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While there are obviously genuine environmental concerns, Calgary's decline seems to me a combination of two major forces. First and foremost is economic opposi

by jlos 5y ago

While there are obviously genuine environmental concerns, Calgary's decline seems to me a combination of two major forces. First and foremost is economic opposition from the US, who went from the largest consumer of Canadian oil to its largest competitor in the past 10 years. Second, political polarities in Canada that tend to favor concentrating political and economic power along the cities of the St Lawrence instead of Alberta. It would probably be too much to say that the Eastern provinces want Alberta to do poorly, but given the Liberals an d the NDP simply hold no seats in Alberta, there is no incentive to defend its provincial interests (in comparison to say a Quebec company like Bombardier). However at the moment maybe it's for the better, you don't need to be in the 1% of income earners to buy a house in Calgary.

x1ph0z 5y ago
That’s flat out wrong. The liberals won a seat last election, and they had won seats there back in 2015 as well.
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Canada's fault for not investing in a domestic refinery to generate and sell higher margin petroleum products.
- soperj 5y ago
  We have a bunch, the one in Saint John is one of the bigger refineries in the world (325000 barrels per day), not top 10 or anything. Of course it's all refined crude from Saudi.
- notenoughbeans 5y ago
  The issue is that Canada is a large country with diverse priorities that are not shared equally among the populace. Many Canadians are strongly against any sort of investment in fossil fuels of any kind.
  - BingoAhoy 5y ago
    To expand upon my parents take, according to Peter Zeihan's opinion piece which shows an interesting glimpse into Alberta and its conflicts with other anti-oil vested interests https://zeihan.com/albertas-tryst-with-destiny/ https://zeihan.com/albertas-tryst-with-destiny/: Alberta oil has constantly been blocked, stalled, and given added friction from leaving Alberta by neighboring territories. Keystone xl pipeline just got axed by Biden and the transmountain pipeline was stalled for years by British Columbia. Makes me wonder how much of Calgary's downstream economic woes is an attributable result of these upstream anti-oil plays.
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      Interesting. Another natural resource based region fails to be much more than a temporary natural resource based economy. It appears that making lasting change from this sort of thing takes more than just effort. It takes some sort of directed policy making.
    - hluska 5y ago
      It’s convenient to look at Alberta’s woes as a function of upstream anti-oil plays, but there’s significantly more going on here. For example, spend some time reading about Ralph Klein’s austerity budgets in the 1990s. Klein didn’t have to cut nearly as much as he did. Interest rates were incredibly low, Alberta was shielded from the recession and Klein was perfectly placed to know how much investment was starting to flow into the oil sands. Klein had options - serious options that could have changed the economies in Alberta and Saskatchewan forever. Instead, he decimated the public service, killed education, then realized he went too far and tried to double spending over too short of a time. The damage was done and Alberta lost its best and brightest policy people. British Columbia was completely fucked at the time and their premier had a good working relationship with Klein. That was the time for pipelines, not the time for austerity. Ed Stellmach had little hope after Klein. Klein’s drunk driving was a massive scandal and that didn’t help, but by the time Klein was gone, Alberta’s public service was in the toilet. Provinces have a lot of power under Canada’s constitution but they need a strong public service to capitalize upon that.
- fatbird 5y ago
  Even discounting what others said about significant opposition to further investment in fossil fuels: Alberta oil is in tar sands, which is expensive to refine and is not economically viable to extract unless the price of oil is over $70-80/barrel, which is historically not steady enough to justify massive capital investment in refining capacity. Basically, when the price of oil is over $75/barrel, tar sands extraction spins up, pulling in high priced labour from all over; when it drops below that, there's a lot of layoffs and work stoppage. This is why Alberta is caught in a perpetual boom/bust cycle. And politically, it's really hard to diversify to stabilize and break this cycle, when everyone is screaming for supporting the oil industry. Unqualified support for tar sands exploitation is a litmus test for any Alberta politician.
- xmcqdpt2 5y ago
  Not sure what you are talking about. Canada has a bunch of refineries, including in Alberta. Here is a list, https://www.oilsandsmagazine.com/projects/canadian-refineries#canadian-refineries https://www.oilsandsmagazine.com/projects/canadian-refinerie...
hluska 5y ago
There are a couple of problems with this reply. The biggest problem is that you missed some important facts - both the NDP and Liberal parties have seats in Alberta. However, you also dipped a toe into populist arguments. I don’t know your background but Canadians all know about the Liberal/NDP breakthrough in Alberta, so I don’t believe that you’re Canadian. So, next obvious question is why are you talking politics if you don’t even know the most extreme basics?? For example, that silly little thing you said about how Canada tends to favour (you spelled it favor) concentrating political and economic power along the cities of the St. Lawrence is genuinely laughable. Yes, Rebel News says that. But no, it’s really not true. For one, provinces have an unbelievable amount of control. When provinces blame the federal government, it’s to deflect off their own governments’ profound failures. But second, I’m a Western Canadian, always have been and likely always will be. If you’re going to talk about the west like you know it, at least have enough respect to tell the truth. We had a western Prime Minister. Guess what he did?? He fucked the West with the worst economic recovery plan in the entire G8 after the 2008 economic crash. And in 2011, he introduced Bill C-20, which gave Alberta and BC six more seats each, Ontario FIFTEEN more seats and Québec got two. That’s not only a westerner, but that’s THE WESTERNER that Kenney, Moe et all still go to for walking orders. We can’t suddenly claim western alienation because the price of oil dropped especially when a westerner wrote policy that increased it. Perhaps, they have more seats because they have significantly more people? I honestly don’t think you’re Canadian. If you are, please allocate at least 120 hours to studying the basics of citizenship.
- pixelgeek 5y ago
  Without proportional representation this is always going to be an issue. No party in this country can win an election without winning in Ontario and so that is where the focus of the elections are. Until that system changes then it doesn't matter who is in power or where they came from. Ontario has too much concentrated population.
  - hluska 5y ago
    Hahaha - funny coincidence but I used to be really passionate about ProRep, to the point I even annoyed political science majors. I’ve noticed Canadian democracy has an interesting trait and at this point, I don’t know whether it’s a bug or a feature. Our political parties are in favour of ProRep when they’re in opposition, but the second they’re in power, ProRep is one of those really bad swears they just can’t repeat. This is utterly baffling…
throw0101a 5y ago
> Second, political polarities in Canada that tend to favor concentrating political and economic power along the cities of the St Lawrence instead of Alberta. While the proverbial / meme border between the US and Canada is the 49th parallel, in fact 72% of Canada's population lives below that line. The West (Prairies, BC) and North make up 28% of the population. 50% of the population live in Montreal (N46°) or south of it. If each citizen's vote is counted equally, is it surprising that most of the Members of Parliament represent most of the population?
908B64B197 5y ago
> there is no incentive to defend its provincial interests (in comparison to say a Quebec company like Bombardier). It's interesting you are bringing up the aerospace sector (so mostly Bombardier) because of the CSeries saga. Trudeau immediately bowed down to Trump when tariffs were imposed on these planes, despite later being thrown out in courts. All he did was to basically threaten to not buy Boeing fighter jets and instead get f35 from Lockheed (which he was contractually obligated to anyways). No support for the industry, nothing. And that was for a flagship prestige technological project. I still don't understand why he reacted so submissively to Trump. Having the CSeries sold to Airbus at a huge discount was foolish: The plane already had a profitable amount of orders. Now Europeans are reaping the benefits.

