[BingoAhoy]

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/: 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.

[hluska]

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.

[Naga]

There's also the entire equalization debate which Alberta is so fond of throwing in the rest of Canada's face.

For those non-Canadians, Canada has an "equalization" program which is essentially an attempt to "smooth out" tax income across the country, so the "have" provinces fund the "have not" provinces so Canadians across the country can have a similar standard of living and similar services.

Alberta, being the richest province, ends up paying way more equalization to the poorest provinces, mostly Quebec and the Maritimes. This is one of the significant factors of "western alienation", in that Albertans are continuously furious that their funds go to pay for Quebec's generous social systems. In fact, the Alberta government is holding a referendum next week on this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Alberta_referendum).

Of course, bringing reality into the situation makes things look a little different, which is something that doesn't happen in the Canadian national discourse. Equalization is complicated, but there is no cheque written from Alberta to Quebec. Instead, the federal government pays Quebec its share of it from its own funds, mostly from federal income and sales taxes. The calculation of it is based on potential tax revenue. Alberta, being a province full of high income earners, has a very high potential tax revenue, so it is a "have" province and doesn't receive equalization. The idea is that provinces that can't raise their own revenue comparable to the other provinces get a break.

The issue is that Alberta has been chronically under taxing for years. It has no sales tax, it has the lowest by far income tax rates of the entire country. The system is designed for provinces to be responsible and raise their own revenue, and then get federal subsidies if that is not enough, but Alberta refuses to play that game. The Alberta government has been able to direct this rage to the federal government and Quebec though when the people really should be looking to their own provincial government instead.

This was really contentious following the oil busy in the mid 2010s. Alberta as a province was hurting, as a significant portion of its revenue came from oil royalties. However, since it refuses to raise taxes, it did not receive equalization payments despite being by all measures except the official ones a "have not" province.

A lot of Albertans are angry about pipelines and not being able to properly export their oil, as other posters have mentioned. Developing more infrastructure probably would be a good thing, especially when oil was cheap. Unfortunately, Canadian political discourse is not serious and its not possible to talk about serious, complex issues nationally.

[908B64B197]

> Equalization is complicated, but there is no cheque written from Alberta to Quebec. Instead, the federal government pays Quebec its share of it from its own funds, mostly from federal income and sales taxes. The calculation of it is based on potential tax revenue.

Tell me if I'm wrong but someone from Quebec told me that equalization always has to be profitable for Quebec. Else, nationalists will bring up that they are footing the bill for the whole country and want out.

> The Alberta government has been able to direct this rage to the federal government and Quebec though when the people really should be looking to their own provincial government instead.

The same guy told me you could win elections really easily by bashing Quebec (which sounds absurd, here you'll get no reaction bashing NY for gubernatorial race) and that Newfoundland apparently almost went bankrupt twice with such governments (they were doing hydro I think?).

[hluska]

Hey pal, honestly, I loved reading this reply. If you’re ever in the market for a Canadian friend who likes political discourse, my email is in my profile. Otherwise, if you happen to blog, let me know - it’s remarkably rare to find such clearheaded political discourse in Canada. This is an incredibly cool moment and seriously, thank you.

Your last sentence is one of my favourite things I’ve read about Canadians. It reminds me a little of something Pierre Berton would have written. I love Canada, dig Canadiana and find our people’s history absolutely fascinating. But as a culture, we’ve never been capable of having a complex debate as a nation without going back to the same debates we had pre-Confederation. As far as we’ve come, it wouldn’t be wrong to talk about the Northwest versus Upper Canada. That’s bloody weird…

Have a perfect Friday friend!

[renewiltord]

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.