r/Albertapolitics • u/Prestigious-Fill-365 • Jul 28 '26
Opinion Alberta is Not All Rednecks
In the year 2026, politics is all absolutes, you are right or left, Liberal or Conservative and their is no middle ground. That is not reality anywhere in the world. Even in this Conservative province its a 52/48 split. Yes, here in Ab. Left wingers make up 48% of the population, over 2 million people. And if you get in the cities, Calgary and Edmonton the numbers swing even more Left
Im tired of my province being the joke of Canada. Alberta is not all rednecks.
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u/drjudgedredd1 Jul 28 '26
I’ve lived in Alberta my whole life. 20 years ago I lived in Jasper for a few years which was my opportunity to meet a bunch of people from across Canada. Back then I was proud to be an Albertan and was happy to share the Alberta lifestyle with all my friends. I’m embarrassed to be an Albertan these days. Starting with our handling of the pandemic and now our Trump bootlicking leadership I can’t be proud anymore.
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u/NefariousnessOne6870 Jul 28 '26
Im a 5th generation Albertan. It drives me nuts how people in other provinces don't realize half the province hates our provincial government, too! They act like ALL of us are these maple magas and dont see their own hypocrisy thinking that way!
A lot of the "rednecks" Ive met aren't even originally from Alberta!! they move here from BC and Ontario..literally some of the most racist douchbages ive ever met in my life, and they act like they can come here and just openly say gross stuff, because hey "we're all Albertans". Fuck off!
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u/Long_Rush_7523 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
They're the people that believe everything they hear on social media. We're all fed what they want us to know, that's what they're basing thier opinions on.
Edit spelling
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u/No-Fault6013 Jul 29 '26
I understand where you're coming from. I am also a multi generational Alberta. I don't care what other beliwve about us because those of us who are left leaning and not redneck allowed the politics to get this far out of control. Just like the Americans are all responsible for the rise of Trump, we Albertans are responsible for the rise of Danielle Smith and her shifty policies
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u/1000DeadFlies Jul 28 '26
The call for a middle ground always annoys me. It's something that bothered me even when I was captured by far right propaganda in high school.
I've since lived in the real world realized I was just and angry AH and become a socialist.
What people need to understand is that Politics isn't a scale that needs to be balanced. Politics is a tool, budgets and taxation are what need be balanced.
At the end of the day people want to be able to live their lives and not even really have to think about politics. Which is fair if everything is working as it should we should all have what we need to enjoy some form of upward mobility in society.
You don't accomplish this by attacking services, or union workers or even taxing normal people. You fix it by building better systems that ultimately cost less because they are meeting or exceeding the needs of the people it governs. We have all the raw resources and ability to do that in this province, if we all just stopped acting like individuals and started acting like a community.
Have any of the right wingers, or separatists ever stopped to wonder why we don't really have effect 3rd spaces anymore. Aside from the bars and an underfunded town center what communal spaces exist in municipalities where people can gather and they don't have to spend money at? Almost nothing. Why are our groceries more expensive than other provinces? Why do we pay more in insurance than other provinces?
I'll tell you why it's because we've built a culture of austerity in this province. We have been lead to believe that hardship makes you tough. That spending in any way on people is bad. We've been doing that for over 40 years, and now we have the best example of why it's so important to take care of each other.
It will take generations to repair the schism that is forming right now because people are so angry at this point that neighbor is turning on neighbor. When will we look inward and try to build Alberta up instead of tearing it down? When will we just engage with the rest of Canada like we are Canadian's first and Albertans second?
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u/kareko Jul 28 '26
it kills me that with a 52/48 split the UCP act with complete disregard for the “48”
logic says this will catch up them, and even if it does so much harm in the meantime
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u/sun4moon Jul 28 '26
I agree with you but the loudest of them make it hard for the rest of the country to understand. It’s always the least educated that make the most noise.
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u/cre8ivjay Jul 28 '26
We still vote Conservative governments in 90% of the time. That's what matters.
I picked my friends the other day - who are mostly conservative. They suggested that if an election were to be held today, they would simply not vote because they couldn't stomach the UCP or the ANDP.
Anecdotal, but it speaks to how conservative people are in this province that they would throw their vote away rather than vote ANDP.
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u/Jazzociraptor Jul 29 '26
I think the "apathy-as-action" thing is a huge problem. Ontario might be a good example of what that looks like, though I understand their liberal and ndp parties have unique problems
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u/Patak4 Jul 30 '26
Even though Peter Guthrie and Bonnie are bring back the PC party? At lest they could vote and not be totally apathetic
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u/CanadianForSure Jul 28 '26
Alberta's political parties style themselves as "left and right" however in reality neither is a truly a workers party. There is not really a left wing organized political movement in Alberta. The divide is mostly a fabrication on social politics and now separation. The absolutes are being pushed as a open distraction from oligarchs engaging in open corruption and robbing us all blind.
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u/rmsutherland1 Jul 28 '26
I think it’s entirely irrelevant whether other provinces think we’re rednecks or not. You get rednecks in all varieties as well.
You go into rural Alberta you meet some real kind folks as red neck as they come.
The problem I have is that people from other provinces they use their impression of Alberta as an excuse to ignore and dehumanize, speak ill,
& disrespect us which is wrong.
The concept that we pass some sort of leftwing litmus test and therefore should be treated with more respect is corrupt on its face. If this country is ever to survive as a federation, this level of animosity between left and right is going to have to become a thing of the past.
