Nobody ever promised immediate relief. However, there is no reason separation wouldn't have a positive impact on the middle class in Alberta.
Whether the west likes it or not, it is in a constant negotiation with the RoC for all of the things that it would also need to negotiate under a new framework. Confederation is just a framework, nothing more. The ability to see that there might be other frameworks that function better for the West/Alberta is just thinking without constraints. The bias towards the status quo is simply fear - which is understandable. But it also needs to be recognized as a bias. Some of the people posting in this thread t the moment (whose posts I can't see...looking at your ZenCrazy and Toma), think its appropriate to uproot an entire energy infrastructure because there are better ways to do it. And yet, people clutch their pearls when it is suggested that an arbitrary government structure designed generations ago, and then updated by an idiot in the 1980s is somehow the wisest. A status quo bias is a dangerous thing. I also see it is intellectual laziness and/or a lack of intellectual ability. If you CAN do something better, you SHOULD do something better. And we can do a hell of a lot better at governing the landmass that is currently called Canada.