Nonetheless, these people and their attitudes have persisted through generations.

Descendants of these people seem to have a strong influence in modern Alberta. I have encountered people there who seem to go through their lives in a permanent state of rage that they cannot have serfs. I know people who came to Alberta, encountered this mentality, and where quite disturbed.

This “moral obligation to work under any condition” has always occurred to me as the way masters would have talked to and about their serfs, slaves, or servants.

It was not just a ‘lord of the manor’ mentality that often got imported into Canada west, but the classic ‘peasant’ mentality as well. This term can be very elastic but in its useful sense indicates a mean minded, zero sum approach to life. If anyone gets more, I get less, anyone ‘shirking’ makes me work harder, skilled work or mind work is not real work, anyone doing better than me is cheating somehow.

Many people in Alberta seem to think like this. This kind of mentality is always looking for a scapegoat. Such people can be played like a fiddle by those with money to employ influencers, to attack anyone they want targetted.

Another mentality that arrived in Western Canada in early days was the classic ‘red’ or ‘bolshevik’ mentality. As has been shown in many cases, this is not really useful in building alternatives to capitalism. It often gets redirected into fascistic tendencies.

Cooperative ideals also arrived with the early settlers. This resulted in some of the best aspects of Western Canadian culture. Much of this has been suppressed in Alberta by the long dominance of crypto fascism.

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The western provinces went in very different ways as a result of the great depression of the 1930s.The predecessor to the NDP came into office in Saskatchewan. This came out of the cooperative tendency, not socialism.

In Alberta, the Social Credit party gained power, with sorrowful consequences for the subsequent development of the province. The party was built around a crank monetary movement originating in the United Kingdom. There it was closely connected with the ‘Green Shirts’, the British version of early fascism.

Old “Bible Billy” Aberhart thought these ideas gave him a solution to the depression; just give people more money. At least, it gave him an issue he could use to get elected. Social Credit really seemed to be about imposing certain social and religious ideas on society.

The Socreds discovered they did not have any money to give people. The federal government soon made clear that only it could issue a legal currency. The Socred government resorted to issuing the famous ‘funny money’, which could not be used to buy anything.

There are some present day advocates of a Basic Income who want to hold up the Social Credit ‘funny money’ as an early example of a BI. Some make the claim that it helped solve the depression in Alberta. They should read history.

The “30s” were the critical years in the development of the political culture of Alberta. Someone wrote a novel, a fictional parody of those times. It is titled, “The Words of my Roaring”.

In it, a charlatan came across a town full of farmers who were being made desperate by drought. He promised that he could make it rain if they voted for him in the impending election. It happened to rain shortly after this.

The Socreds never had any answers for the depression. It was ameliorated by measures other provinces developed and which they had no choice but to imitate. Some federal measures helped. The world war and the sudden revival of demand for agricultural products ended the depression in Alberta.

The core of the Socred movement were really mere thugs. Aberhart brought some ‘Green Shirt’ people from England to help him deal with opposition to implementing Social Credit. Most of them soon went home, one to escape criminal charges for trying to arrange an assassination.

Many socialists and cooperativists were drawn into the early Socred movement. Some became converted into crypto fascists and the rest were eventually driven out.

Most politics enthusiasts in Canada, over a certain age, will recall Preston Manning. He is responsible for reconstructing the conservative party in Canada as a vehicle for the far right, forcing out all ‘red tories’. He is still the ‘Grey Eminence’ behind the far right in Alberta and in Canada.

His father, Ernest Manning, took over the Social Credit party after Aberhart and cemented it as the instrument for a religious crypto fascist elite in the province. They were particularly concerned with suppressing socialism. They stayed in power into the 1970s, consolidating this culture in Alberta.

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A number of factors helped the Socreds to maintain this dominance for so long. The world war ended the depression by creating a demand for agricultural products. Prosperity after a long period of hardship created a ‘silent generation’ who were happy to enjoy it as long as they were not overly disturbed.

Then end of the world war brought a new influx from Europe, this time mostly refugees rather than free immigrants. A problem with post war refugees from Europe was that a lot of them were fleeing justice for crimes committed in support of various fascist regimes.

A large proportion of these people found their way to Alberta. They were just what Manning needed to intimidate socialists and other opposition. A problem with sustaining opposition to the right wing in Alberta was that it was always easier to simply leave than to stay and fight.

Some have observed that the worst thing to ever happen to Alberta was the discovery of oil. One could take this a step further back and say that one of the worst things to happen in Canada was to give the provinces control of natural resources. This was unjust and corrupting in many ways.

Resource wealth is not evenly distributed. Resource industries are notable for corrupting local governments, especially weak ones governing poor areas, and taking most of the wealth out of the area. The federal government was and is more removed, and less open to this type of corruption.

After the Leduc discoveries of 1947, The oil business quickly developed a symbiotic relation with the Socreds. Some of the wealth remained in Alberta to buy support and get some useful infrastructure built. However, the usual ‘resource curse’ problem developed and has continued to this day.

