The UCP’s Phoney Claim About Alberta’s ‘Distinct Legal Tradition’

Sorry, folks, but encouraging lawyers to dress up in cowboy hats and Cuban heels like extras on the set of Yellowstone for the Calgary Stampede’s 10 days every July does not a distinct society make.

What’s more, it’s about as close as Alberta’s going to get to a “distinct legal tradition,” too.

Yeah, Alberta’s United Conservative Party is suffering from péquiste envy again, a psychological condition that flares up whenever Liberals are in power in Ottawa, causing Albertans to try to persuade the rest of the country that we’re culturally, linguistically and, now apparently, even legally distinct, sort of like Quebec.

It’s often said here in Wild Rose Country — where the condition has now become chronic, thanks to the currently all-but-unelectable leadership of the federal Conservative party — that Canada had better let us have our way, including all those pipelines we demand to every point of the compass, or... I dunno... maybe we’ll have a separation referendum.

Oh, wait! It turns out we’re having a separation referendum anyway, but that hasn’t prevented another outbreak of péquiste envy, which is defined in polite circles, as an earnest CBC reporter explained it last year, as believing “that Alberta, like Quebec, does have a culture that’s distinct from the rest of Canada — one rooted in traditional conservative values.”

Since significant percentages of voters living in Alberta have supported anyone but Conservatives in the past several general elections — federal or provincial, take your pick — the latter part of this definition is a difficult proposition to argue. What’s more, it’s also pretty insulting to Conservative supporters elsewhere in Canada, who are entitled to ask, “What are we? Chopped liver?”

I mean, seriously, the national Conservative temper tantrum, which has been raging with particular intensity in Alberta and Saskatchewan ever since Justin Trudeau’s government was elected in 2015 and grew even more deranged after the unexpected election of Mark Carney’s Liberal government in April 2025, is almost a mirror image of the situation in Alberta.

Here, large numbers of non-Conservatives vote for anybody but the conservatives in federal and provincial elections but nevertheless see their candidates lose most ridings, most of the time, especially at the federal level.