There was plenty of opportunity for a sovereign wealth fund for decades within Alberta and for all of Canada. You’re saying now it’s only on the table that the filthy liberal coastal elites won’t be on the unfair dole?
The unaccountable extra-national corporations who control most of Alberta’s oil production won’t suddenly become more generous and compliant to the needs of Albertans upon separation. You don’t have the balls or the leverage to control them. The province will have less leverage in the long run than before without the other two thirds of Canada’s economy to lever with in trade deals.
The main selling point it seems is to make the rest of Canada suffer as hard as possible. Make no mistake, we absolutely will suffer from the withdrawal of being cut off that black tar we’re addicted to from you. But you’re far more addicted to it than the rest of us are. What comes after?
Alberta _had_ a sovereign wealth fund. What happened to it? Equalization payments don’t explain of the collapse of the once huge fund. It sure didn’t buy much local diversification!
You’d think Alberta would be more like Norway already then. Instead you have lifted pickup trucks and tailings ponds. Even more wealth won’t solve the cultural bankruptcy that’s making the province upset enough to consider separation to begin with.
To answer your original question, that’s why I think it’ll be more like Russia.
Never mind the fact that it shrunk or stagnated in value due to mismanagement for decades. Oil prices are low and you have a single buyer who hoses you already.
Equalization transfers have cost $67 billion TOTAL since 1957. Less than a billion per year. Alberta collects >$25 billion PER YEAR in royalties. Canada isn’t your enemy here. Your province is addicted to a bad deal. You could have built refineries 50 years ago. That’s not possible now. Imagine how much control of those new facilities would go to unaccountable corporations? It wouldn’t be a good deal and the capex is insane.
The federal govt has been supportive, even under Trudeau, for increasing export opportunities. And you think that will get easier, especially through BC, after secession? Why?
Alberta needed to pivot hard away from oil 20 years ago. The US wont need Alberta crude forever.
> Alberta needed to pivot hard away from oil 20 years ago.
Why would you pivot away from something the world needs? Just yesterday at the G7 our European allies asked why we have interprovincial barriers, and requested a pipeline going east and LNG terminal so they can reduce their dependence on Russia.
Also our economy is more diverse than Ontario or BC. If you were here you'd see that, while oil and gas is a massive windfall, there's a lot of other stuff happening.
See, the thing is, our GDP per capita is 35% higher than Canada's as a whole... We haven't squandered anything. And what do we get from the rest of Canada? Barriers to further development...
The general right-wing friendliness of the movement. If not fully Russian-style kleptocratic petrostate then at least American style fascism. If the Alberta conservatives were courting European relationships that would be one thing, but it sure seems like the Alberta and Canadian conservatives in general are fellow travelers with the russo-hungaro-american-etc authoritarian nationalists.
Having nothing on your left doesn’t make you leftist. If I drive in the right hand lane and there’s nothing on my left, I am not driving in the left hand lane.
The Alberta NDP under Notley was a centrist party and its policies were far more aligned with the federal liberals than the federal NDP. Obviously, there has been a change in leadership, but I don't see any reason to believe that the Alberta NDP will be any less centrist under Nenshi.
