Alberta is rich with oil, but what has it got to show for it?

[markusf]

Originally posted by Asher
I think Klein's quote on "Eastern bums and creeps" will bury his campaign in a national election, even though the comment was somewhat misunderstood by most of the nation.

And he has a tendancy to go into a homeless shelter and tell them to get jobs.

make them work to stay in the shelter, have them clean the sidewalks and stuff.

Atlantic canada is useless... but with the support of ontario he could win easy.

As for day... That was just plain stupid, peachers and politics don't match he should never have been elected.

[Asher]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Day came from his cabinet. Fortunately for the govt of Alberta (he's gone now).

Day made a good finance minister, not much more.

He's kinda a whacko when it comes to anything other than numbers.

[notyoueither]

I think the federal Liberals would love to have him at this point in time, in comparison to Jean the Mangler.

After all, his worst offences have been the aforesaid quote, the finger at the conference, and the tipsy visit to the homeless shelter.

Don't the Liberals love leaders who have displayed 'the bird' in public?

[markusf]

yes but who would be left to rule alberta? maybe you can have day back?

[Asher]

Originally posted by markusf
yes but who would be left to rule alberta? maybe you can have day back?

I wouldn't mind Al Duerr. He did a great job as Mayor of Calgary. Every election he won more and more votes, and he quit last year at the end of his term to enter the private sector.

Mayors of Calgary have an excellent track record for becoming Premier of Alberta. The last time a former Mayor became Premier was Klein...

[notyoueither]

Errrrrrmmmmm. Stop asking awkward questions!

To be honest, we've been very well served by our premiers for a very long time. We may be tempting fate.

Lougheed was not perfect, but was a very good leader. Getty was a bit of a twit, he didn't last long. Then we got Klein. He's not perfect either, but he's a hell of a leader. I do not wish to contemplate what comes next. It's such a crap shoot when one party dominates for so long.

[Tingkai]

All of the budget numbers, low taxes and economic growth are largely tied to high oil prices. When oil prices drop, the Albertan economy has traditionally gone in the tank, government finances go in the red, and people start leaving the province.

The question is: after 50 years of oil revenues, are there any signs that Alberta is no longer a boom-or-bust economy?

EDIT: private contributions to culture may also simply reflect an economy boosted by high oil prices.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Tingkai
All of the budget numbers, low taxes and economic growth are largely tied to high oil prices. When oil prices drop, the Albertan economy has traditionally gone in the tank, government finances go in the red, and people start leaving the province.

The question is: after 50 years of oil revenues, are there any signs that Alberta is no longer a boom-or-bust economy?

That wasn't your question. If it was, perhaps you should have asked it in your original post.

And no, it's no longer a boom or bust economy at anywhere near the scale it was in the 80s. There are safeguards in place to prevent that from happening again.

I encourage you to do your research and look up the purpose of the Heritage fund (it actually is a massive fund of billions of dollars that the province can dip into when energy revenue takes a nosedive -- call it the life savings).

Alberta's not stupid, Tingkai. You seem to assume that nothing's changed since the 80s, where a combination of weird international events and federal government stupidity trashed the Alberta economy. Alberta's far more cautious now. We know the Federal government is full of incompetent morons, we know that international events are impossible to predict.

And if you'd look at Alberta's provincial revenue percentages since 1980 you'll consistently see the "energy resources" part of the pie chart shrinking with each passing year. This is a direct result of a larger, more diverse economy. Ever since the early 80s, the Alberta government has been forcefully diversifying the economy to ease dependence on resource revenue. And it's working.

Alberta's economy is far, far more mature now than it was. It's diversified, it's larger, and it's got the financial reserves to ride out a prolonged "bust" period in the energy market.

EDIT: private contributions to culture may also simply reflect an economy boosted by high oil prices.

So you make a thread asking what oil revenues have to do with how Alberta is, then you make excuses for everything by saying "Only because of Oil revenue!". WTF?

[notyoueither]

Tingkai. You haven't a clue what you're talking about.

Alberta is more than oil. Is that simple enough for you? Sorry. I'll repeat with single syllables.

Bad guys have more than oil. Go play on road.

[Tingkai]

Oil revenues for Alberta work out to about $760 a person.

If the government did not have that revenue, and had to raise taxes to maintain the same level of revenue, then a two-income family would pay about the same amount of taxes in Alberta as they would in Ontario and close to what they would pay in Saskatchewan and BC.

The Alberta government looks efficient only because it has massive oil revenues. Take away the oil revenues and the Alberta governments would look no different than other provincial governments -- okay, no one could look as bad as Bill Vander Zalm, but you get my point.

[notyoueither]

The point on your head?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Oil revenues for Alberta work out to about $760 a person.

So $2,280,000,000 out of a $20,000,000,000 budget is from oil revenues. Therefore, assuming we got $0 from oil, we'd only have to raise taxes to get $2.2B more. Which is pretty damn easy to do. A simple small sales tax would do it.

Alternatively, if it was a 'bust' cycle in the economy, we could simply dip into the heritage fund and keep all taxes the same.

Look at Alberta's expenses vs. BC's expenses. Tell me that it's only lean because of oil revenue.
Hell, BC's current deficit alone is twice Alberta's oil revenue.

[Asher]

Tingkai, here's a link about the Heritage Fund: http://www.revenue.gov.ab.ca/business/ahstf/

And here is an FAQ for it: http://www.revenue.gov.ab.ca/business/ahstf/faqs.html

Note that since this fund is an investment, it grew $706.2 million alone in 2000. Without us touching it.

As a combination of Alberta paying down debt (greatly reducing debt overhead on the budget), our heritage fund keeps growing in value so if we ever do run into a large "bust" situation, we'll have less overhead costs on top of a huge pile of money that we can draw from to stabilize the provincial revenue without running a deficit.

A detailed breakdown of where the heritage fund is invested, and what it's used for, can be found here: http://www.treas.gov.ab.ca/publicati.../heritage.html

[notyoueither]

Shhhh. Mentioning the concept that a government might actually save money tends to send some other... entities into to tizzies of enraged social angst.

[Asher]

An interesting tidbit is Alberta could pay down our debt in its entirety right now and still have about $7B in cash in the heritage fund.

But since we're making more money off of the investments in the fund than we would be by saving the debt overhead, we're opting to keep the fund as it is while quickly paying off the debt with surplusses, as originally planned.