Alberta, Ontario face EU-style debt crisis, report warns

That alone should be enough to order drug tests for the author.

Yea, after reading that article, I wondered if they had any concept of things like 'debt' and 'economy'. How could a debt free Alberta possible be in greater financial risk than a heavily indebted Quebec?

Yea, after reading that article, I wondered if they had any concept of things like 'debt' and 'economy'. How could a debt free Alberta possible be in greater financial risk than a heavily indebted Quebec?

Not just debt-free, but with close to $20 B in the 'bank' to boot.

Diversification of economic activity. Oil crash = Alberta crash. That's the only logic I can muster to explain their theory. But I seriously doubt that the authors were considering that. I think I favour Martin's "drug testing" suggestion.

Maybe they just mixed up Quebec and Alberta - bunch of separatists in either case that don't really fit in with the rest of Canada.

Diversification of economic activity. Oil crash = Alberta crash. That's the only logic I can muster to explain their theory. But I seriously doubt that the authors were considering that. I think I favour Martin's "drug testing" suggestion.

Then they definitely didn't do their homework. Natural Gas brings in nearly as much revenue as Oil, even when NG is this low. Forestry, mining, agriculture . . . and the #1 source of Alberta income is 'sin'. Lotteries, Alcohol and Tobacco tax make up more than Oil, Gas and Agriculture put together.

And that just gets bigger in bad times.

You run out of the good bait for your day of trolling?

aw shit, grow some humour. maybe that's another thing that unites Quebec and Alta - techy techy. People make comments about BC, you don't see us getting all whiny about it. Guess being more secure has it's rewards. Or maybe it's just the reassurance of our former license plates.

I wish it worked that way Dr.C.

If one of our primary sectors major industries goes down, it is just a matter of time until secondary and tertiary sectors start to drop.

They are highly dependent on the primary sector dollars for survival.

Ie: If oil goes down, a third (or more) of Edmonton's construction goes down. A major portion of retail goes down. And, over time, even sin tax revenues drop.

Nature of the beast.

Alberta needs more independent, high level secondary and tertiary sector industries.

Oil going down a third? That would be the day given that just about everyone predicts it only going up or at best holding steady.

Even if we move to another cost effective source for liquid fuel the cost competitiveness of the established oil sands is reasonable. Which is to say if they stop trying to grow the oil sands as fast as physicaly possible the costs of running the oilsands will drop sharply leaving them economicaly viable even with a large oil price reduction.

A lot of the support industry for the oil sands can convert into other industrial support business.

The report that says Quebec is less likely to default than Alberta is worth at best as much as the paper it's writen on.

Xort,

If oil goes down, a third of Edmonton's construction stops, not a third of our oil production/revenues.

And, no, most of the oil support industry will not convert over easily. They can't even convert from industrial to commercial inside Alberta without problem.

Once you get used to the gravy train it is very, very hard to get off. I know a half dozen metal fabrication shops that are out of business due to that. They had all the skills, equipment, and materials that the commercial shops did, but they didn't have the competitiveness required. You can charge $100+/hr in the oil patch. you can't in commercial. And, you can't keep guys around that are used to that $100/hr ahen you are billing out around $60/hr.

Define what you mean by oil goes down.

Do you mean price, demand, use, production?
And 1/3 of the construction ending isn't going to cause a default or dry up the rest of the economy.
For example?
So 6 shops that couldn't realize efficency is your proof that it's impossible to convert. Out of how many shops?

And I will have to ask who is paying $100 an hour for people employed in fabrication. Machinists make about $30-$40hr. Also can you define the differance between a commercial shop and whatever else you are talking about?