[andyt]

Good to see at least one Albertan who's got his head screwed on right and isn't making excuses.

[JaredMilne]

As for the schadenfreude that other Canadians are apparently enjoying at our expense, the thing is that there are some incredibly smug, arrogant douchebags who use our prosperity as a way to look down their noses at other Canadians and go on about how we're apparently so much smarter, so much more cool, and overall so much better than the rest of the country.

I don't have the references immediately to hand, but there was an article in the Calgary Herald a couple of years ago written by U of C political scientist and resident douchebag Barry Cooper that gloated about many of the exact same things Andy talked about in his response to the initial post. I didn't save it because I wouldn't bookmark that garbage if you paid me, but it's a perfect example. Guys like Rob Anders and Craig Chandler play into it too.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case in Canada they make the rest of us in Alberta look bad by default. Then we end up with Albertans and other Canadians insulting one another, as the Craig Chandlers and Barry Coopers make Alberta look bad and the likes of Frances Russell and the pricks who wrote the comments cited in the article.

The discussion we had on these forums last year is pretty instructive in that it shows the feelings many people on both sides of the issue feel (e.g., Thanos on one side, Gunnair on the other) and it also illustrates how the worst on both sides end up making everybody look bad. It also illustrates how touchy this issue is for a lot of people...including me.

[Jabberwalker]

Mum was from Ontario and dad from Saskatchewan and I was born, raised and educated in Quebec. I have family and roots all across the country and I will not take the regional bait (except in jest). I am proud to be Canadian, full stop.

[fifeboy]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

Mum was from Ontario and dad from Saskatchewan and I was born, raised and educated in Quebec. I have family and roots all across the country and I will not take the regional bait (except in jest). I am proud to be Canadian, full stop.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

andyt andyt:

Exactly. Ontario went thru it as well. Didn't hear much sympathy from Albertans at the time. Shoe's just on the other foot.

Rightwingers. Sheesh. When Ontario has a downturn because of the recession, globalization and our pretrodollar, well that's the fault of that damn provincial liberal government. If they were just more business friendly, Ontario would still be riding high.

Don't be daft. It wouldn't be riding high but it would be higher than it is now if Ontario didn't have some of the highest hydro rates in the civilized world. You see, despite globalization, the petrodollar and the recession, the Ontario Liberals figured the best solution would be to pile on by introducing wind farms for the sake of ideology. Ontario didn't need them. Before the Liberals Green Energy Plan, Ontario's hydro generation was over 75% GHG emission-free. As a result of the recession, globalization and the petrodollar quite a bit of Ontario's manufacturing and industrial sector bailed out causing a significant drop in Hydro demand over the years.
Simply shutting down the coal-fired plants would have still left Ontario with plenty of capacity to suit its needs now and for the near future without the added and needless expense of turbines.

As it is, Ontario is dumping over-generation of hydro on a regular basis not to mention actually paying Quebec Hydro 2.5 cents/kwh to take excess off our hands from time to time.

There's no shortage of companies in Ontario that, despite remaining in Ontario through globalization, the recession and the oil boom, bailed the hell out because of out of control hydro rates.
Entire neighbourhoods built with electric heat in the early 70s when hydro was cheap, cheap, cheap are at risk because home owners can't afford the hydro bills anymore. And it's not like electric baseboard heaters are all that efficient to begin with.

As for this:

$1:

Rightwingers. Sheesh. When Ontario has a downturn because of the recession, globalization and our pretrodollar, well that's the fault of that damn provincial liberal government.

McWynnety spent a good deal of time during the last campaign whining about how Ontario's woes are the fault of Alberta and the federal Conservatives. Ya know, despite the fact it was the Chretien govt that really opened up the oil sands to exploration and exploitation. And of course we can't forget Alberta's nefarious plan to fuck Ontario over by initiating a global oil boom.

