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Originally Posted by GGG
Or Obama built more pipelines then any other president ever. He effectively did nothing to regulate fracking and concrete in wells. He supports the some of the dirtiest oil in the world in California.
And yet there was one pipeline which actually would have reduced both risk of environmental damage and the emissions from shipping oil which he for some reason denied.
So while what you say about Alberta failing to diversify is true Obama was no friend to Canadian economic interests and was very protectionist.
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Ok, well environmental concerns are a completely different issue. However, Obama has managed to systematically dismantle the coal industry, effectively offsetting any speculative environmental damage you proposed.
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Originally Posted by nik-
Seriously.
Alberta should have flipped that "Diversify Economy" switch. I mean it was sitting right there, why didn't they do it!?
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Quick witted responses aside, this is not a new issue for Alberta. It has been going on since Trudeau and his energy policy that effectively crippled the Alberta economy because of too much focus on the oil industry. Fast forward 30 years and it's the exact same situation, but possibly on a grander scale due to the Oil Sands development. It's not unfair to put some blame on the leadership in the province for not facilitating or encouraging enough diversification in the economy. There have been a few new industries that have flourished since the times of Trudeau, but they aren't big enough to offset the losses of the oil industry.
I get it, there was so much money to be made in oil that it made sense to keep plowing ahead in that field. However, the government had countless years of surpluses to work with and they could have invested that in either creating some government subsidized programs/companies, or at least invested more in infrastructure to reduce costs of start ups/business across the board. That's how a mixed economy works in order to reduce the severity of economic boom/bust cycles.
The point is, this problem of low oil pricing was going to happen at some point, and it doesn't hinge on whether or not Obama approved a pipeline which was a pretty bad idea long term to fix a short term problem. I'm sympathetic to the suffering economy, but it should be a wakeup call to start creating more work in fields that are not directly or indirectly tied to oil.