CanPol: Let's Get Ready to Ruuuumble!

[Voltaire]

Originally posted by Asher I would be living in sunny California again if it wasn't for this oil.

Calgary weather isn't so bad, though I still say we install giant fans on the other side of the Rockies and thus create a perpetual Chinook to keep the winter away from Calgary. How does that sound as a use for all that oil money?

[RedFred]

Future looks sunny for Alberta. My bet is that the price of oil will continue to rise over the forseeable future. Not go down.

People in first world countries are too wedded to their cars. Even if prices doubled or tripled, most people won't make lifestyle choices to reduce car travel or get rid of their car altogether.

And the demand in developing countries for oil will become more insatiable. Every time a massive country like India or China raises the standard of living of a small portion of its population from bikes to cars, tens or hundreds of millions of people more need oil.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Dear Alberta: When you stumble into a lot of money, it's not fair to keep it for yourself. You can't possibly use all of it. Do the right thing and share.

If the numbers quoted in this thread are accurate, which considering oil I have no reason to doubt, it means Alberta will/is undergoing a revolutionary explosion of wealth...

Sure, reap some benefits yourself, but karma, if you don't believe in anything else, will come back to bite you in the ass if you hog all your gains.

What are you doing complaining about your province government paying out to other provinces anyway? The high paying jobs should be benefit to your economy enough.

re last point, we don't complain about equalisation, by and large. We fully understand that it is a good idea for there to be quality health and education in every province, and not just the rich ones. Tempers do flare from time to time though, when reality is distorted.

re your major point, some Albertans are becoming aware of the problems that are ahead due to the inflated price of oil and our sitting on the equivalent of a good chunk of the ME in that resource. We are aware that this is going to be a very big problem for our country in the near future if not addressed.

The real problem is that the disparity cannot be addressed as we have conventionally redistributed wealth in this country.

Since wealth has started being shared (the 50's) it has been based on income taxes. Everyone pays the same rates (except people in far North with sky-high cost of living who get breaks). Provinces with rich economies get a little bit back from the fed to fund education, health and welfare. Less affluent provinces get a greater per person grant from Ottawa to enable them to deliver services near or at the levels of the affluent provinces. The rich pay x and get back y. The poor pay x and get back multiples of y (by region).

The system is going to break due to the nature of royalties and the disconnect with the conventional equalisation formula.

Having Alberta sitting on $30 or $40 billion a year in royalties (and Saskatchewan on $5 or $10) that is untouched and untouchable by the federal system introduces the break.

Ontario's leadership (the ones floating the trial balloon) understandably want to confront the prospect that their province will pay ~$25 billion a year more into Confederation than they receive while Alberta would stay at $9 Billion (~$12 billion if we got not dime one back from the fed) and laughed all the way to the bank with the oil royalties.

If I were living in Ontario, I'd want my leaders to be addressing this prospect, so I don't blame McGuinty.

Still, I live in Alberta, and I understand that today's $70 oil is tomorrow's $10, and you can't plan your finances on insane prices for petroleum unless you want to end up broke.

Also, as an Albertan I am alive to, and automatically defensive against the prospect of a federal government that comes raiding provincial jurisdictions and transient wealth.

Still, if the price of oil stays up, Albertans are gonna have to do something other than say leave us alone!

Have I confused you yet?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by embalmer42

Make that three.

I may be misreading the smilie, but I have to say I am rather surprised by the line up that is forming.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Make that 4

Except when I head to Alberta it'll be to help grab it back...

I've got a spare bed if you ever decide to see what life is like out here. Once you breath free, you never go back.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Asher
Why not give it away to developing nations like Afghanistan instead of Ontario?

We're big on this sharing thing, but for some reason people are picky about who it's shared with.

The problem is that Ontario is giving it away, and they are facing a prospect of having 3 or 4 times our population, funding three times our level of Confederation, and us winking at them with our Arab blue eyes.

[Asher]

I'm sure news like this compounds the frustration in Ontario.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050907/DOC07/TPHealth/

Another top doctor has been poached from the Hospital for Sick Children, the third this summer to pull up stakes for a hospital connected to the University of Alberta.

Orthopedic surgeon Douglas Hedden is slated to become chief of pediatric surgery at Stollery Children's Hospital.

Dr. Hedden, who has already closed his Toronto office, is following the trail blazed by two pediatric cardiologists, colleagues of his, who left for Stollery in July.

The UofC and UofA are also doing similar poaching of top professors in select fields, snapping up talent from instutitions like the University of Waterloo with piles of money.

The UofC just got a few very prestigious researchers/professors from Waterloo in the field of cryptography.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Asher
I'm sure news like this compounds the frustration in Ontario.

Nah, Ontario has many highly qualified doctors and leading experts in their field. It's good to see Alberta now has three such doctors. The Toronto folks will show you Calgarians how to do things properly.

[Asher]

It'll get worse, the brain drain will be to Alberta. Where the money is good and the boys are hot.

[notyoueither]

Yeah, tbh, I'd be frustrated by that. Not only are we paying into the country more than anybody else (save Albertans as measued by per capita) but we have to get poached by the US AND Alberta. /Torontonian

I wouldn't like it very much if the flow were going the other way. Imagine that equlaisation were based on resource revenue, and income tax base were irrelevant. You'd be screaming bloody blue murder, Asher. So would I.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Tingkai


Nah, Ontario has many highly qualified doctors and leading experts in their field. It's good to see Alberta now has three such doctors. The Toronto folks will show you Calgarians how to do things properly.

Puleeze!

The UofA is in Edmonton.

:Edited stupid comment.

[Asher]

I saw it before the edit, and you removed it because you knew it was a damn dirty lie.

[notyoueither]

Yes. I believe that is it.

[Asher]

Oooooooooooo, dividends!

Albertans to get share of energy revenues: Klein

Canadian Press

COLD LAKE, Alta. — Albertans will be getting a dividend cheque, and possibly a tax break, as their share of billions of dollars in energy royalties filling the province's treasury, says Alberta Premier Ralph Klein.

Klein emerged from a caucus retreat Monday and said Albertans deserve a part of the province's resource wealth when the money is available.

"When Alberta is doing well, then Albertans deserve to share in that prosperity,'' the premier said after the closed-door caucus meeting.

Klein said this will help people facing higher gasoline and heating costs which have resulted from soaring energy prices.

Finance Minister Shirley McClellan said the general consensus on how to handle Alberta's surplus, projected to be up to $7 billion if energy prices stay high, is to spend it, save it and give it away.

She said Albertans can also expect to see plenty of one-time spending on things like new schools, roads and wish list projects that were left unfunded while the province paid off its remain debt to become Canada's only debt-free province earlier this year.

"Where the need is, we will be meeting it. And the goods news is we can,'' McClellan said in an interview.

The minister said no decisions have been made on how much Albertans will get or how the size of the cheque will be calculated. But she said it will likely be a formula that can be used to issue cheques whenever it's affordable.

"What we're really talking about is something that can be sustained in the future,'' she said. "As we have all seen, there's a fair amount of volatility in oil and gas prices.''

Klein said due to the uncertainty of future resource revenues, his government is not willing to promise an annual dividend cheque similar to what the residents of Alaska receive.

McClellan says the remainder of the surplus will go into various savings accounts that will benefit future generations.

"Investing in the future through endowments and savings,'' she said. "Whether it be through existing funds like the Heritage Savings trust fund or the Sustainability Fund or other methods of returning it to Albertans.''

[Wezil]

How long will we have to wait for the Feds to give their excess back?