[DrCaleb]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

Mum was from Ontario and dad from Saskatchewan and I was born, raised and educated in Quebec. I have family and roots all across the country and I will not take the regional bait (except in jest). I am proud to be Canadian, full stop.

[bootlegga]

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

wildrosegirl wildrosegirl:

Bingo. The majority of the ones that lose everything in a crash are the ones guilty of a lack of planning and piss poor money management. Live within your means (not within your finance limit at the bank) and plan for it! Everyone should know by now that history repeats itself, and economics is no different. When times are good, bloody well plan for the bad times and stay ahead of it instead of pissing it all away and then crying the blues after it's too late. That being said, the other thing that repeats itself it "shit happens" and we can't safeguard ourselves against everything, but a hell of a lot more people certainly could. Many simply can't be bothered.

You're quite right, but that also applies to Alberta as a whole. As a province, we could be doing a better job of safeguarding ourselves against the ups and downs of oil prices, and that was in fact what Peter Lougheed had in mind when he created the Heritage Savings Trust Fund back in the 1970s.

Lougheed is the best there was, the best there is, and the best there ever will be in terms of Alberta leaders.

However, his legacy has largely been pissed away, and now we're stuck in a cycle of huge spending when times are good, focusing only on the short term, and then wailing and cursing ourselves whenever times turn bad, praying for another oil boom and promising that we won't piss it away. However, when the price of oil goes back up, we then go back to spending.

The problem is that anyone who suggests either cutting our sacred cows, including subsidies to the oil and gas industry through royalty rebate programs or the subsidies to the horse racing industry as well as education and health care, or raising taxes so we aren't reliant on oil and gas for so much of our budget, is viciously attacked as a tax-and-spend socialist, hating business and success, and even being un-Albertan in some cases.

You don't have to be a socialist to think this. Here's Brent Rathgeber's take on the issue:

$1:

Which brings us to today’s lesson: if we were just a little bit more responsible in the good times, we wouldn’t face such drastic consequences in the bad times.

In Alberta, Peter Lougheed used to preach about investing Alberta’s energy windfalls into the Heritage and Savings Trust Fund, to be reserved for a rainy day and for future generations when all of the oil had been extracted.

He referred to the royalties as a windfall; more recent “conservative” governments have grown dependent on energy royalties—in some years they comprise nearly one quarter of all provincial revenue.

Equally damaging, almost irresponsible, has been the Alberta business community. With so much opportunity in the energy sector, few entrepreneurs felt the need to look elsewhere. The result is an almost tragically undiversified economy with an overreliance on one sector and the resultant inability to insulate oneself from the invariable volatility in commodity prices.

The federal treasury has been equally irresponsible. 2009-2010 yielded an actual deficit of $55.6 Billion, the largest in Canadian history. Six years after the admittedly serious recession of 2008, Canada was still adding a deficit of $5.2 Billion to our national debt.

There is a bumper sticker in Alberta that reads: “Dear God—I pray the next time there is a boom, I promise not to p**s it all away”; yet we always seem to.

But in the reality of economic and employment uncertainty lie the seeds of economic and employment opportunity. Facing my own uncertain employment future forces me to consider all options including the possibility of multiple part time employment contracts. This “diversification” reduces the risk of placing “all eggs in one basket”.

We must consider all opportunities, vet all options, diversify the Alberta economy and most importantly, develop truly conservative fiscal policies in both good and bad economic times.

What most people don't realize, likely including the people themselves who are saying these things, is that a lot of what Lougheed and Rathgeber are saying has been talked about for decades byeconomists like Harold Innis and Mel Watkins, the latter of whom has been involved with the NDP for decades. Innis and Watkins both talked about the "staples theory" and the "staples trap", or the economic issues that can come up when an economy becomes overly reliant on one particular staple.

Innis used the examples of wheat or lumber, but in Alberta's case it's oil. Keep in mind that Rathgeber, a conservative if there ever was one, is criticizing the business community for letting itself get caught up in the staples economy. It's not unlike how Tom Mulcair has been saying things that could have come out of the mouths of Lougheed or Preston Manning.

