Alberta Love Letter

I feel like many people struggle to understand my love for Calgary, or why I am so eager to move back home after having experienced the luxury of living on Vancouver Island for the past three years. I can understand their admiration of BC because the west coast has some advantages over other regions, including milder winters and beautiful coastal scenery, but that doesn’t erase or discredit the many things that I love about home.

As much as I enjoy living by the ocean, running and cycling outdoors year-round, and a more progressive political atmosphere, I miss the prairie landscapes, I miss having sunlight and snow in the wintertime, the disproportionate number of beautiful sunsets, lounging by the rivers in summer, driving down Elbow Drive, riding my bike through Fish Creek Park, watching soccer at the Ship and Anchor, and I haven’t even mentioned the people whom I love and miss dearly.

I miss my family and friends, and no matter where I live, it will never feel like home without them. They’re also the main reason why I feel a drive to fight for the political future of Alberta. I know and understand the side of Alberta that doesn’t exist in the minds of other Canadians. Petro-nationalism and the associated sense of entitlement has been the dominant Albertan subculture portrayed to the rest of Canada for as long as I have been alive and I’m tired of the status quo dictating the future of my home province. Myself, my friends, and my family are not a part of this culture, we want something different, and I want to fight for our right to a sustainable future in Alberta.

If everybody just gives up and leaves, then what becomes of our home? Not everyone has the ability or resources to leave the province just because the political and economic climate is sour — that’s a luxury reserved for the wealthy, but it still leaves the most vulnerable residents at risk of exploitation. We need the people who crave a different Alberta to stay put and force change, because if we all abandon ship, we are only dooming Alberta to further decline. It may sound cliché, but I see the potential for Alberta to move beyond our fossil fuel history and secure its long-term future, and I want to come home so that I can do my part to help make that a reality.