by jlos 5y ago

x1ph0z 5y ago

That’s flat out wrong. The liberals won a seat last election, and they had won seats there back in 2015 as well.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

Canada's fault for not investing in a domestic refinery to generate and sell higher margin petroleum products.

soperj 5y ago
We have a bunch, the one in Saint John is one of the bigger refineries in the world (325000 barrels per day), not top 10 or anything. Of course it's all refined crude from Saudi.
notenoughbeans 5y ago
The issue is that Canada is a large country with diverse priorities that are not shared equally among the populace. Many Canadians are strongly against any sort of investment in fossil fuels of any kind.
- BingoAhoy 5y ago
  To expand upon my parents take, according to Peter Zeihan's opinion piece which shows an interesting glimpse into Alberta and its conflicts with other anti-oil vested interests https://zeihan.com/albertas-tryst-with-destiny/ https://zeihan.com/albertas-tryst-with-destiny/: Alberta oil has constantly been blocked, stalled, and given added friction from leaving Alberta by neighboring territories. Keystone xl pipeline just got axed by Biden and the transmountain pipeline was stalled for years by British Columbia. Makes me wonder how much of Calgary's downstream economic woes is an attributable result of these upstream anti-oil plays.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    Interesting. Another natural resource based region fails to be much more than a temporary natural resource based economy. It appears that making lasting change from this sort of thing takes more than just effort. It takes some sort of directed policy making.
  - hluska 5y ago
    It’s convenient to look at Alberta’s woes as a function of upstream anti-oil plays, but there’s significantly more going on here. For example, spend some time reading about Ralph Klein’s austerity budgets in the 1990s. Klein didn’t have to cut nearly as much as he did. Interest rates were incredibly low, Alberta was shielded from the recession and Klein was perfectly placed to know how much investment was starting to flow into the oil sands. Klein had options - serious options that could have changed the economies in Alberta and Saskatchewan forever. Instead, he decimated the public service, killed education, then realized he went too far and tried to double spending over too short of a time. The damage was done and Alberta lost its best and brightest policy people. British Columbia was completely fucked at the time and their premier had a good working relationship with Klein. That was the time for pipelines, not the time for austerity. Ed Stellmach had little hope after Klein. Klein’s drunk driving was a massive scandal and that didn’t help, but by the time Klein was gone, Alberta’s public service was in the toilet. Provinces have a lot of power under Canada’s constitution but they need a strong public service to capitalize upon that.
fatbird 5y ago
Even discounting what others said about significant opposition to further investment in fossil fuels: Alberta oil is in tar sands, which is expensive to refine and is not economically viable to extract unless the price of oil is over $70-80/barrel, which is historically not steady enough to justify massive capital investment in refining capacity. Basically, when the price of oil is over $75/barrel, tar sands extraction spins up, pulling in high priced labour from all over; when it drops below that, there's a lot of layoffs and work stoppage. This is why Alberta is caught in a perpetual boom/bust cycle. And politically, it's really hard to diversify to stabilize and break this cycle, when everyone is screaming for supporting the oil industry. Unqualified support for tar sands exploitation is a litmus test for any Alberta politician.
xmcqdpt2 5y ago
Not sure what you are talking about. Canada has a bunch of refineries, including in Alberta. Here is a list, https://www.oilsandsmagazine.com/projects/canadian-refineries#canadian-refineries https://www.oilsandsmagazine.com/projects/canadian-refinerie...

