Why leave when we can lead?

By Letter to the Editor on January 20, 2020.

We are nearing the end of our current economic dynasty and boy are we getting antsy to get to greener pastures.

We have been here before. Ranching was Alberta, it is still a part of Alberta, but gone are the days that it is our anchor industry; the one that pays our bills. We moved to agriculture and in came new Albertans who took up the offer of homesteading and farming. Ask any rancher and they will tell you the rules favoured the farmers, heck we fenced in their range. We then struck oil and the government pivoted to support our new anchor industry. Ask any farmer and they will tell you the rules favour oil and gas.

We pick our dance partner, we make rules in favour of our partner, and in return we all benefit. We have faced the dawn of new economies, we have taken change as a challenge, we have found solutions, and we have prospered together for the better. While we have been here before, there is more in play this time. A minority government in Ottawa that has very little prairie input. The inability to get our main product to market. The fact our No. 1 buyer, the States, is now our No. 1 competitor who can produce oil way cheaper than we can. Added to this is the trend of a good chunk of the globe looking away from carbon burning energy and towards renewables. Premier Kenney said himself that hydrocarbon products will be in demand until at least 2040. We know there will be oil and gas jobs for decades to come, even when renewables control the grid, there is no getting around the 101+ uses for oil. Oil and gas jobs are good jobs, they are just fewer and further between and one day soon we will need a new dance partner.

Although our province has contributed well and above our fair share to Ottawa and for our fellow Canadians, we have just discovered that the rest of the country does not really like us. We are a priority to no one other than ourselves. We just found out that we have footed the bill for people who, and this is a generalization, choose governments who do not prioritize helping fix the very real scenario of Alberta fizzling out. We are all in a car in a garage and a good share of Canada is yelling at Alberta to turn off the car. The thing missing from the story is that if Alberta “turns off the car” we will freeze, we will starve, and we will suffer more than we ever have. It is a bad spot for everyone, but it is pretty clear we are on our own to fix it. Given all of this, I can certainly understand why many would contemplate leaving, but we have another choice; we can lead Canada. We will need friends, we will need money, we will need real world solutions, and we will need courage, but we can lead Canada.

Love it or hate it, the world is moving towards renewable energy. There are problems that are yet to be fixed with renewables, but the shift is happening. Nantucket faced this challenge when the world moved away from whaling towards oil & gas, and as a whole, they were not up for the task. But Alberta is. The world craves energy, and if we are to move towards a new normal, I can think of no other group of creative, resourceful, inclusive problem solvers to take this opportunity to find our new groove. It is time we decide if we will turn into Nantucket 2.0 or if we keep our energy-state status. It is time to start getting ourselves out of this mess, because it is apparent nobody else is going to.

Matthew McMillan

Calgary

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