I can't really say if Alberta has bad BBQ, since I've never been there, but I would be super disappointed if it did. I think it's just Vancouver having bad taste.
I dunno about BBQ, but Alberta sure as hell has cowboy culture. The Calgary Stampede is the biggest rodeo in Canada, and I see more people wearing cowboy hats in Alberta than any other province. (Manitoba is more about wearing a Baseball cap while driving a tractor). Alberta also likes to call itself the Texas of the north, and is right-wing central. (Manitoba and Saskatchewan, on the other hand, are the birthplace of the left-wing NDP, and socialized medicine in Canada, for all that they still listen to country music and consider themselves cowboys).
That said, I don't remember prarie canada having any particular food specialization. During the summer there are cook-outs, where people bring their small hand-operated BBQs, but like...they make standard hamburgers and hotdogs. This is in small-town Manitoba, granted.
On the subject of our two nutters, yes the wannabe Texan has a much more realistic goal and view of the world, but he's also symptomatic of a problem in Japan, which as a culture sometimes puts America on a pedestal as a perfect country. Most Americans have aspects of America they dislike, parts of America they want to change, groups of Americans they consider awful and stupid, even if they consider America to be a great country. Most Europeans laugh at America as being slightly backwards in their eyes. And then there's Japan, who sometimes puts America on a pedistal as a pinnacle of awesome. "Americans play baseball? We should play baseball too, so that we will be more awesome like America!"
