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Because politics always ends up being personal, losing at it hurts. For candidates, it’s direct rejection by an electorate of peers. For party supporters, their values and beliefs are being dismissed and that’s hard to take, too.

Most defeated candidates swear off further adventures in elected politics, even if remaining active on the sidelines. Others pledge to work until victory and vindication finally are achieved.

But they usually don’t want to destroy the country that found their party unworthy of election. Yet destruction is the demand of some western Conservatives in the wake of last week’s federal election loss.

The dust had barely settled on the Liberal re-election when Alberta Premier Jason Kenney warned the result will drive western alienation, even separatism. He muttered about “betrayal,” as if voting for parties other than the Conservatives constituted treachery against the West.

Kenney might have expected the Conservative defeat. He already had a list prepared of demands for the new minority Liberal government, including no deals with the anti-oil NDP or Greens, a guaranteed oil pipeline to the coast, relaxation of environmental regulations and other measures straight out of the Conservative Party platform.

And while it’s understandable that frustration follows defeat, Kenney’s petulance ignores the reality of electoral politics. He’s angry because the Conservatives won more votes, with huge majorities in the West, but the Liberals won enough seats to get re-elected nationally. Describing that as betrayal is pure melodrama.

Last April, Kenney’s United Conservatives won 72 per cent of the seats in the Alberta legislature based on 55 per cent of the popular vote. You didn’t hear him complaining then, any more than you heard him call for electoral reform during his eight-plus years in the federal cabinet.

And there are serious problems in the Alberta oil patch, where prices are low and investment is stagnant. That’s a drag on the entire Canadian economy, but it’s mostly caused by global economic and political conditions: the world oil economy is in decline. Kenney blames all of it on the federal Liberals.

Thursday, hours before presenting a slashing austerity budget in Alberta, Kenney claimed the Trudeau government “actively campaigned against our province’s vital economic interests.” What a nice distraction from his school and health-care cuts.

Kenney’s supporters would call Maritimers spoiled and entitled if they blamed Ottawa for low fish prices. Yet this is precisely Kenney’s position.

It’s not even good politics west of Alberta or east of Saskatchewan. “Down with Toronto,” an agreeable sentiment in hockey, won’t work as a political slogan.

First, it’s simplistic. More importantly, 64 per cent of Canadians voted for parties with carbon reduction policies and 7 in 10 identified climate as a major issue. The Liberals, New Democrats, Bloc Québécois and Greens all promised to fight climate change.

Did the Conservative party even have a proposal on climate?

In some ways, the real post-election split is as much between rural and urban Canada as between East and West. The Conservatives have become the small town and country party, resentful of city folks, their values and the Liberals they elect.

In Ontario, Liberals swept Toronto and Ottawa as the rural vote went Conservative. The Liberals won Montreal and many seats in Vancouver. Conservatives failed to win a single urban seat in Nova Scotia, finishing a distant fourth in Halifax with less than 10 per cent of the vote.

“Canadians expect us to work together,” Trudeau said post-election in a message aimed at Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Singh as much as the wider population. If that means building a pipeline somewhere, they should work on that together.

I believe Canadians would applaud seeing the current PM, or any PM for that matter, sincerely consult other leaders on policies that benefit all Canadians. Voters are sick of nasty partisanship and there are pressing issues out there.

Failure to work together might well encourage the separatists, in Alberta and Quebec, and that won’t benefit anyone.