Is Conservative and Prosperous Alberta a Redneck Refuge or a Populist Pioneer?

Alberta is Canada's oil field, its cowboy country, headquarters for its anti-gun-control lobby, stronghold of its right-wing political movement. In the American West, it might fit in comfortably; in Canada--well, Alberta is different.

"Albertans feel good about Alberta," said Thomas Flanagan, political science professor at the University of Calgary. "If we can just be left alone to run our own affairs, and be taxed as little as possible, we'll be fine."

The Toronto-based Globe and Mail, which circulates across Canada, recently published a letter from Toronto reader John Firth, who bemoaned the Alberta government's opposition to gun control and its reluctance to embrace gay rights.

"Clearly the time has come to expel this right-wing cuckoo from the Canadian nest," wrote Firth, who proposed trading the province to the United States for "one of the more civilized border states"--preferably Minnesota or Vermont.

Dozens of letters have flowed to the Globe and Mail in response, some accusing it of disseminating hate literature, and almost all of it defending Alberta.

Rather than expel Alberta, why not send Ottawa-based federal politicians and bureaucrats to Alberta, reader Jack Tate suggested. "Both the country and they would benefit from their exposure to clear mountain air and clear thinking."

But Melanie Anderson, part of Alberta's left-of-center minority and head of its Planned Parenthood chapter in Calgary, says critics of the province are on target.

"Other Canadians do look at Alberta as being very redneck, and unfortunately I'd have to agree with them," she said. "To tell the truth, it's very embarrassing to be from Alberta when you go to a national conference."

At the moment, Alberta ranks as Canada's most conservative province and its most prosperous. Many Albertans would link those two achievements.

A Province With Many Distinctions

Among Alberta's distinctions:

* It is the only province with no sales tax.

* It is the bastion of the right-wing Reform Party, now the largest opposition faction in Parliament. The governing Liberal Party can claim reasonable support almost everywhere else in Canada; in Alberta, it won one seat in last year's national election while Reform won the other 25.