This article was originally published on August 30, 2012, in Montreal, by The McGill Daily.

In mid-summer, almost four months after the Quebec student strike of 2012 had entered uncharted territory as the longest in the province's history, Premier Jean Charest played his final card. With CEGEP students prepared to renew strike mandates despite threats of a lost semester, and the Special Law lying in shreds under the feet of a hundred thousand illegal demonstrators, Charest called a provincial election, over a year before his term was set to expire. On September 4, Quebec residents will enter voting booths.

Is it normal that Albertans pay the much too generous social programs to which the people of Quebec are treating themselves through equalization, especially when they are being patronized regarding the environment by people that refuse to exploit their own gas and oil resources?

That would summarize Danielle Smith's view, the very libertarian leader of the Wildrose. In last April's elections, this party to the right of the right seriously threatened the Conservatives, who have been in power in Alberta for the last 41 years. Are her claims well founded?