Did you know Alberta once went bankrupt

[TheNewTeddy]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/10/18/provinces-debt-europe.html

I certainly didn't. All 4 western provinces went bankrupt and were saved by the feds.

I wonder how any "western alienationists" feel about that?

[Guest]

I'm very grateful. I'll give them some taxes. Oh, wait, I already do.

[Guest]

Seriously though, it's one hell of a job of conjecture. I can think of no reason why Alberta's population should age more rapidly than any other province. A lot of people who retire in Alberta move away. To BC or the Maritimes. Much of Alberta's workforce is from out of province anyway, and will move "back home" when they retire.

Alberta has very little debt as it stands and as oil and gas dwindle and the price goes up, and the US and China buy anything we can pull out of the ground via those shiny new pipelines that should be dug anytime soon, we should be able to squirrel away a few bucks for a rainy day.

[TheNewTeddy]

Alberta and Ontario need to renegotiate confederation with the rest of "Canada"

[Guest]

Uh oh...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fuel/9619269/British-engineers-produce-amazing-petrol-from-air-technology.html

[Rockwoodrick]

Alberta's wealth knows no bounds. If Alberta were a country, its citizens would have the highest per-capita output of greenhouse gasses on the planet. How nice.

Check out the stats from the feds.

http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/[email protected]?iid=64

Take a deep breath and spend your money while you can folks. Yeehaw!

[Wild Bill]

http://www.cbc.ca/ne...ebt-europe.html

I certainly didn't. All 4 western provinces went bankrupt and were saved by the feds.

I wonder how any "western alienationists" feel about that?

Interesting, but shouldn't we first find out WHY they went bankrupt?

It was the Depression and all four western provinces went bankrupt. Why did they go bankrupt and not Ontario and the east?

Was the Confederation deal a level playing field at that time, or had the West simply squandered their opportunities?

Did they have the freedom to sell their grain and products anywhere they wanted? Were they allowed to buy their refined products at the same price as anyone else?

Were there any unfair shipping rates at that time?

Seems to me the fact that the West went bankrupt and the East did not bears some examination, rather than simply saying they should feel indebted to the rest of Canada.

Not saying you're totally wrong. It just seems to me to be rather a shallow premise.

[Guest]

Alberta's wealth knows no bounds. If Alberta were a country, its citizens would have the highest per-capita output of greenhouse gasses on the planet. How nice.

Check out the stats from the feds.

http://www4.hrsdc.gc...-eng.jsp?iid=64

Take a deep breath and spend your money while you can folks. Yeehaw!

Most of that would be venting methane. If you don't use oil and gas for anything, feel free to continue bitching.

[MiddleClassCentrist]

Alberta oil is particularly dirty oil in the energy required to extract it.

I honestly feel guilty every time I drive into work... won't lie. But that 25 minute commute saves me 100,000 on the cost of housing, not including interest on the mortgage

[Guest]

All the easy stuff is gone, or going fast. Even if you imported cleaner oil, it has to be transported, which increases the pollution and risk.

Open cast mining of bitumen, fracturing for hard to reach oil and gas, all are going to be very common in the future.

The fact is, there isn't an energy producing district on the planet with regs stricter than those the industry in Alberta face. The greenhouse gas emissions are immaterial, as there is no will to reduce them from other sources. You could shut down the energy sector in Alberta completely, and it would have no effect on AGW.

[MiddleClassCentrist]

That isn't true. If you decrease supply, it becomes more expensive and alternatives are developed. We are treating fossil fuels as a renewable resource. Pump as much as we can and sell it. If we factored the true cost of these fuels to the people who own the land and fossil fuel prices skyrocketed, we'd see real renewable energies take off.

I drive a small car and family car. Fuel efficiency is a major part of my purchase decisions.

I cringe at all of the people using SUVs... They are underutilized most of the time but, burn extra fuel all of the time.

Edited October 20, 2012 by MiddleClassCentrist

[Wild Bill]

That isn't true. If you decrease supply, it becomes more expensive and alternatives are developed. We are treating fossil fuels as a renewable resource. Pump as much as we can and sell it. If we factored the true cost of these fuels to the people who own the land and fossil fuel prices skyrocketed, we'd see real renewable energies take off.

I drive a small car and family car. Fuel efficiency is a major part of my purchase decisions.

I cringe at all of the people using SUVs... They are underutilized most of the time but, burn extra fuel all of the time.

I agree that as fossil fuels become more expensive renewables will become more attractive in price. However, the present situation is a great comfort, at least to me!

The factor that most advocates of getting away from fossil fuels forget is TIME!

Some even push for artificial surcharges on fossil fuels, in order to bring about the switch to alternatives even faster. I can't think of anything not only more futile but even cruel!

Every time fossil fuels jump in price people suffer! Society just cannot accept change at so fast a rate. People have a fixed cost of living that most can barely stay ahead. To dramatically increase their cost of heating, light and cooking faster than any increase in their income and they can suffer, big time!

Change must come at a rate people can handle. Here in Ontario the price of electricity has nearly tripled just during the term of one inept premier. Have you an elderly aunt or grandmother living on a fixed income? Ask her how she's coping sometime. Did her Old Age Pension triple? Or increase at all, let alone enough to cover the increase with her utilities?

A politician would be a fool to ignore such factors. Otherwise the peasants will light torches and storm his castle!

We are gradually moving towards electric cars. They are still too pricey for most buyers but the number of Prius' and such on the roads goes up every year. Solar cells are slowly becoming affordable. The price for the average home for a solar installation is still nearly $30,000 but give it a decade or two and it will become more affordable.

