EDMONTON—There’s a tension building in Western Canada. Like the pipelines pumping crude at capacity, backing up product that producers and politicians are anxious to get to market, it’s as if the province’s blood pressure is running high, desperate for an outlet.

Almost everybody has seen the outbursts, springing like leaks as protests and rallies pepper the province with increasing force and frequency from Calgary to Grande Prairie. Judging by the signs and the chants, the messages are sometimes mixed, criticizing everything from immigration to energy project legislation to equalization payments (and even some murmurs of separation). And beneath it all, there’s a feeling seeping to the surface — one that Edmontonian Dan Burbank, who considers himself “a generally happy person,” can no longer ignore.

“That makes me f---in’ mad as hell,” Burbank said.

Tuesday afternoon, he stood by the side of Range Road 250A in Nisku, Alta., south of Edmonton, where the most recent eruption, a pro-pipeline convoy driven by more than 1,000 truckers, caused havoc on traffic from Leduc to Edmonton. Anger, like misery it appears, also loves company.

Not an oil and gas worker per se, Burbank, 56, owns and operates at the edge of the sector a heating and ventilation company in Edmonton. But with friends in the sector, which is inextricably tied to the economies of the province and the country, he understands the toll taken by the low purchase price for Alberta oil, which bottomed out last month at about $10 a barrel.

Critical of the federal government’s recent failure on the Trans Mountain expansion project, expected to nearly triple the amount of oil transported to tidewater to reach international markets, he appeared to lend his voice to the message about which he sometimes finds himself ranting online.

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“How can you not read about it every single day and just get more and more annoyed?” Burbank asked. “It has a way of whipping a guy up, that’s for sure.”

According to an October IPSOS poll, feelings of alienation in “Wild Rose Country” are on the rise as fewer Albertans (18 per cent) feel like their interests are represented in Ottawa today than in 2001 (22 per cent). What’s worse, 34 per cent reported feeling less committed to Canada, compared to 29 per cent over the same period, while a quarter said they believed Alberta would be better off if it separated from Canada entirely, also up from 19 per cent.

Part of what feeds these mixed feelings, Burbank said, is the negativity Albertans are feeling from Western Canada and Eastern Canada.

“Every time we try and do something, two prime suspects, B.C. and Quebec, always seem to have a kick to the gut for us, and that is frustrating to no end,” Burbank said.

Quebec Premier François Legault recently added fuel to the firewall when he said there was “no social acceptability” in his province for a “dirty energy” pipeline from Alberta, joining British Columbia Premier John Horgan’s position against the expansion project planned for his own province.

“That’s what makes you feel alienated,” Burbank added. “When your own countrymen go, ‘Screw you, you’re not doing that’ because we’re over here and you’re over there.”

But Alberta’s political leaders also have a long history of externalizing their opposition and acting as champions of their province against some foe outside its borders, says University of Alberta political scientist Jared Wesley.

After a Federal Court of Appeal ruling overturned federal approval for the Trans Mountain expansion project, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, besides expressing her anger and that of the province, has been sharply critical of Ottawa, following a trend set by premiers past — Ralph Klein versus Jean Chrétien and Peter Lougheed versus Pierre Trudeau, to name the most recent.

Even after a recent federal announcement Tuesday, where the federal government made $1.6 billion in support available to tide over an ailing oil and gas industry in the short-term, Notley was underwhelmed and said she expected that gesture would be one of many until there’s more concrete action on pipeline development.

“That explains why, I think, Premier Notley has taken the steps that she has because it fits into that code of Alberta politics that you have to pick on an outside enemy,” Wesley said. “It kind of set up the rhetoric that if you’re not with us, then you’re against us.”

But that rhetoric can be taken too far, he warned, and can create problems with national unity. No mainstream Alberta politicians are outright calling for Alberta to separate from Canada, but Wesley has picked up on coded language and memes used by political elites that stoke this feeling of alienation and anger, such as Alberta Opposition Leader Jason Kenney’s recent call for a referendum on equalization payments. Next year, Quebec is set to receive $1.4 billion in federal transfer payments, adding up to more than $13 billion, despite having a surplus of about $3 billion while Alberta has a deficit hovering around $8 billion.

“It’s the perception that other regions are doing better than they were, and that we’re playing some kind of a zero-sum game,” Wesley added, describing a situation where one province’s gain is thought to come at the expense of another.

“That’s the art of the deal — that literally is the art of the deal — zero-sum negotiating. And we’re finding that kind of rhetoric.”

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Protesting outside of Ensign Drilling in Nisku on Tuesday afternoon, and among those bearing placards reading “Build that pipe,” were others wearing yellow vests and jackets beneath signs that read, “No more transfer payments!!!” and “Separate now!!!” as droves of trucks cruised past, blaring their horns in support.

As far as the recent surge in separatist sentiments are concerned, Wesley said he’s not worried. Separating is constitutionally difficult and would add miles of red tape to new energy projects. Besides requiring a referendum on a question approved by Parliament, he said, the majority of Albertans must vote to secede.

“This isn’t about logic. And it’s not about facts,” Wesley said. “I don’t mean that we live in a post-fact world, but when you’re talking about alienation, it’s about people’s gut feelings. And the big fact here in Alberta is, if you think you’re having a problem building a pipeline to tidewater as part of a federation, you should try doing it as an independent, landlocked country. We would get to that point, and the conversation would end there.”

And even if it did go that far, said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Albertans calling for separation probably don’t understand just how messy the divorce would be. Divvying up assets would create tremendous economic turmoil.

“People say, ‘Well, look at all the money we would save by not sending that money to Ottawa; look at all the equalization dollars that we would save here.’ But we would have to create brand new institutions, we would have to create our own provincial police force, an army, Foreign Affairs Department,” Bratt said, just to name a few. “These are not small items. And then there’s four million people in a small, landlocked province, but they also have family ties across the rest of Canada. Would we disrupt those ties? Would the rest of Canada want a corridor to B.C.?”

It’s a question Burbank found himself asking after hearing the separatist grumblings of late. Recalling a road trip he took to Prince Edward Island two years ago, he has fond memories of the campgrounds and national parks he visited on the journey, the people he met along the way and the conversations they had.

Despite his anger, separation, he believes, is not the answer.

“It’s better to get along, in my opinion.”

Mixed in with his ire are more complicated emotions, considering the economic impact oil project delays could have on his family, friends and neighbours.

“Feelings of foreboding, I guess, with the mounting debt, less work,” Burbank said. “I mean, people in this area are losing property, they’re losing possessions, it has social impacts on families. There’s a lot to consider. It’s a huge picture.”

And that’s why both political scientists warn that while some of the responses to Alberta’s economic problems fall on the fringe, the feelings behind them are real and need to be acknowledged.

“And I think just to dismiss it as that without trying to understand it is playing with danger,” Wesley said. “I’m worried about the divisiveness that comes with the rhetoric around separatism.”

It’s a warning that Notley heeded at the Alberta legislature on Monday.

“I think that a lot of folks who are out there expressing their concern and their anxiety, what they’re saying is real and true and it is reflective of the uncertainty they feel about their own economic security, and governments of all levels must listen to it,” she told StarMetro. “But I will also say that from the perspective of our government, my Alberta is in Canada and my Canada has Alberta as part of it, and that’s the end of that conversation.”

As for when tempers are expected to decline, almost everybody could agree that calm would come after Alberta’s economic storm.

“When things are rocking and booming in Alberta, we’re as happy as anyone else in the country, maybe even happier,” Burbank said. “When that economic engine is humming, there’s no better distraction.”

— With files from Kieran Leavitt and The Canadian Press

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