The top Canadian 2016 census numbers were released last week and now we know the score.
Alberta has a population of four million. Calgary is the fourth largest city in Canada behind Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. By the numbers, the province's rural heartland is shrinking.
What the census can't tell us is how the four million people think, what they value and how they will vote in the next provincial general election.
There is no question that another term of the Notley NDP regime will alter Alberta's public landscape so that there may be no turning back to the conservative values of hard work, the freedom to chose a personal future, non-partisan education and compassion to take personal responsibility for the less fortunate.
The question is, will the next generation of Albertans care one way or another? Will they welcome the changes that Notley's "socialism-lite" brings?
Do they believe the delusion that a carbon tax will save the environment?
Do they think higher taxes are the next way of life?
Or are they still receptive to the conservative revolution that Brian Jean, Jason Kenney, Chris Warkentin, Rona Ambrose and Prem Singh are offering?
Those five Alberta conservatives are coalescing around the Alberta Can't Wait movement to launch a revival of conservative brand and government in the province.
Three hundred or so gathered in downtown Calgary last week at an Alberta Can't Wait rally that included something like 50 of the under-30s, the youthful Albertans.
These young women and men are members of the cohort of young Albertans in which the political battle for hearts and minds matters most.
The rally was the same night that four Progressive Conservative constituency meetings elected enough Jason Kenney delegates to make his election as the next party leader at the March 18 convention certain - unless party mandarins derail him, which will irreparably harm the party.
As it now stands, Kenney and Jean and the grassroots conservatives who support them will have to come to terms.
As Alberta Can't Wait's Prem Singh says as often as she has an audience, "Alberta is more important than any politician or political party."
It was clear at the rally in Calgary that Alberta's federal conservative MPs will be working for a single Alberta conservative party.
They will be led by Chris Warkentin who spent part of his summer in a motorhome touring Alberta to recruit for Alberta Can't Wait. Rona Ambrose, the interim federal Conservative leader is freer to be in Alberta speaking for unity because she is not a candidate for the leadership of her party.
Alberta Can't Wait is the go-between that Wildrose and Progressive Conservative supporters of a single party need and welcome in the coming months while Jean and Kenney dicker over how to do what the majority of conservatives want:
A single answer to the NDP future.
- Frank Dabbs is a veteran political and business journalist, author of four books and editor of several more.
