Talk:Alberta

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[edit] Industry Section references to Ft. McMurray

Just noticed that it lists it as being "one of Canada's youngest and liveliest cities." This should be edited, if only to fix the fact that Ft. McMurray is hardly a new settlement. Yes, it has experienced massive growth over the last few years over the previous population boom in the '60s and '70s that brought the population from around 500, but it is hardly a "young" area, even by Canadian standards. As well, being a part of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo means that the "city" isn't truly a city, even if it is still refered to as such by those who have, or do live there. Imput would be great so we can fix little things like this.

  • Sorry, forgot to sign. T. Sutherland 06:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the oil

The article mentions that the oil sands production costs are nearing conventional production costs. having worked in the oil sands and being somewhat familiar I find this impossible to believe. maybe some one check the facts? i'm I'm not mistaken, primary extraction of conventional oil is pretty well free per barrel (cents per barrel), while tertiary is a few bucks more (~$3/barrel)... if i'm not mistaken oil sands production is roughly $12/barrel to produce. (which is bitchn' when the price to sell is around $60 and you produce a half million barrels a day. this is my recolection... but i'll check back with some references in a while if no else has changed it or verified it. -danimal --207.34.120.71 07:41, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bias in the section on economy

In the section on economy on the Alberta page, there is a reference to government provided-services as "Canadian-style quality of life." There is bias behind the phrase. If one looks at the sentence the phrase is found in, it implies that government-provided services improve the quality of life over similar services provided by the market. Many people, especially in Alberta, do no share this opinion. Further, this is a Wikipedia article, not a government of Alberta pamplet -- so it comes across as a biased advertisement. As such, the phrase should be removed from the article as the article, ostensibly, aims at neutrality. Something like "a Canadian amount of government services" is more appropriate.

[edit] Where is the criticism

And critisism has to be handled very very carefully in an Encyclopedia. I don't think I would even try, personally - I can distance myself enough from the issues, and I would end up writing stuff that has no place here.

It is notable that Albertain politicians, including Klein, really do kick the dust up on a national level, and I think that should be mentioned somewhere, even if it's not this particular entry. I'll try to see what the other pages have and do some other research. If anyone has any imput though, fell free to message me as a write this. Like I said, this is something that would be very easy to mess up. I'll post a rough draft when it's finnished. Kyle543 20:38, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

This area has been labelled as being a Bible Belt.

It has? I'd like to see a reference on that. I really disagree. --Arch26 02:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Considering the existence of a separate school system for Catholics (although primarily due to historical rather than religious reasons), popular opinion on such issues as abortion, prayer in schools, and such, the political and religious views of the province do tend to follow those of "Bible Belt" areas. 205.206.98.72 07:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Well.. bible belts aren't Catholic. So your school argument is completely out the window. I don't think any region of Canada with the exception of certain small community-scale areas, are really true "bible belts". --Arch26 08:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

This whole subsection is political debate. Don't debate here, this is an encyclopedia, not a debate forum. This should all get deleted. Kevlar67 01:46, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I contributed to it, and a still think it doesn't belong here. Get rif of it. --Arch26 04:07, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I have deleted a majority of the aforementioned irrelevant discussion. If it must be referenced for any reason, use the article history. --Arch26 07:25, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I am a little surprised at the lack of historical knowledge of Alberta. The reason Alberta was called the Bible Belt was due to the radio preaching of William Aberhart in the 1930s. According to William E. Mann's book "Sect, Cult, and Church in Alberta" Aberhart's radio messages exerted "a tremendous influence in the province" (page 120). The Berean Bible Institute, where Aberhart and Ernest Manning taught, sent out a great number of men who started churches throughout Alberta. These two men, successively, were premiers of the province. Also the Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills and the Peace River Bible Institute in Sexsmith were two other interdenominational evangelical Bible Colleges which influenced the province. For these reasons, William Mann uses the common term "Bible Belt" for Alberta. As Arch26 states, it was not the influence of the Roman Catholics. Cadillac 04:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I came in halfway through so I'm not sure where this is going. But I would say the fact that Alberta is the province with the highest proportion of evangelical Christians, is noteworthy, but equating it directly with the Southern US Bible Belt in a stretch. Calling it "Canada's Bible Belt" ? Maybe, but be clear this isn't anywhere near the same as the S. US. Kevlar67 00:51, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Airport Statistics

In this article it says that Calgary is Canada's 3rd busiest airport. If based on aircraft movements, then it is correct. If based on passenger movement, it is incorrect - as Montreal has more passengers. Could you clarify.

(Prior to the closure of Mirabel, Calgary's airport handled more passengers than Dorval)

[edit] 100th Anniversary Celebrations!

