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Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee
^ good post but I wish at the last paragraph along the lines of hard work and resilient yadda yadda yadda he added incredibly lucky that we were bestowed with a highly valuable natural resource that's economic benefits should not be squandered.
Let's face it, Albertans are more lucky than hard working. Not to say people here are not hard working, but it's mostly luck. Slam away, but one of the worst qualities of Albertans is all the back patting we do, when, especially at times like this- we really have squandered most of our good fortune.
But the gist of that article is bang on, the PC's screwed this up for so many years. Not much of what's going on really should be attributed to the NDP government. I was talking to some folks today at the office (I work at a producer), ever single one of us agreed that at the end of the day, it's price that is driving this downturn. Not royalties, not regulations, not any of the other "uncertainty" stuff... price. Let's not forget how badly the PC's and their corrupt, moronic, selfish, arrogant ways really drove us into this situation.
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No insult intended, but its not like the Oil just bubbled out of the ground for part time troglodytes to scoop up with a shovel. The sheer will and determination and cost and effort that's gone into exploiting this resource does indicate that this province works very hard for its money. Every province has a resource that it can exploit for profit, some do and some don't. You can point to Quebec as a province that doesn't and they're constantly sitting there getting hand outs.
And yes, you're partially right, the Oil prices do have a major effect on the economy. But the Provincial Governments antics have pretty much destroyed this provinces energy sectors confidence in terms of continual investment. Their bizarre interim budget combined with things like the minimum wage increase have pretty much put the breaks on small business, the upcoming carbon tax is going to hurt everyone in the province at the worst possible time.
Notley's arrogance and the governments continual delays of things like the legislative session, the budget when the NDP were running federally, and the royalty review all have a fairly significant hand in this provinces economic tumble.
You can't keep pointing to one factor our of many and say, its that guys fault. Every speech, every word and every decision by this government resonates, and even more so now that confidence is so low.