Saskatchewan has been pretty solidly conservative for almost 20 years now. Alberta has had a left-wing provincial government more recently than Saskatchewan. Scott Moe is a huge source of Covid misinformation. Also he killed a woman with his car. Your guess is as good as mine as to how someone like that manages to take the provinces highest office. Actually very similar situation in MB as well.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that understanding The Prairie Provinces is a lot more complex and interesting than the rest of Canada ever seems to want to engage with, and these kind of Authoritative drive-bys (“Albertans are defined by an ultra-conservative fuck-you-i-got-mine ethos”) aren’t particularly valuable when trying to understand the prairies (explain why AB has one of the highest levels of support for abortion? Why was Calgary the first major city to elect a Muslim mayor?) But they do serve as dismissive and diminishing ways to generate national division, and frankly I don’t think feeding those narratives with terse snipes is valuable.

Corner cases aside, you will note the article compared similar plans and similar driver experience. Whether we can game the results for a particular driver is an academic problem most of us don’t have time/money to figure out.

Remember this important fact: when there’s more than one (eg private) insurer, none of them need insure you. When the only insurer is the gov, the books need to be more open and rejection becomes a media issue.

As a friend in Washington is discovering after a minor roof problem and then a major pipe problem a decade later, both involving water leaks, you can be dropped from your private insurer if they decide your two claims show a trend. And once you’ve been blackballed by one, you’re lucky to get insurance from anyone whose name isn’t, in fact, Lucky.

I didn’t shop around for car insurance very much, I ended up going with AMA, and my insurance guy was surprised I ended up paying less here than in BC, but like $50/year. Property taxes are going up crazy rates in Alberta right now, partially because bertians want everything but don’t want too be taxed ever. I was blown away by how expensive home energy is here, and the total illusion of choice. Alberta’s energy regulator is useless. You can pick your provider, but you’ll probably get taxed a “Atco zone” or whatever charge, then about $100/ month in “Administration” because they paid to upgrade the system ten years ago or something. It’s a mixed bag, there are something things that you won’t pay for, like the sales tax, and some gas savings, but other things you’ll get raked over the coals like 50% rent increases yearly, or property taxes going up 6%-8%.

I’m terrified by the prospect of this “Alberta Pension” the government seems to be fixated on. They released wrong information and keep doubling down on it. Then there’s the renewable energy moratorium for no raisen whatsoever that lost something like a billion in investment. I’m here for university, and if the government doesn’'t stabilize, when I’m done I’m planning to flee somewhere else.