I attended the celebrations and feel that an image of the fireworks with the legislature "the Leg" could be used or someone could add the Alberta 2005 emblem to the page somewhere - I don't know how or I would. Hooray For alberta!!!! the only thing i disagree with alberta's history is that calgary should have been the capital instead of edmonton

[edit] Language

Does Alberta have language lesgislation? If not, the term "official language" is misleading. The official languages of Canada are English and French. Fishhead64 16:00, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

From Justice Canada: There is no constitutional obligation to provide services in French in Alberta...However, the Alberta Languages Act[10] recognizes a right to use French in certain courts, including courts of criminal jurisdiction. Subsection 4(1) of the Act provides: "Any person may use English or French in oral communication in proceedings"... However, that right is limited to oral communication...However, on the question of legislation, the provincial statutes are not published in both official languages, with the exception of the Alberta Languages Act. From solon.org: All Acts, Ordinances and regulations enacted prior to the coming into force of this Act are declared valid notwithstanding that they were enacted, printed and published in English only....All Acts and regulations may be enacted, printed and published in English... Members of the Assembly may use English and French in the Assembly. (emphasis mine). But anyways, English is the "official" language, and has been for a long time. In fact other languages were offcially restricted (in education) between WWI and the 1960s. Kevlar67 20:00, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Official Flower

The code to show a line about the official flower in the main info box is in the wikitext but doesn't show up on the page. Anyone know why? Kevlar67 20:41, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

There's no provision for it in Template:Canadian province or territory. You'll have to alter the template to get it to work. Indefatigable 23:06, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Population

The latest StatsCan report puts the official 2005 end-year population at over 3.3 million, but I haven't any more official numbers than that. Anyone else have a source on something more accurate?--198.161.102.118 00:34, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Homeschooling

I don't agree that homeschoolers 'pay a substantial portion of the costs'. The amount of grant money varies with jurisdiction but I find the Argyll reimbursement enough to cover pretty well all the costs I incur: computer rental, Internet usage, consumables (e.g. art supplies) and tuition fees for elementary/junior high music instruction. My major out-of-pocket is transportation expenses to lessons and field trips. 208.114.131.32 04:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted Link

No spam intended. Did not realize the two names were related in this way, and if it causes a problem I will gladly change my username. Thank You. --AlbertaWebRide 23:57, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tourism

Actually, Alberta Economic development quotes different numbers on a January 2006 document. Edmonton and Calgary are both about the same, with Edmonton hosting a few more, followed by Banff at 3 million. These numbers are more consistent with ones I've seen in the past anyway (I don't know where the 4 and 5 million figures came from). The reason I found the text misleading was because the editor referred to these numbers as being tourism indicators. Statistically, this is accurate. But in this encyclopedia, it is probably prudent to use different terminology. Tourism does not normally include business travel (but numbers are grouped into "tourism" anyway for statistical reasons because it is impossible to separate recreational from business travel). Edmonton, being the capital recieves a lot of government travel. Likewise, Calgary, being a business centre, recieves a great deal of economic travel. So, as a result, I have subtely reworded the passage. --Arch26 00:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2006 Populations

Although I appreciate that fewer than half of the municipalities in the chart have released 2006 data, I removed the footnote anyway for the following reasons:

  • I felt that the number of footnotes was making the table confusing.
  • Most of these municipalities will have data within weeks anyway (they are released in the summer)
  • Some of these municipalities will never have 2006 data because they only conduct censuses in odd years
  • I think we should actually replace all the 2006 data with StatsCan 2006 data when it becomes available anyway. Then it will at least be consistent.
  • A footnote is still in place for communities where old data (2005 and older) is used as the most current.

--Arch26 00:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay that's actually a much better way to put it. I probably should've done it that way in the first place to avoid confusion. I've made a slight addition to the new footnote because you will notice that all those municipalities in the list marked with an asterisk (*) had their census done in 2005. Now as for population figures released by StatsCan, I've checked its site and it show the scheduled release date for population and dwelling counts as Feb 13, 2007 [1] (see attached link), which obviously much later than this summer. NorthernFire 01:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Religion Stats

Just wondering, Alberta has a small but long-established Ukrainian Catholic community (26,170 in 1991) and I don't see them on your list. Are they erroneuosly included in either the "Roman Catholic" or "Christian Orthodox" categories, or simply "other"?. Kevlar67 08:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to whoever fixed that. Kevlar67 21:37, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
You're welcome! AshleyMorton 06:18, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] LCD

Liquid crystal displays were invented in Alberta? An (admittedly) quick google search revealed nothing to back this up. --SaulPerdomo 04:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I just visited the page again, and I see the wording is quite different and now there is a link to a relevant patent. Good job, whoever did it. --SaulPerdomo

[edit] History: Help needed

Please, go look at History of Alberta. It is currently pathetic. It needs help. Meanwhile, the history sections of the individual cities (Edmonton, Calgary, et all) are quite long. Heck, there is even a seperate History of Lethbridge for crying out loud!. I propose narrowing the scope of those articles, and History of Canada and transferring some of the material (for example, about early exploration, oil boom, etc.) to History of Alberta. Comments?Kevlar67 00:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archives 1