Getting out of this mess in a weekend would be simply stupid. We took perhaps a century to get into it. It would be much more practical to take a decade or even two to get out of it.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Wild Bill

[Guest]

That isn't true. If you decrease supply, it becomes more expensive and alternatives are developed. We are treating fossil fuels as a renewable resource. Pump as much as we can and sell it. If we factored the true cost of these fuels to the people who own the land and fossil fuel prices skyrocketed, we'd see real renewable energies take off.

I drive a small car and family car. Fuel efficiency is a major part of my purchase decisions.

I cringe at all of the people using SUVs... They are underutilized most of the time but, burn extra fuel all of the time.

Which bit of my post isn't true? It seems to me you are making arguments against points I didn't make.

[TwoDucks]

http://m.io9.com/5953227/engineers-create-gasoline-from-air-and-water-yes-really

So 5L over 3 months isn't very impressive, and even if it is scalable, the amount of energy required could be prohibitive. That said, it pretty neatly provides a solution to the problem of needing more oil for gasoline and the issue of CO2 emissions. It also could give Alberta's finances a bit of a black eye. Thoughts?

[kimmy]

http://www.cbc.ca/ne...ebt-europe.html

I certainly didn't. All 4 western provinces went bankrupt and were saved by the feds.

I wonder how any "western alienationists" feel about that?

Considering the federal government played a hand in Alberta's financial troubles in the first place, probably not super-grateful.

The Cole's Notes version is that when Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces in 1905, they didn't at that time have control over their resources. The federal government retained that control, and gave them a grant in lieu of royalties. Since royalties, at the time, were of negligible value in those two provinces, it was a pretty sweet deal.

In 1930, the Natural Resources Acts gave Alberta and Saskatchewan (as well as Manitoba and BC) the same resource rights that the older provinces had, and revoked the grant. The end of the grant, combined with the Great Depression and severe drought conditions affecting the farming industry that was the chief industry in the province, all contributed to the problem. The main factor, of course, was probably the provincial government of the day, operating under Bible Bill Aberhart and his Social Credit theories.

As for whether Alberta was "saved" by the feds, I'm not clear on that point. As far as I can tell, Alberta proceeded to default on a bunch of loans, mortgages, and government bonds, and continued to do so for several years. I'm not aware of any bail-out.

-k

[Fletch 27]

Peter Laugheed can be thanked for saving Alberta along with his conservative principles.. The guy is the hero of the east and thankfully a Mentor to Steve Harper..

We could always try having Thomas Mulcair in that seat... you know, the guy who had to re-finance his mortgage 11 (!!!) times?????

[segnosaur]

Interesting, but shouldn't we first find out WHY they went bankrupt?

It was the Depression and all four western provinces went bankrupt. Why did they go bankrupt and not Ontario and the east?

Not sure if this is the reason, but in addition to the depression, some of the western provinces also had to deal with the "Dust Bowl", a perioiud of time in the 1930s featuring dust storms and massive soil erosion, tipped off by a multi-year drought. This problem hit the prarie provinces harder than eastern Canada.

[TheNewTeddy]

The point is the east was there to help.

[Wild Bill]

The point is the east was there to help.

Not quite, Ted!

The point is, the west was kept in unfair deals that prevented them from being anything but a source of cheap wheat and such for the East, with usurious shipping rates and legal barriers to selling into America, which of course is far closer! The West simply did NOT have the freedom to develop in ways that were good for the West. Instead, they were forced into ways that were good for the East!

So you are right that the East was there to help. They didn't have much choice. They didn't want their golden goose to die!

You should read some history books on the subject, or at least do some googlilng about western alienation. You always imply that the West are simply ungrateful and selfish, not willing to pay their share within Canada.

That view is incredibly naive and not supported by the facts. Hence the frustration and resentment of the West towards the East, particularly Toronto. You can't blame them and until the East opens its eyes we will never see western alienation disappear.

[wyly]

Not quite, Ted!

The point is, the west was kept in unfair deals that prevented them from being anything but a source of cheap wheat and such for the East, with usurious shipping rates and legal barriers to selling into America, which of course is far closer! The West simply did NOT have the freedom to develop in ways that were good for the West. Instead, they were forced into ways that were good for the East!

So you are right that the East was there to help. They didn't have much choice. They didn't want their golden goose to die!

You should read some history books on the subject, or at least do some googlilng about western alienation. You always imply that the West are simply ungrateful and selfish, not willing to pay their share within Canada.

That view is incredibly naive and not supported by the facts. Hence the frustration and resentment of the West towards the East, particularly Toronto. You can't blame them and until the East opens its eyes we will never see western alienation disappear.

all true but that was then and things have changed... dwelling on past grievances that no longer exist doesn't serve any purpose...

[TheNewTeddy]

First off William you are wrong.

Secondly, are you saying if Quebec went bankrupt that Alberta would be willing to pay?

[Bonam]

all true but that was then and things have changed... dwelling on past grievances that no longer exist doesn't serve any purpose...

Tell that to proponents of affirmative action.

[Wild Bill]

First off William you are wrong.

Secondly, are you saying if Quebec went bankrupt that Alberta would be willing to pay?

Ted, thank you for your indepth rebuttal. Now I can clearly see exactly where I was wrong all these years.

BTW, was it you at my door last Saturday pushing "WatchTower" magazines?

[Pliny]

Tell that to proponents of affirmative action.

Tell that to proponents of affirmative action.

....or native Americans, or women or gays, et al who dwell upon the past..

[bleeding heart]

...or free marketers decrying the regulatory oppression of Big Government on the richest entities.....