The misinformation that always makes me shake my head in disbelief here in SK is the mistaken belief that the average person in AB is much better off because of the lack of provincial sales tax. What most people here (and maybe in the rest of the country) fail to realize is that Alberta requires that people pay health care premiums. My wife and I worked it out when we first lived in Saskatoon, and calculated that we’d each have to buy about $500 worth of provincial sales taxable items every month (groceries and books, for example, are non-taxable; new computers, alas, are taxable) for our sales tax payments to equal the Alberta health care premium.

Hmm – this seems to have turned into an anti-Alberta rant. I should point out that I grew up in Alberta, I have many family and friends there, and we love visiting them and Alberta as often as we can. What raises my ire is the “everything is better in Alberta – why don’t y’all come join us by the cement pond” myth. I think it diminishes the rest of Canada, and as you point out so well, D’Arcy, it hurts most Albertans as well. But it is a myth that the Alberta Conservative party under Ralph Klein has used to its advantage.

“A trained chimp could balance a budget with these surpluses.”

Uh – isn’t that what happened? Or do you consider Ralph untrained since he left school after grade 8? ;^)

Incidentally, I just saw a news story this morning about how even though the province is richer, the poorest families are suffering more, because the cost of living has risen so much but their family incomes haven’t. (Seems pretty obvious to me.) Wish I could find a link to the story – it would augment all the comments above.