River City Writer

Alberta Liberal Party leader Kevin Taft has announced that he’ll be putting forward a private members bill this month to have rodeo declared Alberta’s official sport. While I have nothing against rodeo, and a part of me even enjoys certain events, I don’t like this idea, for a couple of reasons.

Rodeo & the Perception of Alberta as Hick Country

Despite the fact that Alberta is an urbanized province as much as any other (nearly 2/3 of the province’s population lives in the Edmonton and Calgary metro regions, let alone the province’s other major cities), we continue to be thought of as a province of rural rednecks by the rest of the country. Adopting rodeo as the official sport of the province will only help to reinforce this belief.

As I said, I have nothing against rodeo, nor do I have anything against rural people. I do, however, take issue with the rest of Canada viewing this province as some kind of inbred, backwater province that’s only worth keeping around because we’ve got all of this oil. Do we really need to give them more reasons to feel this way?

Rodeo is not a Sport

The other issue I have with Taft’s proposal is that rodeo is not a sport. Rodeo is a series of sporting events. Chuck wagon racing is a sport. Bull riding and bronco busting are sports. Rodeo is not a sport.

Calling rodeo a sport is like calling the Olympics a sport. Yes, it’s an exhibition of sporting prowess in a variety of areas, but it is not, in and of itself, a sport.

Of course, some sources will disagree with me on this point. Even Wikipedia says that “Rodeo is a sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia.[1]” And I understand that by declaring all of rodeo (rather than a particular event) as the official sport, the province would be highlighting Alberta’s rural heritage in a broad way.

Still, it seems to me that declaring rodeo as Alberta’s official sport is like saying that our provincial sport is track & field. While you may want to call it a sport, it’s closer to being an event that exhibits a number of different-but-related sports.

Ultimately, adopting rodeo as the province’s official sport will likely result in nothing other than another photo op for Kevin Taft—a photo op that won’t gain the Liberals any of the rural support that Taft is likely expecting to win as a result of this move—and another punchline for the rest of Canada to use against Albertans.

Congratulations Kevin Taft, you’ve successfully managed to continue to illusion that Alberta is a rural province; a province where urban centres are just places for the “liberal elite” (i.e.: you); and a province that’s still stuck in the 19th century. Maybe you’re not so different from Stelmach’s Tories after all.