Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Bumface
I don't see how pipelines, if built, are anything but kicking the can down the road.
Alberta was actually diversifying decently at the tail end of the 90s and all of it got undone by the escalation of costs caused by another oil boom.
It seems lazy and unimaginative to think the solution to our economic problems is just to find a way to make another oil boom happen.
Alberta is producing 40% of Canada's GHG emissions and we are seeing the economics of renewables become more and more attractive.
We know oil is not going to be the long term solution. What if all the pipeline effort and money had been put toward sound steps toward diversification? Where would we be today?
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But what does that actually mean? I’m not disagreeing with you, because it makes sense and I think most people would say we need to be less reliant on this industry. But what I find head is the government role in that. I don’t want them choosing which companies to give money to. I also wonder about you “just diversify” the economy. It’s really complicated and a lot of the heavy lifting is done in the market and not by the government and political will.
I think that most of the discussion at its base is more about a diversification of government income. We rely on energy royalties and taxation and the government needs other income. To me, that’s not so much a question of diversifying the economy, but diversifying the tax-base. That’s easier, because it basically means a consumption tax, but of course that’s also political suicide at this stage (still!).