Will Alberta Remain ‘Unified in Thought’ Down the Road?

Alberta ought to reflect on the upcoming changes to its culture that will result from increased migration to fill its labor needs. When new people come there are two options:

1. They can preserve their traditions and identity from wherever they came from, and seek to establish this identity as the hallmark of their societal role. In other words they can fit into a cultural mosaic. This is the approach of multi-culturalism and the Canadian government.
2. They can choose to assimilate into the new culture, while maintaining a celebration of their old culture as important, but secondary. This is the melting pot approach which has been the emphasis of the USA up until recent decades

Alberta has a keen identity that needs to be marked out and shared with those who come to the province. It is not to say that Alberta should try to be a cultural misfit in a globalized world. Alberta should be who it claims to be, and work to make those who arrive in Alberta buy into that vision and foundational worldview.

If Alberta choses to ignore these potential changes it may be alarmed one day to see its dominant ethos of personal responsibility, industry, and service evaporating under the pressure of personal unaccountability, entitlement, and self-absorbtion.

The Dominion of Canada has succumbed to the culture of fear to a large extent. Alberta resists this culture. Let us plan for the future so that those who migrate to Alberta come to enhance a culture of prosperity, rather than colonize on behalf of a culture of entitlement and fear.