It's that age-old debate about the relative importance of oil and gas in our local economy. Obviously, oil and gas is a highly lucrative industry with outsized GDP and profitability when market conditions are good. But total employment in oil and gas hasn't really changed all that much in 15 years in Alberta, despite another million Albertans living here. Much of the employment spike of previous boom periods were more noticeable due to tens of billions in construction programs all happening simultaneously, in a small area, within a province with a small population. As we are well aware, it's not like downtown Calgary has many more office workers compared to 2010 despite a larger economy and a couple hundred thousand more residents.
As we've become a larger and more complex economy with a larger and more diverse population, concentrations in specific sectors will inevitably dilute the impact of similar booms that - there's just so much more other stuff going on in a 5 million person province than a 3 million person province. Doesn't mean tariffs won't be brutal of course....
Looking ahead, probably illustrative to see the larger provinces of Quebec and Ontario, and Toronto and Montreal as big cities without those places - they have huge industrial concentrations, but as a percentage of employment and economic activity everything is muted, nothing really dominates in GDP or in employment. They've both had multiple booms and busts, cities keep on trucking and growing. Again, it's size that helps stabilize things - bigger place are naturally less dependent on individual industries due to the more diverse and at-scale needs of other sectors, even non-booming ones.