I moved all threads with no reasponse this year in Archive. Before archiveing this page was 42 kb now it is small enough to not give a warning but the archive page is 30 kb so I suggest further archives be put in a second archive page. Kc4 23:11, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong Wild Rose

Unfortunately we've been linked to the wrong wild rose as Alberta's provincial flower. I checked the provincial government website and the right rose is Rosa acicularis. I created a new stub for that species. I hope we can give it some more info. Kevlar67 05:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference section needs to be cleaned up

Has anybody taken a look at the Reference section lately? It's a mess! It definitely needs to be cleaned. NorthernFire 19:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It's a fashion these days to convert from ref-note to cite.php. This particular conversion was sloppy too. Restored and left hidden comment in regard to the purpose of this old fashioned system (that being to have footnotes for that particular table, separate from general references). --Qyd 00:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
I sympathize. This is the second article in ref-convert's list of suggested articles. The same blind conversions happen with the table in ASCII. In the table here, one of the {{ref}}'s contains a cite.php note, so it can't be simply converted. Gimmetrow 19:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Welfare in Alberta

I was thinking why don't we have a section in Alberta regarding the free handouts given by the government to people who don't want to work? --Parker007 23:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

Why is there a political activist's site listed in the external links, with the official AB gov't sites? The same link is already featured in the Alberta separatism article.

[edit] Bias Statement

I believe the following statement should be removed from this article: "Alberta is well known for its warm and outgoing friendliness and frontier spirit." While this is not a negative statement, it is completely biased and therefore does not belong in a proper Wikipedia article. This is especially true as there is much evidence which contradicts the afore mentioned statement. I have removed this point and believe that any further attempts to include the statement should not be allowed.

Agreed. It certainly did not conform with NPOV policy. --Arch26 03:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Population Density

The population density figures do not add up. 3,413,500 / 661,848 km² = 5.2/km² and not 4.63/km² which is what it says for population density. Can anyone explain? Kesahun 20:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks odd alright. I would guess that the 3,413,500 figure might be for 2006 while the 4.63/km² one might be for 2001. Those dates are guesses but that sort of time mismatch would explain the discrepancy. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Statistics Canada shows Alberta's population as 3,413,500 as of their October, 2006 estimate. The 4.63 number appears to be based on the 2001 census. Alberta's population is growing quite rapidly so these numbers are changing constantly. RockyMtnGuy 19:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
The latest official census data released last week indicate a population of 3,290,350 and a density of 5.1. Seems like the 3.4 million estimate was a bit over. My own math confirms StatCan's... once water is subtracted from the land area, the density I calculated worked out to exactly 5.12. --Arch26 05:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] City Skyline Photos

For a while now, I have felt we could improve on the longstanding Calary skyline photo Image:Downtown Calgary 2.jpg.

While the photo has merit, it has a blown out sky and is getting out of date given all the building activity in recent years. I noticed that it has recently been replaced by the Downtown Association's copyrighted night shot Image:CalNight.jpg.

. This is a good photo with the exception of the pretty obvious sky exposure transitions where the component photos were stitched together. Additionally, this shot is used in the Calgary article. I have an extensive collection of Calgary skyline photos and I have posted several high res versions at the bottom the Views section of the Wikimedia Commons area for your consideration. I think these newer shots complement the iconic view of the Calgary Tower and Saddledome which is already captured in the lead Calgary article photo and we could avoid unnecessary repetition. Maybe I should just pick one but I wanted the benefit of additional input. Cszmurlo 03:35, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

We probably shouldn't use copyrighted photos where free alternatives are available. For the section in question I would like to see two very similar pictures of Edmonton and Calgary, so that the skylines can be compared (I don't know if that makes sense for anyone else, it does for me). Image:Calgary3-Szmurlo.jpg seems to be similarly composed as Image:DWEdmonton1.jpg (both day photos, river visible)--Qyd 14:02, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
This does not seem to have provoked a hornets' nest of controversy so I will go with Qyd's suggestion.Cszmurlo 18:42, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fort McMurray's population

You need to add Ft McMurray to list of towns. It has an offical population of 64,000, an unofficial population of over 80,000. This makes it Alberta's fifth largest city officially, third largest unofficially. At least note it under the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. What's going on with the population for that for 2006 - your Ft McMurray page lists a higher population that the region does? -- said Anon 130.123.128.114 @ 22:55, 13 November 2007 (UTC) without signing.

Fort McMurray is an unincorporated community. It is not a city, which is why it isn't listed. --Kmsiever 00:43, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] please put up some more detailed information regarding canadian culture and the political parties

please put up some more detailed information regarding canadian culture and the political parties —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.92.207.130 (talk) 04:52, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like something for a national article. --Kmsiever (talk)