MLA Report: The cost of losing our Alberta Advantage

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on October 18, 2019.

“Hard work without a purpose is like a Ferrari without a steering wheel.” –Sergi Trivino

Similarly, in Alberta, everything we have worked toward as province and community could become severely limited without new pipelines, a competitive business environment and a federal government that supports our industries.

Albertans are well known for their capacity to persevere through long hours doing tough work and for decades we excelled as a province, due in part to our Alberta Advantage.

For decades Alberta was considered one of the most lucrative markets to invest in across the globe. Not only did we have low royalties and taxes and we had the best workers and resources to support a booming industry.

Medicine Hat also excelled as reserves of natural gas were discovered and our city made its name off extraction and production of the highly efficient resource.

Not only did Alberta stand out for the quality of our resources, we also led the way in world class environmental practices and employee safety standards.

However, early last month Medicine Hat councillors announced that the city would be accelerating well abandonment and reclamation to recover lost expenses and hopefully stem further loses. While I don’t imagine this was by any means an easy decision, one can’t help but wonder the long-term consequences of such a move while the demand for oil and gas is growing. For a community so irrevocably entwined in the resource industry, how will the loss of a primary employment benefactor impact families and the entire local economy?

While it may be 100 jobs this month, what greater ramifications will be felt by the community as time goes on and if the oil and gas industry continues to consolidate?

This is the unfortunate cost of relying on global markets and fluctuating prices, markets that have been struggling since 2008 to maintain fair prices for Canadian resources across the spectrum of resource production. Allowing the U.S. and Australia to beat Canada (before we are even out of the starting blocks) in developing a clean LNG exporting industry and their streamlined regulatory framework and mineral rights has also led to billions of dollars of investment lost and thousands of jobs elsewhere.

Throughout the provincial election, as I knocked on hundreds of doors, I encountered the same thing, time and time again. Frustrated men and women, who by no fault of their own were out of work and eager to find a job.

Albertans are desperate and eager for work and happy to put in the effort to get our economy back to prosperous outcomes, but we are clearly fighting an uphill battle.

While there is still a long way to go, a United Conservative government is working towards eliminating red tape, reducing taxes and getting Albertans back to work.

But without the promise of pipelines and a federal government that cares about the future of Albertans, we are left to watch our local economies and our opportunities depreciate and collapse.

As your MLA, you can be assured I am working towards regaining our Alberta Advantage, developing new markets and ideas and insuring our local industries, families and friends can once again compete in a world market. If you have any thoughts on how to enhance free enterprise and opportunities please come and see me!

Drew Barnes is MLA (UCP) for Cypress-Medicine Hat constituency.

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