I figure it's time to circle the wagons, folks. Time too, to resurrect those 80s Alberta bumper stickers, "Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark."

But not before the 74% majority of right-minded Albertans tar, feather and deport those Eastern transplants back to where they came from. Because it's obvious they're not real, dyed-in-the-denim, native Albertans, so they've got to be dorky city-slickers who migrated from Ontari-ari-o, eh?

Christ, and I'll lay odds they're bloody card-carrying Liberals to boot!

If I had a looney for every time I've climbed atop this rickety old soapbox to hollar "The carpetbaggers are comin', the carpetbaggers are comin'," I'd be rich enough to buy a full partnership in King Ralphie's fancy-schmancy, west coast fishing lodge.

Alas, folks, today's front page news in The Globe and Mail now proves that those Eastern carpetbaggers are already here. Not only that, but 61% of their Centre-of-the-Universe relatives also figure Alberta's oil and gas riches should be divvied up with the rest of the country - meaning, of course, Canada's Porshe capital, On-goddamn-tario.

According to The Globe, the survey's findings are a warning to any federal party that it would face a national-unity powder keg should it wade into the issue, particularly during the coming election campaign.

The poll, conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV by The Strategic Counsel, found that 26 per cent of Albertans believe that their province's oil bonus should be shared to help those harmed by rising energy costs, compared with 61 per cent of the rest of Canada.

"If anyone wants to seriously engage in this issue, we're going to have a big conflict," said Allan Gregg, the company's chairman. "A very big conflict."

Allan Gregg

Gregg said trying to somehow siphon off Alberta oil revenue would rekindle memories of the national energy program, which is blamed to this day for the Liberals' difficulties in winning seats in the province.

"Albertans' memories are very, very long," he said.

Gregg also has a strong message for Prime Minister Paul Martin, who is mulling a plan to help insulate Canadians against high home heating costs this winter:

Given the results of the survey, says Gregg , such a program must be financed by general federal government revenues and not as part of a raid on Alberta's treasury.

Now far be it from me to try to divert attention away from soaring gas prices, or Karla, or our imminent war with Denmark over that frozen flyspeck, Hans Island, or the ongoing saga of Liberal Party corruption, however...answer me this:

How come Ontario and Quebec aren't sharing their electricity, mining and forest products wealth with the rest of the country?

From 1905 to the mid-70s Alberta sure as hell could have benefited from that kind of good-old, unselfish, Central Canadian philanthropy.

And throughout all the past and recent lean years, so could thousands of western farm and ranch families, who lost everything because Eastern banks pulled the plug on them.

Arguably, Alberta's energy wealth stems from an accident of geography and geology. Nonetheless, by law it belongs to Alberta, just as all that gold, silver, copper, nickle, aluminum, uranium, water and forest wealth belongs to Ontario and Quebec.

It might be wise for Canadians to think hard on the following facts, provided by Dr. Roger Gibbins, president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation:

However, prior to all that, writes Murdoch Davis, editor of Canada's history magazine, The Beaver, Alberta could barely dream of the kind of publicly funded facilities — what is today "infrastructure," from extensive paved highways to concert halls and more — that the East took for granted.

In this light, it's easier to understand Alberta's hostility over Pierre Trudeau's National Energy Program in 1980.

Only three decades into being able to exploit its own resources as the East had done for 150 years, and along comes Ottawa, wresting it away again.

The result was a loss to Alberta of $50 billion, conservatively (some say double), thousands of jobs — and a deeper grudge.

But today one reads and hears Ontario-based opinion leaders saying that Alberta's wealth is an accident of geography or geology, so somehow undeserved.

They seem never to consider that for more than a century Ontario built its prosperity on comparable good fortune: cheap hydroelectricity, proximity to populous markets in the United States, the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River, bountiful forests, extensive mineral resources and more.

Alberta is proud of its rural and frontier heritage, but tires of perceptions back East that the lucky hayseeds found oil while shooting gophers.

Meanwhile, King Ralphie has dismissed the poll results, reminding Canadians instead that the situation is no different now than it was in the last boom back in 1980.

"The rest of Canada was saying the same thing then: 'Give me, give me, give me.' Then the price of oil went down and the rest of Canada was wringing their hands in glee saying, 'You deserved it.' "

He emphasized that no one came to Alberta's aid once the oil boom collapsed as a result of the infamous national energy program, and many Alberta companies and workers were left bankrupt.

"They asked us to share in the good times, but they didn't offer to share during the very, very bad times."