Who would have thought Alberta, of all places, would end up suffering from Dutch Disease?

Surely it was just weeks ago we Albertans, always ornery and lightning quick to take offence, were excoriating the likes of federal Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair and then-Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty for daring to suggest such a thing might even be possible.

Dutch Disease, as alert readers will recall, is the term coined by the snarky upper-class wits at the U.K.'s Economist magazine back in 1977 to describe what happens when rising revenues from natural resources pump a country's currency to the point its suddenly overpriced manufacturing and export sectors take a beating, with predictably depressing results for jobs and profits.