Oil. Say it again. Oil. That three-letter word that runs everything from the price of my groceries to the geopolitical temperature of the Western Hemisphere. In Alberta, it isn’t a resource, it’s a personality type. In federal politics, it’s a loyalty test. And internationally? We dress it up with talk of democracy, alliances, religion, security… but strip away the slogans and what’s underneath? Oil!
I’ve watched my entire lifetime of Middle East “operations,” “peacekeeping,” and “stabilization missions.” Peel off the moralizing, and you find that same three-letter word holding the marionette strings. And here at home, Alberta has built whole identities, economies, and political movements around it. Including mine. My husband leaves next week for another new project, because as much as I write about diversification and long-term planning, oil still pays the bills in this household.
That’s not hypocrisy. That’s Alberta. And darn oil has been good to us. But it’s also the problem. Because Alberta acts like it’s insulated from global chaos when in reality we’re sitting right in the middle of an energy world that’s shifting fast. And if you want proof of how dangerous this can get, look at Venezuela.
Never mind the complicated tapestry. It’s oil. Just oil. Venezuela has it. The U.S. wants it. And with Trump in the White House, the U.S. is dragging the Monroe Doctrine out of the 1820s like a museum relic and pretending the entire Western Hemisphere is its personal property. Don’t like a government? Overthrow it. Want a canal? Take it. Want resources? Just grab them. International law is treated as optional.
Sound familiar? Because that swagger. The belief that resources equal entitlement is the same attitude we see entrenched in some parts of Alberta politics. Cheered on by the extreme right, it fuels everything from separatist fantasies to “take back” rhetoric to the idea that oil gives us moral permission to do whatever we want.
Now the U.S. is treating Venezuela the way imperial powers used to treat Africa or Latin America: as a cupboard of resources you pry open when you feel like it. And here’s the terrifying part:
Launching an attack on Venezuela without congressional authorization or legal justification would violate international law. It would place the U.S. beside Russia on the list of nations that commit aggressive war. It would prove that the world’s self-proclaimed defender of freedom is fully willing to abandon the rules it demands everyone else follow.
All because,say it with me, OIL!
Now, Alberta loves to think we’re separate from all this mess. But we aren’t. We’re tied directly to the global market, the global politics, and the global moral compromises that come with fossil dependency. And if Alberta chases the American model, which many want to, if we follow the “oil above all” mindset,we might not like where that road ends.
This is where it gets personal. When my husband spent five years fighting for his life,cancer, cardiac arrest, a coma,I had a front-row seat to a truth most Albertans never face until their world collapses: oil money means nothing when you’re wondering if the person you love will ever wake up. Nothing!
Not the wages, not the big projects, not the boom years, not the politics built around it. You don’t sit beside a hospital bed praying for another oil boom. You sit there hoping for one more conversation.
But in Alberta, too many people view oil as a birthright and high wages as entitlement. As if this industry is supposed to guarantee them a certain lifestyle forever. As if the rest of the country should bow to our exceptionalism. As if questioning oil’s supremacy is an act of betrayal.
Let me be clear. I know what oil has provided my family. I know what it provides to Alberta. I know what it has contributed to Canada. But I also know that when life hangs in the balance, the entire mythology around oil collapses. What remains is what actually matters: people, families, health, community, stability, democracy. Not oil.
Which is why watching Alberta flirt with the same aggressive, resource-obsessed worldview we see in parts of the United States should concern every one of us. If Alberta believes its wealth gives it moral permission, if we take the American route of dominance, supremacy, and extraction above all, we are heading toward the same democratic rot.
Oil is a tiny word, just three letters. But Alberta has given it far more power than it deserves. The love of money may be the root of all evil. But the worship of oil, its money, its mythology, its political leverage, is the root of a whole lot more.
And if we don’t learn that now, we’re going to learn it the hard way.
Nancy's Notes 