That is, an unhealthy economic inequality, with those connected with the oil business or benefiting from it privileged over everyone else. Other forms of economic development were crowded out. Lacking more stable industries, a permanent boom/bust economic cycle developed, reinforcing political corruption and, frequently, speculative real estate inflation.

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During Socred times, a type of establishment and political culture became solidified in Alberta. The old ‘red’ influence was stamped out. The cooperative tendency was tolerated but kept under limits.

The establishment was obsessed with eliminating ‘communism’, which they interpreted as any kind of ideas but theirs. Manning decided there had to be only one party in Alberta and worked to stamp out all opposition. To do this, they worked to coopt discontent into their party.

This had two effects. One was the need to create scapegoats. The federal government, eastern bankers, anything not ‘us’ would do. As well, anyone who did not fit in, and especially anyone who did not ‘work’.

The other effect was the tendency of the establishment party to be taken over by nut cases. This created what I call the ‘spazz cycle’. Periodically the relatively sane business establishment must intervene when the spazzes get control, and restabilize basic government functions.

This cycle has got more extreme over time. It is accelerated by the age of neoliberalism. It is very harmful to society.

Eventually the Socreds got too crazy. They were especially hostile to medicare. This is still a primary feature of the Alberta establishment spazz faction.

The Lougheed conservatives drove the Socreds out. Initially, they included some ‘red tory’ people and did some red tory things. However, they were still committed to the status quo and the oil business.

The establishment soon moved over to the conservatives. The spazz cycle continued. Now it is within the United Conservative Party.

The extreme right gradually gets control of the party. They are often people whose grandfathers happened to homestead on top of an oil and gas pool. So they now think they are superior beings who can decide how the world should work.

Public policy becomes ever crazier. Resistance begins to develop and there is danger that an opposition party might take office. Saner people are able to regain control of the establishment party and repair the damage caused. The Alberta public goes back to sleep and soon the opposition parties have half a dozen seats again.

A feature of spazz cycles will be attempts to privatize health care, to eliminate social programs, even when they are legally obligated to provide them, and to scapegoat the federal government. There will be a denigration and persecution of the old, sick, and poor, and efforts to drive them out of the province. There will also be efforts to create quasi secret police organizations, or ‘war rooms’.

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The other cycle which drives Alberta politics is, of course, the oil industry boom and bust cycle. Some believe these two cycles are connected, but I believe that while they often converge, they are separate. The oil and gas cycle depends on global factors which are totally outside Albertas control.

So, the price of the stuff goes up and down. In Alberta, extravagant spending will peak on the up side, to buy support and reward insiders. We get things like roads to where nobody lives.

Frantic, destructive budget slashing will occur on the down side. The usual scapegoats will be attacked. People attracted to the province during the boom will be driven out when they become superfluous.

A feature of the oil business is that it pays its core employees well, and holds onto them during down cycles. However, total loyalty to the business and its super capitalist culture is required. It tries to impose this culture on local communities where it operates.

Peripheral employees, while paid well when they are needed, are treated badly when they become redundant. As well, big oil does not like local politicians insisting they pay taxes and clean up their messes. They especially do not like governments creating sovereign wealth funds from oil revenues.

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This gets me to what the real solution would be for the boom bust cycle and other problems created by big oil. A few countries have figured out how to do this. Norway is the prime example.

Resource revenues should not be used for general government expenditures. These should be paid by taxes, especially that thing hated sop much by Alberta spazzes, the sales taxes. Revenues should go into sovereign funds and used to make loans for development of alternative industries.

This really should be taken a step further. Many countries have nationalized their oil and gas industries. Once upon a time, the Federal government made a start at this by creating Petrocan as a crown corporation. When the Alberta Oil businesses friends got into office, they sold it off.

Once upon a time, the federal government even had the idea that no gas should leave Canada until it was shown that there was enough for Canada’s domestic needs for the foreseeable future. Also, that oil and gas could only be exported at world prices, when world prices were above a certain level. Those times must come again.

The federal government should have control of all natural resources. State corporations should be set up to manage them. Sovereign wealth funds should be created to receive these revenues.

Government should be restructured to insure that these institutions are ring fenced against agents for special interests capturing them. The best way of doing this would be to insure they do not get into office in the first place, and if they do they can be quickly removed. Of course, this should also apply to provincial governments.

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So time rolled on in Alberta. The NDP accidentally won election in 2015, when a number of factors coincided to their advantage. Troughs in both the spazz cycle and the oil market cycle coincided. However, Alison Redford had become tory leader and premier and was effective in once more driving the crypto nazi lunatics out of the party.

Yet something different happened this time. The business conservatives under Jim Prentice shoved out Alison Redford as Premier. This was supposedly because of her personal use of public resources, a big joke given the style in which Alberta tory politicians customarily roll. She was really a bit too ‘left’ for them.

The spazzes seemed to have support and funding from somewhere, and were able to form the Wild Rose Party, led by Danielle Smith. Shortly before the election, Smith led a group of WRP MLAs (Members of Legislative Assembly) over to the tories. In the subsequent election, they all lost.

