Everybody except perhaps provincial cabinet minister Doug Griffiths.
In a moment of unguarded but refreshing candour Griffiths summed up his own conflicted feelings about Alberta’s oilsands by suggesting they’re an economic and social vampire that “sucks the life out of every other aspect of Alberta.”
And he meant it in the nicest way possible.
Griffiths was speaking to an audience in Prince Edward Island on Oct. 4 about the challenges facing rural communities in an urbanized world. His point was that economies get into trouble when they rely too much on one industry.
Griffiths, who is minister of Service Alberta today but was Municipal Affairs minister at the time, didn’t actually name the oilsands but he didn’t have to. We all knew what he meant when he mentioned Alberta’s dominant “resource.”
“That’s the definition of Alberta,” said Griffiths. “And I’ve very frankly said that’s our biggest challenge. Everyone says it’s a benefit and a bonus because we have such a dominant commodity. But, you know, it sucks the life out of every other aspect of Alberta. It’s very difficult to hire people in hotels and restaurants or in arts and culture because they can’t compete with the wages which damages the other parts of your economy.”
Griffiths solution: “It’s better to have balance.”
But everything is a little off-kilter when it comes to the oilsands. It is a source of jobs and incredible wealth but it has unbalanced virtually all aspects of political life in Alberta from the environment to public policy to the government’s budgetary process. And it has affected Alberta’s relationship with other provinces as it pushes for more pipelines to sell more bitumen to world markets.
It is one reason why Alberta’s Progressive Conservatives have been in power since 1971, and why some critics have called the province a one-party petro-state.
This isn’t just about one industry dominance. Other regions of Canada have been dominated by forestry or mining or fishing. Alberta’s economy, and by extension Canada’s, relies heavily on the most carbon intensive method of recovering fossil fuels in the world at a time when governments everywhere are looking for ways to reduce greenhouses gases. We are pushing in one direction when the world, and a significant number of other Canadians, are starting to push in another.
But the oilsands’ influence continues to grow. Forty years ago, Alberta’s dominant resource was conventional oil. That dwindling resource was replaced by natural gas. A decade ago, natural gas was worth $5 billion a year to the provincial treasury while bitumen brought in a mere $187 million. Today, the two have exchanged places.
Original Article
Source: edmontonjournal.com/
Author: Graham Thomson
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