[Fozzie_DeBear]

Alberta has been investing huge amounts in trying to diversify the economy and 'add value' to the natural resources here. Have they been successful? Not as much as they could be...

I like to think of the Alberta economy as a three ring bull's eye. At the centre of the economy are natural resources (conventional/unconventional oil/gas; Agriculture; Forestry), surrounding the centre is the 'ring' of companies that provide manufacturing and knowledge to the firms in the natural resource sector. Often, these companies are extremely knowledge based and use IT, advanced materials etc. and require highly educated people...however the success of these companies are linked to the success of the companies developing the natural resources.

The outer ring are companies that exist largely because of the highly skilled people that exist in the middle ring. An Alberta company that does medical software for example, may exist here because there are enough IT people arising from the needs of the oil and gas sector (middle ring). However these companies don't directly depend on the middle two rings. These companies could, for all intents and purposes, exist anywhere in world.

The main point is that A : Alberta (and Canada) are driven by natural resources and B : These natural resources can provide economic feedstock for a high tech sector. The problem is the natural resources can suck a lot of the oxygen from the room until the 'outer-ring' of the economy (that is not linked to the natural resource sector) grows to a significant size.