Now I am a mad Albertan.

Now I am a mad Albertan.

“Quit crying and start thinking,” said Dad and I took a deep breath, wiped my tears and sobered up. Now sixty-six years later Dad’s advice is still good. Allow me to share it with my fellow Albertans. It works every time.

So, our biggest oil consumer became our biggest energy competitor and we are hurting, or at least a quarter of us do. Let’s assess our situation without tantrums, name-calling, empty threats and “nobody loves me” pouting. Oil prices will remain low, public pressure against oil is growing, transporting oil will remain a problem and while investments in clean energy are growing, financial institutions and politicians are divesting. It is the reality if we believe it or not. It will change back in the US also after the next elections. No crying folks, we have more than one basket of eggs here. We have our long-neglected farmers, ranchers, tourism, industries, educated workforce, great attractive infrastructure, other natural resources, you name it. Alberta is great.

Albertans still on average have the highest income per family in Canada, that is why we pay higher Transfer Payments, and if we don’t force our economy to slow down, we are on a road to recovery. It's all in what we choose to believe. When your car goes into a skid you “look and steer in the direction you want your vehicle to go.” Don’t lock the breaks.

Albertans all around me want to blame Trudeau, forgetting that our Premier could be competing with him on a personal level. He would like Trudeau to be out of the way when he may run for PM job someday. If you were the PM and two-thirds of Canadians voted for parties fighting to reduce Climate Change would you openly reduce regulations and advocate increasing the oil production? Justin Trudeau wants the money and is doing all he can regardless of his personal beliefs. He can’t change the minds of all Canadians aside from us by waving a magic wand. Global warming is happening and only the blind are not seeing it. What we hope for is to have a fair share of the market for the transition period.

My political hero is the first Conservative Premier of Alberta. He set us up towards a bright future that we are still benefiting from. Thanks to his planning we should have had a large base of technology trained Albertans and could have been competing with Silicon Valley. We should have had modern cities and towns advanced and comfortable for workers to live and work in. Above all, he set up the Heritage Fund which properly maintained could have been enough to build a brand new economy by itself. No other province or State could compete with us.

Peter Lougheed knew that oil was “a temporary boon” based on non-renewable resources. It turned out that we have more oil and gas than we can use, but we must not use it if we wish to go on living. The results are the same. We and our neighbours may fight to keep Hydro Carbon going but will lose.

We can’t reasonably demand that the Federal government will commit political suicide and send the army to force millions of people to agree to take a chance on their future when they are already suffering from the changing climate. It is time for Plan B. The temporary irresponsible behaviour of Mr. Trump isn’t going to last.

I hope that a wise Prime Minister will find a way to stop Canada from importing oil and use our own. This will not materialize unless we work together forgetting politics for a while. All parties concerned must figure out a strategy, plan implementation and a lot of public education is needed.

So far in the last six months, a significant reduction in corporate taxes has made no change. A pipeline is being built and the statistics are the same. I think now we can understand all the Canadian fishing industry people who lost their livelihood a while back. We have to make changes and we may need the help of the rest of Canada someday, but I hope not.  

If I had a say I would recommend that we get help to build a robust, clean energy sector. I would make higher education free for all who can prove proper aptitude, scrap student debts and properly reward graduates. I would make our health care and tourism industries the best in the world so people will see what we have and wish to live and work here. If Alberta is open for business, I would make it the best place to open and operate small businesses and sing the glory of those who do it right so others will see.

We should have the money to do it all in our savings account, the Heritage Fund. If the money is not there, instead of hating the rest of Canada enough to separate, we should investigate who got rid of it and why. We had a workable plan, and if we didn’t follow it I, an Albertan, want to know what replaced it and how it will be fixed now. If I sound upset, I am. It is time to quit crying and start thinking.

Every week head offices are moving out and our suicide rates are growing. BC without oil is surpassing us in growth and others soon will. What we need is not more political heroes but smart hard-working Albertans in a leadership capacity. Is there someone like Lougheed and if you know him or her, bring them forward.

 

Calgary Sun

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