And again, we have still more evidence for my belief that there's a lot more common ground among Canadians than most of us realize...

Schadenfreude or not, the only people Albertans have to blame are themselves.

We lived on a champagne budget but only paid beer-level taxes for them. And any mention of increases in taxes brought out the charges of socialism, which made taxes increases of any sort a no go. Hell, Klein CUT taxes and fees!

How did they do that? By raiding the Heritage Trust Fund for the past 20 years, not only by not adding funds to it, but by taking out every penny of interest it generated. Good Old Saint Ralph pulled over $15 billion from it to fund his tax cuts and Alberta Advantage.

The worst part is that many Albertans let him do it by giving him huge majorities in election after election.

A strong leader - like Lougheed - would have raised taxes and made our revenue stable, but Klein and Stelmach weren't brave enough to do that.

So instead of one these options (all of which could probably provide funds to handle the $7 billion shortfall):

0:

heritage fund.jpg [ 84.32 KiB | Viewed 435 times ]

We're left with a Heritage Trust Fund valued at a measly $18 billion - a paltry $4 billion larger than when Lougheed left office. yes, it has grown $4 billion in 30 years!

Yet, do you think very many Albertans know or even care? Of course not - as long as our leaders keep taxes low and toss out gifts every once and a while like Ralph bucks, no health care premiums, and other giveaways, many blithely ignore their mismanagement and do the exact same in their own personal finances.

I'd like to think that we'll learn our less on this time (the 3rd or 4th boom we've pissed away), but if history is any guide, most Albertans won't.

As such, we're the architects of our own demise and we deserve every bit of scorn people want to heap on us.

[andyt]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

andyt andyt:

Exactly. Ontario went thru it as well. Didn't hear much sympathy from Albertans at the time. Shoe's just on the other foot.

Rightwingers. Sheesh. When Ontario has a downturn because of the recession, globalization and our pretrodollar, well that's the fault of that damn provincial liberal government. If they were just more business friendly, Ontario would still be riding high.

Don't be daft. It wouldn't be riding high but it would be higher than it is now if Ontario didn't have some of the highest hydro rates in the civilized world. You see, despite globalization, the petrodollar and the recession, the Ontario Liberals figured the best solution would be to pile on by introducing wind farms for the sake of ideology. Ontario didn't need them. Before the Liberals Green Energy Plan, Ontario's hydro generation was over 75% GHG emission-free. As a result of the recession, globalization and the petrodollar quite a bit of Ontario's manufacturing and industrial sector bailed out causing a significant drop in Hydro demand over the years.
Simply shutting down the coal-fired plants would have still left Ontario with plenty of capacity to suit its needs now and for the near future without the added and needless expense of turbines.

As it is, Ontario is dumping over-generation of hydro on a regular basis not to mention actually paying Quebec Hydro 2.5 cents/kwh to take excess off our hands from time to time.

There's no shortage of companies in Ontario that, despite remaining in Ontario through globalization, the recession and the oil boom, bailed the hell out because of out of control hydro rates.
Entire neighbourhoods built with electric heat in the early 70s when hydro was cheap, cheap, cheap are at risk because home owners can't afford the hydro bills anymore. And it's not like electric baseboard heaters are all that efficient to begin with.

Thanks for the info. Didn't know that. I've gotta say, if it's as bad as you make it out, I'm very surprised that the Libs got re-elected. That is exactly the sort of clear issue that voters can rally around and "throw the bums out." Very surprised. It would be nice to hear from Beaver on this to get his perspective.

[JaredMilne]

bootlegga bootlegga:

We're left with a Heritage Trust Fund valued at a measly $18 billion - a paltry $4 billion larger than when Lougheed left office. yes, it has grown $4 billion in 30 years!

