It is a measure of the extent of Oz-like fantasy in which many Albertans live their "magic" lives that the twin  realities that the tar sands are a sunset industry and that this uneconomically high-cost feedstock is not going to get  a free pass on any carbon pricing schemes would create a firestorm of unrealistic blather.  Something  in the air (hydrocarbons?) has been giving Albertans hallucinations for quite a while now; the hangover is going to be brutal.