CBBarnett
Senior Member
This is a good comment is so often missing from the dialogue. Of course oil and gas is important economically - but it's not particularly useful or relevant to consider when planning what actions to take in policy, cities or local economic resilience.I don't think the question about whether fossil fuels is a good idea is actually relevant from a local Calgary perspective.
Great point - the myth-building about oil in this province is a key reason we have so many politically-driven, absolutely terrible economic decisions in this province with public money. $1.5B for a guaranteed-to-be-cancelled Keystone pipeline, tons of money for party friends to have war rooms and witch hunts are the recent examples in the past 2 years. That's just picking on the latest few billion of populist-based of waste, our history is littered with many more billions all burned on the alter of the Alberta's oil myth.The recent UCP inquiry-slash-farce into Anti-Alberta activities takes the stance that Alberta and oil are one and the same; in fact 93% of our workers work in another industry besides the extractive ones. The myth of Alberta as a conservative petrostate is deeply repellent to a lot of people, and we can't afford to turn away and drive away that talent. An Alberta that dug up every drop of oil the same, but never went around peacocking like it was some great accomplishment rather than a necessary evil would be substantially more diverse and economically sustainable.
Oil is a commodity -- people use the oil they can get cheapest. But people are unique; they have values and make decisions based on those values. And we need to be on the right side of those decisions in the coming decades.
Could $1.5B public dollars go to achieve a different outcome, something that could have achieved better multiples and is something public money is better at achieving?
- start of regional rail - Banff-Calgary-Edmonton? Generate new trips, more interactions, economic spinoffs all at a lower carbon footprint.
- University/education research development in any number of fields?
This is the great challenge for us. Calgary, Edmonton and Alberta have been there before oil and will still be there long after, transition is inevitable. It's up to us if we want that transition to be healthy and successful or lean into the charlatans selling an untrue victim story.I've said it before, but when I think of industry cities after the industry goes away (like it will here), I think of Pittsburgh after steel and I think of Detroit after auto manufacturing. Pittsburgh used industry money to build educational institutions and medical centres and is thriving again as a high technology centre; Detroit spent the time getting angry about foreigners and has declined to a husk.
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