Originally posted by grassfarmer
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Yes the oil patch is hurting and people are out of work. But there was an out of control boom going on for quite awhile that drove the loonie higher and put a damper on exporters and manufacturers in the rest of Canada. It caused inflation in much of western Canada and drove up the costs of labour and the costs for oil and gas production.
But somehow some Albertans equate the former boom to how it should be all the time. We have seen this boom and bust economy in Alberta many times. The world price of oil and gas goes up and down. And oil companies come and go with investment. Alberta should try to diversify its economy away from oil and gas and invest more in industries that are not so cyclical.
Perter Lougheed had a vision of sustainable controlled growth and putting something away for the bad times. Boom and bust economies are not great. He knew this. Lougheed was a true fiscal conservative.
He wanted the people of Alberta and Canada to see long term benefits from a one time finite resource.
Instead we got low royalties and governments that relied on oil revenues to to run core services and almost no savings for a rainy day or diversification. This is pure and simple poor foresight and bad management. What happened to the vision of Peter Lougheed?
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