There was a period, in the old Progressive Conservative dynasty days, when there wasn’t much daylight between a chamber of commerce crowd in Alberta and the party convention crowd. Maybe a number more windbreaker-clad ranchers at the latter, but both audiences would come to root for the same thing: a thriving, economy-boosting petroleum sector.

In 2025, they’re two strikingly different audiences — the Calgary business luncheon that stood up and cheered twice for Prime Minister Mark Carney when he discussed his pro-pipeline memorandum of understanding with Alberta one day, and the United Conservative gathering that booed Alberta Premier Smith on the same topic the next day.

The friction is the raucous sound of two trends colliding.

The UCP premier has never been so pro-Ottawa, and her pa

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