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>the entire province has been doing the equivalent of margin trading, to make ends meet, for the past two decades. Tiny swings in price either bring a big windf

>the entire province has been doing the equivalent of margin trading, to make ends meet, for the past two decades. Tiny swings in price either bring a big windfall, or utter ruin. >It's not a great way to run your economy. Sure, but what other way do they have to run their economy? Without monumental government effort to keep prices stable grain (and grain derived products) isn't much better.

vkou 7y ago
Alberta used to be a cattle province[1][2], before the petro-firms trampled all over farmer rights, and imported a million people to work the tar sands/support the people who worked the tar sands. Just because you've destroyed the ring, you can't really go back to the Shire, but Alberta's choices in the 21st century are either a return to agriculture, and mass emigration, or a transition to exporting professional services. [1] Ironically, while the price of oil plummets, the spot price for beef is up 20% since the start of this crisis... Although, the price of beef futures is dropping a bit. [2] Edit: I'm aware that agriculture employs a small number of people (1.5-2% of the population, but so does oil extraction - only 0.3% of the population directly works in the tar sands - everyone else supports them.) Like any other industry, it has a large supporting industry of suppliers, truckers, etc. It's not nearly as lucrative as oil, but it's a living.
- eloff 7y ago
  Agriculture employs about 1.5% of the population of Canada according to the world bank. It's heavily automated and while crucial, it will never be able to employ a large fraction of the population. You can't wind the clock back to the 1900s without undoing all the gains made in the last century. Alberta needs to look to Norway and Dubai for how you diversify away from oil in earnest.
  - LeoTinnitus 7y ago
    While it's not realistic, I guarantee that if you initiated the homestead act again in the US, people would do it. Free land and basically full autonomy? I'm 100% certain there is a sizeable chunk of those types in the US and Canada that would make that trade. The reason the homestead act died was cause businesses lobbied the government to get rid of it so as not to give lower income types a choice. They had to work in their factories to survive.
    - eloff 7y ago
      Most of the land you could do that with is agriculturally unproductive. Which is why it's federal land to begin with. Some of it is natural parks, and I don't want to see that turned to agriculture. I really don't think it's that simple at all.
  - kwhitefoot 7y ago
    I don't know about Dubai but here in Norway we really are not making as much effort to diversify from oil as we should. A lot of companies are still heavily, in many cases totally, dependent on the oil business. Norway does have one advantage over some other producer countries though in that a lot of the oil business here is on the service side and has customers all over the world so it is less dependent on Norway's own oil producers. Of course this comes with its own risks, oil demand, currency fluctuations, embargoes, etc. Another difference is that Norway was already a sophisticated mixed economy before the oil came along and the state had the foresight to keep the bulk of the oil revenue out of the internal economy so that while it contributed, and still contributes, a substantial fraction of GDP it has relatively little effect on inflation in the country. On the subject of agriculture, that is also quite different from Canada. Norway has relatively little arable land, most of the country is granite upland so farms tend to be small, at least in comparison to prairie what producers, very often family run. We can't grow much wheat because the climate is not congenial so most of the local corn production is rye and barley. The state supports farmers here partly to maintain a degree of self sufficiency in food but also to prevent depopulation of the inner and northern areas; farmers and their families create a demand for schools, mechanics, doctors, dentists, shops, etc. I doubt that any of that will translate into Canadian conditions. And the current right wing government has been reducing the degree of self sufficiency in recent years.
SuoDuanDao 7y ago
Bit of a dead horse here, but they could have done a sovereign wealth fund, Norway-style. Would have helped with the secession plans too, back when those were being taken seriously. Armchair quarterbacking I know, but the trouble seems to be that when Alberta has any money at all, oil is the most profitable thing to invest in so that's where the money goes. Investing in uncorrelated assets would level out some of those crazy swings. Then again, most Albertans I worked with kind of liked the crazy swings. As I'm a bluenoser that was during a boom time of course, so I've no idea how they feel about it during the lows.

vkou 7y ago

Alberta used to be a cattle province[1][2], before the petro-firms trampled all over farmer rights, and imported a million people to work the tar sands/support the people who worked the tar sands. Just because you've destroyed the ring, you can't really go back to the Shire, but Alberta's choices in the 21st century are either a return to agriculture, and mass emigration, or a transition to exporting professional services. [1] Ironically, while the price of oil plummets, the spot price for beef is up 20% since the start of this crisis... Although, the price of beef futures is dropping a bit. [2] Edit: I'm aware that agriculture employs a small number of people (1.5-2% of the population, but so does oil extraction - only 0.3% of the population directly works in the tar sands - everyone else supports them.) Like any other industry, it has a large supporting industry of suppliers, truckers, etc. It's not nearly as lucrative as oil, but it's a living.

eloff 7y ago
Agriculture employs about 1.5% of the population of Canada according to the world bank. It's heavily automated and while crucial, it will never be able to employ a large fraction of the population. You can't wind the clock back to the 1900s without undoing all the gains made in the last century. Alberta needs to look to Norway and Dubai for how you diversify away from oil in earnest.
- LeoTinnitus 7y ago
  While it's not realistic, I guarantee that if you initiated the homestead act again in the US, people would do it. Free land and basically full autonomy? I'm 100% certain there is a sizeable chunk of those types in the US and Canada that would make that trade. The reason the homestead act died was cause businesses lobbied the government to get rid of it so as not to give lower income types a choice. They had to work in their factories to survive.
  - eloff 7y ago
    Most of the land you could do that with is agriculturally unproductive. Which is why it's federal land to begin with. Some of it is natural parks, and I don't want to see that turned to agriculture. I really don't think it's that simple at all.
- kwhitefoot 7y ago
  I don't know about Dubai but here in Norway we really are not making as much effort to diversify from oil as we should. A lot of companies are still heavily, in many cases totally, dependent on the oil business. Norway does have one advantage over some other producer countries though in that a lot of the oil business here is on the service side and has customers all over the world so it is less dependent on Norway's own oil producers. Of course this comes with its own risks, oil demand, currency fluctuations, embargoes, etc. Another difference is that Norway was already a sophisticated mixed economy before the oil came along and the state had the foresight to keep the bulk of the oil revenue out of the internal economy so that while it contributed, and still contributes, a substantial fraction of GDP it has relatively little effect on inflation in the country. On the subject of agriculture, that is also quite different from Canada. Norway has relatively little arable land, most of the country is granite upland so farms tend to be small, at least in comparison to prairie what producers, very often family run. We can't grow much wheat because the climate is not congenial so most of the local corn production is rye and barley. The state supports farmers here partly to maintain a degree of self sufficiency in food but also to prevent depopulation of the inner and northern areas; farmers and their families create a demand for schools, mechanics, doctors, dentists, shops, etc. I doubt that any of that will translate into Canadian conditions. And the current right wing government has been reducing the degree of self sufficiency in recent years.

SuoDuanDao 7y ago

Bit of a dead horse here, but they could have done a sovereign wealth fund, Norway-style. Would have helped with the secession plans too, back when those were being taken seriously. Armchair quarterbacking I know, but the trouble seems to be that when Alberta has any money at all, oil is the most profitable thing to invest in so that's where the money goes. Investing in uncorrelated assets would level out some of those crazy swings. Then again, most Albertans I worked with kind of liked the crazy swings. As I'm a bluenoser that was during a boom time of course, so I've no idea how they feel about it during the lows.