B.C. blogger Markham Hislop has taken on berating concerned Albertans as his personal mission. Nary a day goes by without him offering disparagement to Albertans on social media channels. They tend to focus on being insulting rather than offering counterpoints to legitimate concerns.

In his most recent tirade, Hislop says Albertans are not oppressed but that they are “misled.” He is implying Albertans just don’t understand what’s going on and are being blithely led down the garden path of pursuing sovereignty through a generalized ignorance of how politics work.

Hislop claims “Most of Alberta's so-called grievances are not really grievances at all.”

Telling a province that’s shipped hundreds of billions of hard-earned dollars to the rest of Canada without it being returned in transfers or services that it’s not being exploited is a peak “let them eat cake” moment. It’s not "misled.” It’s math.

Hislop’s video closes with a caption saying, “Alberta’s biggest political problem may be the politics of permanent grievance.” He implies that the issues Alberta has endured have been brought about by poor provincial management and bad negotiating tactics.

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The grievances are real and do appear to be permanent. They are more than what he calls a natural “friction of federalism.” If it’s all so manageable, why has every premier since Lougheed still end up screaming into the void?

Even Hislop’s venerated Rachel Notley got nowhere with a full term holding a majority government.

Hislop accused Premier Smith of pandering to what he called “cultist separatists” and said the UCP has been “captured” by them.

The most hardcore of the independence leaders certainly don’t feel pandered to by the premier and her party has hardly been captured by them.

Calling Albertans who want a referendum “cultists” is peak federalist condescension. Smith’s crime, in Hislop’s eyes, is not immediately crushing a petition that thousands of Albertans signed. Well over one in three Albertans want independence and the number who want the question put to a referendum is even higher.

Markham keeps diagnosing Alberta as the problem child throwing a tantrum. Funny how the prescription is always to be un-Albertan and grin and bear it.

Albertans aren't inclined to sit back and take abuse, though it can be understood how a person living on the West Coast may not understand that.

Perhaps Mr. Hislop’s time would be better served in continuing to write sponsored, failed peak oil predictions for the net-zero focused Ivey Foundation rather than trying to speak to an Albertan political culture he clearly has no understanding of.