Yet, do you think very many Albertans know or even care? Of course not - as long as our leaders keep taxes low and toss out gifts every once and a while like Ralph bucks, no health care premiums, and other giveaways, many blithely ignore their mismanagement and do the exact same in their own personal finances.

I'd like to think that we'll learn our less on this time (the 3rd or 4th boom we've pissed away), but if history is any guide, most Albertans won't.

As such, we're the architects of our own demise and we deserve every bit of scorn people want to heap on us.

We can be criticized for that, sure. But there's a difference between that and the schadenfreude that people like the commenters in the original article want to heap on us.

See, the malaise in the oilpatch doesn't just affect Albertans. Sure, it affects us the most-but it also affects other Canadians too, namely those Canadians from other parts of the country who come here for work. They make very good money, and they often send a lot of it back to their families in their home provinces. That's millions of dollars flowing into the economies of those other provinces every year, millions that are going to take a nosedive because of all the layoffs in the oilpatch. And that doesn't even touch on equalization-no, our oil revenues do not go into equalization, but the taxes we pay, generated by the jobs that are created, do.

So that's a lot of money that goes into the coffers of other provinces, and a lot of money going into the pockets of other Canadians when people who come out here to work send that money back home.

We can be criticized for the way we've let ourselves become too dependent on one resource, and the way we've managed the revenues that actually come from it. Thoughtful Albertans have been saying many of the same things for years. However, insulting us just on principle and taking pleasure in our difficulties is just as douchey as when Albertans laugh at the problems Ontario or Quebec might be facing.

[Unsound]

I'd like to hear from our non-Albertan posters if this is something they hear in real life, or if it's mostly just internet comment boards? Cause the comments section is generally the home of the douchiest of the douchey and shouldn't be taken as indicative of reality.

[Jabberwalker]

Unsound Unsound:

I'd like to hear from our non-Albertan posters if this is something they hear in real life, or if it's mostly just internet comment boards? Cause the comments section is generally the home of the douchiest of the douchey and shouldn't be taken as indicative of reality.

I've made a few comments on this thread (I live in Southern Ontario) and here is post of mine repeated from page 1:


Oil's swoon sparks Alberta schadenfreude in rest of Canada

Really? I don't hear it around me at all ... not a peep.

I did have a conversation on Sunday afternoon with a cousin about another cousin ( rig worker) who was just laid off. there is some concern about how long this is going to go on ... but "anti Alberta"?

The only thought along those lines that comes to mind is that there are an inordinate number of populist arseholes in the boondocks there who generate their political power and capital by saying divisive things. I just don't consider them to be very Canadian, all-in-all.

[andyt]

Glad to hear things are going well for you. Guess you'll be gloating over your fellow Albertans as well now.

[Unsound]

So, in case anyone was wondering, that's what trolling looks like.

[JaredMilne]

BCSUKS BCSUKS:

LOL oh my what pleasure I had reading your pathetic posts today.

An update on how my year has gone so far.


My wife returned to work after the New Years break to find a 15% raise and a promotion attached to her desk..plus a 750$ a month car allowance yes she does work for an energy related company in Calgary. They do well in hard times as one of their best years ever was 2009. Last week while sitting under the AZ sun and 25C I made 5 grand flipping their company stock as it went up 15% in less than two weeks Going to be a banner fucking year in our household...!
One of my leases came due for a renewal in AZ ..raised the rent and signed a two year deal with the current renters.
Myself (my company), we are busy with all the farmers who have cash to burn on all those projects they need to get done before spring planting. Overtime for everyone!

BTW did you notice the unemployment rate went up in BC last month and down in Alberta?

How"s the 10 am to 4 pm shift at TH going? Glad to see you didn't get laid off with the G3 BK take over.

See, you're exactly the kind of person who makes the rest of us here in Alberta look bad, and give ammunition to the people who insult us.

Enjoy your negative reputation point, jackass.

[Zipperfish]

JJ?