Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 13/5/2015 (1957 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

It's hard to describe, but every day since May 5, I've awakened with the sense of a large weight lifted. I am not alone. Many of us in Alberta feel lighter since the New Democrats' electoral victory.

The feeling is strange. I like it, but the reality has not sunk in yet. I'm not sure how to describe it. I search in vain for a comparison. I wonder, is this how East Berliners felt when the wall came down in 1989?

An Iranian friend says he remembers a similar feeling. It was 1979. He heard the shah had fled the country, but at first did not believe it. Then he noticed one of his older professors uncharacteristically dancing in the street, and he believed.

Of course, not all are dancing in Alberta's streets: oil men, investors, some media pundits, and suddenly retired politicians. They didn't believe the polls saying the Tory dynasty would end; that their once-solid world would melt away, and be wrapped in a mournful dirge.

But for the rest of us -- and this includes even some lapsed Tories -- euphoria reigns. A warm, fresh light has broken through.

How to describe it? The thing is, living in Alberta these last few decades has not been horrible. Money has flowed -- to some. The air has been breathable -- most of the time. There have been no tanks in the street. Life has been pretty good.

But it has also been oppressive and stifling; even dismissive, as in, only corporate lawyers and CEOs -- the "job creators" -- matter.

And, more than anything, gnawing fear: fear that the schools will close; that the health-care system will fail; that the roads will go unpaved; that scores of workers will be laid off, and peoples' homes seized.

Add to this, the grinding fear of speaking out; of standing out from the crowd; especially, of being on the government's wrong side.

When a colleague and I co-edited a book critical of the Klein government in 1995, some PC members in the legislature called for the academics who contributed to the text to be fired. The president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers attempted to have the credentials of one writer reviewed by the dean of management at the University of Calgary. Critics, including myself, regularly received hate-filled letters and phone calls from people telling us that if we didn't like Alberta we should leave.

But, comparatively, we academics had it easy; not so, a lot of others. I remember a woman from a small northeast town telling me that she and her husband were afraid to not support the local Conservative MLA in elections because he might find out and their small business would suffer. Her story was not singular.

The members of municipalities, boards, and universities had similar fears. Until the practice was banned a few years ago, some regularly used public money to buy tickets to Conservative party events. They felt they had to or be left out of the government spoils.

How many other groups, organizations, and individuals were shaken down is unknown, but there is no doubt that many Albertans felt they had to go along with it.

But suddenly, things seem changed.

We are not exactly walking on sunshine. We know our oil wealth has been squandered or given away. We know there are tough times ahead. We will do our penance and move on. But Albertans are today walking with a lighter step into a future that for the first time in a long time is bathed in hope.

Trevor W. Harrison is a professor at the University of Lethbridge and director of Parkland Institute.