Premier Rachel Notley says Alberta's owed economic payback from Ottawa

Expecting a Trudope to get serious with Quebec.

She is absolutely right. Lets not turn this into a federal divisive issue however.

Alberta, like the rest of Canada has sat on its laurels and spit on innovation for the sake of the path of least resistance. It's fair to state that Alberta and the West have supported the unions and weak manufacturing sector in Ontario (along with massive debt in Ontario to feed the cronyism so rampant here) for a long time and they shouldn't suffer further when their economy is in such pain.

In their time of need, Canada needs to step up and do what it can. Ultimately though, this should not come at the expense of the next generation, so no debt or overspending. A fair decrease in transfer payments from Alberta should be a reasonable solution and allow Alberta to use those funds they would normally transfer to the welfare province of Ontario for their own populations.

The number of SAGD plants in the oil sands are more than proof enough that Alberta didn't turn it's back on any innovation. The oil field is now one of the most technologically diverse segments of the Canadian economy. Everything is as computerized, digitized, and satellite connected here as any other place in the world is. Maybe some circuit board manufacturer isn't ever going to set up shop in Alberta but they aren't in Ontario either. That type of industry is gone from Canada forever because costs are lower elsewhere, mostly due to the slave labour they can exploit in places like China.

we use pre programmed fixed wing drones for very high resolution surveillance of ground and surface topography. There is lots of cool tech in the oilsands.

My first interview up north was at Syncrude. I didn't get the job but just going there was fascinating. The inspection department was absolutely giddy because they'd just received their new ultrasonics robot crawler for inspecting the inside of the pipes. Half a million bucks worth of 'bot and it was pretty damn sexy.