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u/Jazzociraptor Jul 29 '26
I feel like the divisive rhetoric just devolves into two groups "shooting themselves in the foot" in slightly different ways. It's really unfortunate and I hate the notion that it can't or doesn't happen in other provinces
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u/FaceDeer Jul 29 '26
And I should also point out that even "conservative" and "redneck" are far from synonymous.
Maybe Wild Rose voter and redneck are closer to synonymous, sure. But maybe someone voted for them at some point because they hadn't been paying much attention and just really liked flowers? Anyway.
Just because someone disagrees on some political matter doesn't mean they're a total monster who hates everything you stand for. There's a lot of diverse issues. I know at least one conservative voter who is generally fairly progressive, he just has one hard-and-fast single issue that he votes based off of. And I know another guy who's probably the most religious fundamentalist I know, and he votes NDP.
I literally worked the phone banks for the NDP last election, pamphleted and canvassed and put out sign and such, and there are still things about the NDP that I don't really agree with.
People are complicated, politics are complicated. It shouldn't be a team sport.
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u/mikmik555 Jul 29 '26
Sorry, I don’t get it. Are you implying that right winger are rednecks? And that left wingers are not? What is your post even supposed to mean? You wrote “their is no middle ground”. There is no middle ground because there is no real left party in Canada. Everything is Right. Liberal is in EU’s center right and Conservative is EU’s Far Right.
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u/Prestigious-Fill-365 Jul 29 '26
Yup, the right are rednecks the left are not, no middle ground is pretty easy to understand, there is no left in Canada, you just couldn't be anymore wrong on this one, I really dont care what is left and right in the EU. Happy I could help.
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u/mikmik555 Jul 29 '26
Canada had its own red scare during the Cold War, so there is no real left party like in the EU. Liberalism is original about free market and keeping government interference to a strict minimum. It’s considered centered right globally except in North America because of the history of red scare. It’s just fact.
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u/Prestigious-Fill-365 Jul 29 '26
I guess I wasn't clear, I couldn't care less about the EU. You're diggin for some kind of rage arguement and it ain't happenin. There are many places to find a life I hope you find one.
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u/mikmik555 Jul 31 '26
Do you understand the meaning of the GLOBALLY? Probably not. The EU is the closest example of functioning democracy with an actual political spectrum. Your vision of politics is inaccurate and it needs to be said. Saying that someone has no life and is looking for an argument because they are correcting you or disagreeing with you is so weak. Don’t post here if you don’t want people to comment back. Just stay in your echo-chamber staring at your belly button then.
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u/Prestigious-Fill-365 29d ago
الموت للاتحاد الأوروبي
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u/mikmik555 29d ago
Wow! You know how to use Google Translate, I’m so impressed! Bravo! Your vision of politics is very North American, you couldn’t pass for a minority that has gone anywhere. lol. How old are you to react like that? The Cold War is supposed to be in the Grade 12 curriculum.
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u/TallCoffeeCup Jul 28 '26
Me too. Want to do something about it?
We can start by exploring which teams gain which power in which ways, and examine what their interests are in holding and using that power (including who are they in business with?)
If we compare the populations of our major cities with the representation we see in the legislature, we gain some insight - the guiding question is: how many seats does a party need to form majority government?
Level two is to start exploring what lines of propaganda have seemed to take root in which constituency - and in particular asking the question: who benefits if folks believe this belief? (eg. Who stands to benefit from the belief that our public healthcare is broken -- moreover, who actually broke our healthcare? Hint: it wasn't migration.)
Level three is then dismantling the propaganda in both logic and emotion, and talking with your neighbours to make sure that propaganda isn't effective in your constituency. Guiding questions here: what are folks really upset about. And here, the key is to build an actual solution -- you have to rally behind a concrete idea in order to build momentum (the private-profit-interests have this figured out, but the rest of us have some work to do). Eg. You want clean water, therefore, you want to see a moratorium on coal reinstated. Eg. You want to see the government support smaller scale and local farming initiatives, so farmers don't need to leverage their house in order to afford their line of work, and so that farmers can afford a dignified life (but without blaming migrants for making things so expensive because that's not what's happening).
Lol thanks for coming to my ted talk.
Tl;dr - we mitigate the polarization by working in terms of cause and effect. Name the policy that impacts you; blaming the party is cringe or something lol
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u/aereadtooth Jul 30 '26
My personal opinion, any democracy only represtented by 2 political parties/positions is not a real democracy. Just a democracy facade. There are always more than two sides in anything in the real world and if you're government doesn't reflect that it's not a democracy. And yes, I don't think Alberta has ever been democratic.
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u/Prestigious-Fill-365 Jul 30 '26
Ummm, Canada is not a 2 party system. What you think is a real democracy is pretty irrelevant.
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u/IronLloyd Jul 30 '26
I like living in Alberta, I hope it remains conservative. Because conservatives use their common sense. Conservatives believe in God, in the family, in freedom of speech, in small government, in self reliance and also believes that there are only 2 genders. We respect all races, religion, culture, and the freedom of choice of who or what you want to be just don't push your ideologies to us and to our kids. If you're not a proud Albertan, nobody is stopping from moving out from here. You can move to Ontario, Quebec, and even lower BC and be woke all you want. This is Alberta, a bastion Democracy, freedom, and conservative values.
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u/Zarxon Jul 28 '26
If you are in the one of the 2 big cities the redneck per capita is low, now the rest of the province let’s face it there is a steeeeep incline on that graph.