Hacker News Reader

Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

The Albertans are going to be being in a panic over this. Oil sands product already sells at a considerable discount to west texas intermediate. Time to diversify the economy...

Even before recent drops things were looking rather dire there.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/alberta-sheds-1800...

View on HN

Too bad ndp got voted out. Too bad Klein didnt maintain the heritage fund...

Realistically time to diversify was at least 10 years ago

Agreed. If the Klein government had put a serious amount of effort into not being reliant upon one resource around... 2004 or so, this could have been alleviated. Now they're run by Jason Kenney, who is almost as far-right of a politician as it's possible to find anywhere in the confederation.

what are you talking about? we all got rich from all that Klein Money in 2008. still reverberating in the economy as we collectively decided not to buy booze and steak and instead invested them all /s

The most adorable part is I remember the era of, "A Tim Horton's employee in Alberta gets paid HOW MUCH ?!" And now I'm living through the super butt hurt whining about an Alberta Brexit because they're not getting enough of a break by the federal government.

maybe if it wasn't all spent on jacked-up F-350 pickup trucks, overly expensive large houses, snowmobiles and toys...

Beat me to it. I recall CBC articles about all of the abandoned trucks at the Edmonton and Calgary airports as oil workers decided to split.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-internation...

When I stated something very similar to a friend from Alberta, he said very confidently that the province has a very well diversified economy. I can hardly believe that, but he's a highly intelligent individual and I didn't have the numbers to argue otherwise, so I let it stand without a further challenge. Since you seem to agree with my point of view on this, would you mind elaborating on how you would show that diversification was needed decades ago?

For reference: Alberta's economy by industry: https://economicdashboard.alberta.ca/GrossDomesticProduct#ty...

Based on rgbrenner's link oil and gas make up a little over a quarter of Alberta's GDP

Can't they just pump up house prices and the FIRE economy even more?

I live in Edmonton and it's a buyers market. This ain't Vancouver

I’m sure Kenney will sort it out. More budget cuts for Alberta!

At least we have a well funded health care system in the midst of COVID-19, with both doctors and nurses drawn to Alberta by the budget cuts and contract renegotiation by the provincial government.

Is this a joke? Kenney is doing everything he can to cut healthcare. He cited a NHS study -- that's British healthcare -- of hospital use cots as a justification for cutting support of things like hernia surgeries or women getting their tubes tied.[1]

I supremely doubt more doctors and nurses are coming to Alberta because of budget cuts as well. Were that the case the US State of Oklahoma or Kansas would have the best doctors in the US.

[1] https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/ahs-review-recomme...

It reads like a joke, yes.

The time to diversify was the 70s, when the wealth first started coming in and before conventional oil dried up. The boom and bust thing happened all through the 80s. My dad was a machinist and spent much of the 80s and 90s unemployed, every time the price of oil dropped again.

Albertans seem to have a short memory, though. What is happening now is nothing new, but there's so much ridiculous finger pointing, as if somehow it's the rest of Canada's fault.

I'm glad I left the province 20 years ago. I miss aspects of Edmonton, and family, but the political atmosphere in the province is extremely frustrating.

USDCAD is not looking too healthy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com