Talk:Industry in Alberta

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[edit] Anon Essay

I am putting below the lengthy but POV and unsourced contribution an anon user left on the main page. Feel free to pick through it for usefull material. Kevlar67 01:41, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dubai of the North

Due to the incredible amount of new oilsands production coming online currently and in the coming decade, Alberta is seeing a massive boom in everything from housing prices, to personal incomes and personal spending, numbers of new corporate head offices moving from Toronto to Calgary, government spending, budget surpluses, like last year's 7.4 billion dollar surplus, and increasing jealousy of many other provincial finance ministers who demand more "equalization" in the form of more money from Alberta to Ottawa to make equalization payments. In the last 5 years the provincial government has simultaneously raised spending by just over 40 percent, invested some 1 billion dollars into the Alberta Heritage Fund, seen it's projected budget surplus go from 2005's 1.5 billion dollars (7.4 billion dollars actual) to 4.1 billion dollars, has become debt-free, cut taxes for corporations (to 10%), reduced healthcare premiums, frozen secondary education tuition for the last two years, and is currently conservatively estimating oil and natural gas prices in its current budget estimate, with oil being budgeted at 56 dollars a barrel. Oil currently is holding steady in the mid-60s per barrel, with predictions that global tensions and the summer driving season demand leading to even higher (and record) prices this summer, further ballooning an already massive budget surplus.

Alberta currently has a 3.1% unemployment rate, and would be growing faster if the planeloads of workers arriving in Fort McMurray, Alberta were coming any faster. Numerous new pipelines to the rest of Canada and parts of the United States are currently being built or on the drawing boards, spreading Alberta's surging oil production further around North America, but also all the way to China via a pipeline to the coast of British Columbia and onto Chinese oil supertankers. Interest and competition for Alberta's massive Athabasca Oil Sands has become increasingly internationalized, with French oil company Total recently announcing investment, Japan pledging to invest in the oil sands (most likely to decrease reliance on oil from the volatile Middle East), the People's Republic of China showing increasing willingness to acquire more stable canadian oil production, the United States of course showing a strong interest in new pipelines, and even India announcing it would be investing some 1 billion dollars (US) in Alberta oil sands. Investment in the oil sands alone is currently estimated at over 100 billion dollars (Canadian), and is forecast to grow massively as new projects are announced.

Much like Dubai, Alberta and its capitol city, Calgary, have become enormously important in the realm of international geopolitics due both to massive private industry growth resulting from massive oil revenues (and reserves) found in both areas and increasing deregulation. It may be a sign of this new-found power economically and politically that the current Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, represents a district in Calgary. Current Alberta Premier Ralph Klein has stated he wishes Alberta to have some of the lowest corporate taxes on earth due to a need to combat growing international competition for investment and its resulting higher economic growth. While perhaps not going as far as the city of Dubai when it comes to free-market reforms, Premier Klein has announced his controversial plan for the "Third-Way" health care plan, which would allow doctors to choose work either in the free market or provincial system. Doing so may violate the Canada Health Act, but due to the huge budget surpluses Alberta will likely enjoy for years to come, it may be able to fund such a system without the financial backing of the federal government.