Former Albertan here. Alberta even griped about unfair treatment when their conservative party had a majority in Ottawa for almost a decade. It’s just what people have learned to say.
A national identity needs to stand for something. It can't just be defined as 'we hate Ontario and the federal libs and want to become an American gas station'.
especially when theres a matching culture in texas, and there's constant travel back and forth between the two, both for the oil-men and the cowboys