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...