However, Brian Jean took over Wildrose and won a good number of seats. This split the conservative vote and allowed Rachel Notley’s NDP to win.

This was very frustrating for the above mentioned Preston Manning. Presto has made a long career out of keeping the right wing united so as to keep the left out of office, federally and in Alberta. He rebuilt the federal conservatives and got Steven Harper into office.

Presto has long been the lynchpin which keeps the business right and the crypto fascist right working together. The lesson of the past ten years in Alberta politics may be that this is no longer possible. However, he went into motion to drive Wild Rosers and Conservatives back together.

This was made simpler when Prentice conveniently died in a plane crash in 2016. Then, after a very nasty campaign, Brian Jean was shoved aside as Wild Rose leader. The United Conservative Party (UCP) of Alberta was born. All rival candidates to Jason Kenney were sandbagged in very underhanded ways.

Meanwhile the Notley NDP acted like the NDP typically does whenever it gets into office in spite of itself. Notley’s informal campaign message had been; “We’re not crooked. We’re not crazy. Why not give us a try?” This is not good enough in these times, however.

In the 2019 election, with the right once again united, the polite NDP was defeated by the rude Kenney conservatives. Then within three years, the spazzes led by Danielle Smith had driven out Kenney and taken control of UCP. The lesson here is that the lunatic right are becoming too powerful for even the business conservatives to keep under control. This is also seen in Federal politics and in the USA.

We now come to the 2023 Alberta election. Smith won the only way such an extremist nut case can win; when there is nothing running against her. Now she is driving Alberta toward a calamity.

Yet she is still not extreme enough for the spazzes. They are already scheming to overthrow her the same way she did Kenney. Because there is nothing to set any limits on them, they are in a weird kind of contest to see which can draw attention by being the biggest spazzes.

As for Rachel Notley and the NDP, she has shown a compete incapacity for government, and twice lost elections that a chimpanzee should have been able to win. Now she wants to remain as leader and no one in NDP seems to want to challenge her.

Alberta has a history of creating new, successful parties; mostly from the right but sometimes the left. The precursor of the NDP started in Alberta. The United Farmers of Alberta ran the province for ten years and did some good things. Alberta really needs to do that again.

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Due to the way history worked out, Alberta has long been the breeding ground for much of what is toxic in the Canadian polity. Right now there is a rise in right wing extremism in Alberta, in Canada, and in the western world. Much of it is seeded from Alberta.

But now to mention the really big factor in keeping the far right in control of Alberta, and perpetuating the spazz cycle. That is, the total lack of opposition. No one will seriously stand up to the intimidation tactics of the spazzes or the oil company apparatchiks.

Alberta once had a strong populist culture, in the proper sense of the term. It was expected that governments will govern in the public’s interest. This seemed to vanish after about 1950.

As I said above, there was a real determination to stamp out anything ‘left’, and to use outright nazi goons imported from Eastern Europe to do it. As well, there was never much motive to stay put and fight the screwheads. If you are not involved in the oil business or agriculture, there is not much economic opportunity in Alberta.

This is in contrast with most of the rest of Canada, where there is some opposition to elitism and atavism. However, Canada also suffers from what I would call the Quaker loyalist syndrome. I have discussed that in some other blog posts.

Simply, this is the cause of the Canadian ‘reasonableness’; the ‘speak truth to power’ mentality, which is a real impediment to social progress. Canada has a weak social structure and limited civil rights, because Canadians do not know how to demand strong ones. This is a bully’s country; when they bark, people generally fold up.

In recent years, as the neoliberal age grows more dire, this mentality is starting to change. More people understand that atavism, forcing society backward, cannot be tolerated. It is to be suppressed, not reasoned with, not only in their home cities and provinces, but all over the country.

The federal government should long ago have lowered the boom on Alberta. It should have removed control of resource revenues for the benefit of the whole country. We should never be importing oil while selling what we produce for much less than the world price.

As far back as the 1980s, Canada should have taken control of health and social services in Alberta until a government was in office there which would run them properly. Discussion of whether Canada has this power is blather. The national government must be able to give itself the power it needs, and not be constantly giving its power away to the provinces.

As for internal resistance to the Alberta syndrome, there is a little more of that now. Alberta is no longer such a one industry economy. People have moved into Alberta who find the old Alberta attitude ridiculous, but have some incentive to stay and create alternatives.

As with anywhere else in Canada, they need to forget about NDP as a vehicle for change. They need to form a new political party committed to popular socialism and to actually gaining power. They also need to grow the backbone to be able to protect each other, which is especially important in Alberta.

The long dominance of crypto fascism in Alberta is concurrent with the post world war two order. This order has come to an end. It is unlikely that the Alberta Syndrome will be compatible with what emerges from the period of transition.

The Syndrome is now clearly in its terminal stage; the final “spazz cycle.” This will be a turbulent time such as Alberta went through in the 1930s. With luck, this time there will be a better outcome.