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This all serves to illustrate why Fort McMurrayites are so quick to get their back up whenever the rest of the world slags on the region’s oil companies.

They ban Neil Young when he calls the oil sands an atomic-scarred wasteland. They wear “I love oil sands” sweaters like some kind of embattled minority group. In the opening days of the disaster, several volunteers even paused to post an image of relief efforts with some variant of “let’s see Leo DiCaprio sort donations all day.”

When it comes to the rest of the world’s hate fetish for oil companies, Fort McMurray isn’t so much angry — as confused.

In Vancouver, the word Syncrude isn’t heard much outside the context of dead ducks. In Montreal or Toronto, the Shell logo is associated solely with the weekly ritual of paying $60 to $100 to keep the car running.

But in the oil patch, these companies are like a benevolent second government.

It’s a rare thing to find an oil-producing region situated within a friendly, stable, country where bribes don’t have to factor into the balance sheet. And it’s why the “don’t shit in your backyard” ethos of Fort McMurray oil companies is so strong.

At the best of times, they’re reliable cheque-writers for almost any local petitioner. Fort McMurray has Syncrude Athletic Park, the Suncor Community Leisure Centre and the Suncor Energy Centre for the Performing Arts, among others.

Four hours south in Edmonton, it is a rare museum or theatre program that doesn’t have an oil logo of some kind sharing equal sponsorship billing with Heritage Canada or the Province of Alberta.