hluska 5y ago

There are a couple of problems with this reply. The biggest problem is that you missed some important facts - both the NDP and Liberal parties have seats in Alberta. However, you also dipped a toe into populist arguments. I don’t know your background but Canadians all know about the Liberal/NDP breakthrough in Alberta, so I don’t believe that you’re Canadian. So, next obvious question is why are you talking politics if you don’t even know the most extreme basics?? For example, that silly little thing you said about how Canada tends to favour (you spelled it favor) concentrating political and economic power along the cities of the St. Lawrence is genuinely laughable. Yes, Rebel News says that. But no, it’s really not true. For one, provinces have an unbelievable amount of control. When provinces blame the federal government, it’s to deflect off their own governments’ profound failures. But second, I’m a Western Canadian, always have been and likely always will be. If you’re going to talk about the west like you know it, at least have enough respect to tell the truth. We had a western Prime Minister. Guess what he did?? He fucked the West with the worst economic recovery plan in the entire G8 after the 2008 economic crash. And in 2011, he introduced Bill C-20, which gave Alberta and BC six more seats each, Ontario FIFTEEN more seats and Québec got two. That’s not only a westerner, but that’s THE WESTERNER that Kenney, Moe et all still go to for walking orders. We can’t suddenly claim western alienation because the price of oil dropped especially when a westerner wrote policy that increased it. Perhaps, they have more seats because they have significantly more people? I honestly don’t think you’re Canadian. If you are, please allocate at least 120 hours to studying the basics of citizenship.

pixelgeek 5y ago
Without proportional representation this is always going to be an issue. No party in this country can win an election without winning in Ontario and so that is where the focus of the elections are. Until that system changes then it doesn't matter who is in power or where they came from. Ontario has too much concentrated population.
- hluska 5y ago
  Hahaha - funny coincidence but I used to be really passionate about ProRep, to the point I even annoyed political science majors. I’ve noticed Canadian democracy has an interesting trait and at this point, I don’t know whether it’s a bug or a feature. Our political parties are in favour of ProRep when they’re in opposition, but the second they’re in power, ProRep is one of those really bad swears they just can’t repeat. This is utterly baffling…

throw0101a 5y ago

> Second, political polarities in Canada that tend to favor concentrating political and economic power along the cities of the St Lawrence instead of Alberta. While the proverbial / meme border between the US and Canada is the 49th parallel, in fact 72% of Canada's population lives below that line. The West (Prairies, BC) and North make up 28% of the population. 50% of the population live in Montreal (N46°) or south of it. If each citizen's vote is counted equally, is it surprising that most of the Members of Parliament represent most of the population?

908B64B197 5y ago

> there is no incentive to defend its provincial interests (in comparison to say a Quebec company like Bombardier). It's interesting you are bringing up the aerospace sector (so mostly Bombardier) because of the CSeries saga. Trudeau immediately bowed down to Trump when tariffs were imposed on these planes, despite later being thrown out in courts. All he did was to basically threaten to not buy Boeing fighter jets and instead get f35 from Lockheed (which he was contractually obligated to anyways). No support for the industry, nothing. And that was for a flagship prestige technological project. I still don't understand why he reacted so submissively to Trump. Having the CSeries sold to Airbus at a huge discount was foolish: The plane already had a profitable amount of orders. Now Europeans are reaping the benefits.