[balletomane]

I often wonder what Alberta would be like without its oil booms, and Canada as well. Maybe some "have not" provinces like those in Atlantic Canada and Manitoba/Saskatchewan would be larger as they would've lost less people due to interprovincial migration, that is assuming Canada still had 36 million people today.
Alberta had smaller oil booms like the Turner Valley, but it was in 1947 when Leduc No. 1 was drilled that really changed things. Up until then the three prairie provinces were like "three peas in a pod" and their population growth and size were more or less the same. From 1941-1946, Alberta grew from 796,000 to 803,000, but from 1946-1951 the province grew from 803,000 to 940,000, far outpacing the two other prairie provinces.
I think an Alberta without the oil booms would see Winnipeg as the premier city in the prairies with about 800,000 residents. Edmonton and Calgary would follow with about 400,000 to 450,000 residents. I actually think Edmonton would be the larger city in the province without oil but not by much, following the Depression the city surpassed Calgary and perhaps bring home to the provincial government it would have stayed number one. Cities like Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie would be little more than northern settlements and the five largest cities in the province would be Edmonton (450,000), Calgary (400,000), Lethbridge (40,000), Medicine Hat (30,000) and Red Deer (20,000). The province itself would be about the same size as Manitoba, so Saskatchewan would still be the least populous of the prairie provinces.