Between 2004 and 2014, Alberta’s economy grew by an average of 3.4 per cent every year. By comparison, Ontario’s grew by an average of just 1.3 per cent.

Both provinces’ economic performances – Alberta’s strong, Ontario’s mediocre – were the result of their energy policies. Alberta forged ahead with conventional oil, natural gas and oilsands development while Ontario made a deliberate (and very expensive) attempt to go “green.”

During the decade in question, Ontario lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs.

The Ontario Liberals, who were in power for all those years, had promised that as it forced the elimination of fossil-fuel generated electricity, hundreds of thousands of new jobs would be created in the “green” economy. Yet only a few thousand materialized.

It’s true that some of Ontario’s economic troubles were the result of the worldwide financial crisis in 2008-09. There was also the automation of factories, trade deals, a higher Canadian dollar and the refusal of Canadian manufacturers and unions to invest in better productivity.

But the biggest factor in Ontario’s sluggish growth was its green-energy obsession. University of Montreal energy economist Pierre-Olivier Pineau has said Ontario went from one of the cheapest energy markets to “probably the worst electricity market in the world.”

Ontario’s Liberals spent $40 billion they didn’t have and allowed electricity prices to more than double to pay for their “green” dream. Since taxes and electricity rates are among the largest costs in manufacturing, the resulting job losses were predictable and preventable.

So why is Alberta’s NDP government following Ontario down the same suicide slope?

Why is the Notley government spending at least $1 billion to shut Alberta’s coal-fired power plants? Why is it spending at least $2 billion to subsidize electricity companies’ losses that are a direct result of NDP carbon tax and large-scale emitters tax?

And why is it planning to spend in excess of $3 billion a year for wind, solar and other “clean” energy initiatives, especially since Ontario’s rush to do exactly the same thing led to “negligible environmental benefits,” according that that province’s auditor general.

According to a study released Thursday by Vancouver’s Fraser Institute, “between 2007 and 2015, Albertans contributed $221.4 billion more revenue to federal coffers than they received in federal transfer payments and services—a much larger net contribution than any other province.”

Without our contribution, federal deficits would have been double or more of what they were.

According to Fraser, nearly one in every five dollars the federal government collected in revenues came from Alberta, and Alberta has less than 12 per cent of the national population.

One-third of all the new private-sector jobs created in the entire country during that time were created in Alberta. In fact, we created more jobs than Ontario did, even though Ontario has more than three times our population.

Without the jobs Alberta created, the national unemployment rate would have been nearly two percentage points higher.

In short, Canada was far better off over the last decade because of Alberta.

Yet our NDP government would have us adopt Ontario’s failed policies.

But it’s not just our Notleyites.

British Columbia doesn’t want our pipelines even though our pipelines would provide thousands of jobs for B.C. workers.

Quebec doesn’t want them either, even though the oil that flows through our pipelines funds the transfer and equalization payments that the Quebec government lives off of.

Even Ottawa, which was the biggest beneficiary of our strong economy after Alberta itself, is doing everything it can to squelch our recovery with its carbon tax and its new, lengthened energy review processes.

The rest of the country loves our money, yet somehow thinks it will continue to flow even if they strangle Alberta’s economy.