A note to Western Canada: The rest of the country understands tough economic times

[blackpowder]

I know a lot of Newfs.
So glad I blocked Chuck.

Have a peaceful day!!!

[flea beetle]

A note to Western Canada: The rest of the country understands tough economic times
David Parkinson
David Parkinson Economics Reporter
Published November 8, 2019

Brad Wall thinks people in the rest of Canada are having a hard time understanding the anger building in the Prairies. He wants to explain it in terms that they can understand.

“Some of our fellow citizens seem surprised and even critical of Westerners who are expressing frustration,” the former Saskatchewan premier said on Twitter. “Imagine if an industry key to central Canada lost 100,000 jobs with more under threat – and federal policies actually made it worse.”

I guess Mr. Wall – along with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and other outspoken Prairie leaders – were too busy feeling indignant to notice. It already happened.

In 2006, Ontario had more than 1 million manufacturing jobs. By the middle of 2009, it had about 750,000. Those jobs never came back; employment in the sector has hovered around that level ever since. One-quarter of the province’s long-standing economic lifeblood looks to be permanently gone.

And, yes, one could argue that government policy consciously allowed it to leave. The North American free-trade agreement, and the country’s embracing of global trade liberalization generally, opened the door to the migration of manufacturing jobs away from relatively high-cost Canada to lower-cost markets such as Mexico and China. The hardships of the Great Recession cemented that migration. Whether you support the benefits of free trade, it has been an undeniable consequence.

This happened at a time when Alberta, because of sustained strong oil prices, escaped the recession with barely a scratch and flat-out boomed thereafter. Its economy grew by more than 30 per cent from 2009 to 2014, its employment by 13 per cent, its per capita provincial government-program spending by more than 20 per cent.

And that’s not the only tale of a region’s main industry being gutted – sometimes abetted, if not outright triggered, by government policy – while the country’s Western oil and gas regions basked in prosperity.

In 1992, Ottawa imposed a moratorium on cod fishing off the Atlantic coast, citing the near-extinction of several species due to overfishing. That ban, which continues to this day, effectively permanently shut down Newfoundland and Labrador’s cod fishery, the mainstay of the provincial economy for nearly 500 years. Overnight, the moratorium wiped out more than 35,000 jobs – roughly 15 per cent of the province’s labour force – most of them in hundreds of small fishing communities where there was essentially no other industry.

In the six years after the imposition of the cod moratorium, the Newfoundland and Labrador economy grew by a total of 2.8 per cent; it was in recession in two of those years. In the same period, Alberta’s booming economy grew nearly 30 per cent; it added 200,000 jobs.

In 1995, British Columbia (that other part of Western Canada that Alberta and Saskatchewan seem to have forgotten about in all their alienation talk) had more than 100,000 people directly employed by its forest-products industry, the historic bedrock of the provincial economy. Two decades later, employment had shrunk to half that. Towns all over the tree-rich province, from Port Alberni to Chetwynd, endured the devastation of mill closings. This long, painful downturn came during that same 20 years that employment in Alberta’s oil-and-gas-extraction industry more than doubled, to 110,000.

Perhaps the people in all these other parts of Canada don’t understand the hostility that some of the loudest voices coming from the Prairies are directing at the rest of the country – the angry accusations of ungratefulness, greed and betrayal. Maybe they are perplexed by the paranoia that has some Albertans accusing the federal government of actively seeking to destroy Canada’s richest province and the Prime Minister of harbouring a hatred inherited from his father that has put “Ruin Alberta” at the top of his secret to-do list. Maybe they can’t comprehend how so many people can talk openly about dismantling 152 years of common nationhood over a pipeline.

Those things you can try to explain. I’m really struggling with them, and I grew up in Alberta during Pierre Trudeau’s despised National Energy Program.

But don’t tell the rest of Canada that it doesn’t understand the pain of seeing an industry that was its economic bedrock crumble beneath it. Don’t try to explain to people in places like Oshawa, Ont., where the auto assembly plant is closing, or Shawinigan, Que., where the paper mill was shuttered, or Bonavista, N.L., where the cod disappeared and took a quarter of the town with it, what it’s like to have your livelihood threatened by the unstoppable march of change. They know.

You didn’t invent hardship. Your preaching is a slap in the face to all your fellow Canadians who suffered while you thrived. It’s that slap that they’re really having trouble understanding.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-a-note-to-brad-wall-the-rest-of-canada-understands-tough-economic/

Yes hard times come to all, that is not what the west is angry over. It is being kicked while we are down that is pissing everybody off. Not one of your example conveys the same likeness as what is happening now. In your examples, it is just an industry dealing with a slowdown. They never had do deal with the slowdown, plus an onslaught from the government to make life harder at the same time as well.

Not only are crop prices falling and debt skyrocketing on the prairies, but we have to fend off a government that wants every spare dollar that may be left. And also live in an environment that the government makes harder and harder to do business in. And also in an environment where the government ruins our markets.

-Carbon tax
-Seed tax
-Shelving of pipeline projects
-Bill 6
-The oil tanker ban off of BC Coastline
-Trudeau making a fool of himself in India effectively ruining the pulse industry
-Detaining the Huawei executive effectively ruining the canola industry

Just to name a few. Granted not all, but most, are federal doings. Bill 6 was imposed by a premier that was in Trudeau's pocket in my opinion. So might as well have come from federal anyway.

[blackpowder]

Damn, you posted it, so I had to read it.
That's a leftard saying we deserve it.

Had a relative landlord tell me upon pulling back his land, "I didn't think it would hurt you that bad".
Reminds me of him. I told him," I'll decide what hurts me, Not you"!!

[Zephyr]

The article isn't saying we deserve it.

The article isn't saying it's OK.

The article is saying the statement some of these idiots out west are making, namely:"Nobody else in Canada knows what bad times are like" is incorrect.


Didn't you guys take English in school?


You're reading things that aren't there into this...

[dmlfarmer]

The one big difference is that there is that unlike the examples in your article, there no reduction in demand for oil and gas, supplies are still here and still available, it cannot be outsourced to cheaper places, demand continues to grow, prices are very good historically. Yet government policies are purposefully, possibly even spitefully, blocking any attempts to produce it here.

Exactly what government policies are you talking about blocking western production of oil and gas?

[Taiga]

There is nothing you few Delusional’s can post that will justify continuing supporting Trudeau and/or Jughead.

[jazz]

Exactly what government policies are you talking about blocking western production of oil and gas?

Stop playing with words. You know as well as anyone that production is useless without market access.

[sk_wheatking]

****, I love agriville!!!!!

[grassfarmer]

Stop playing with words. You know as well as anyone that production is useless without market access.

You're the one playing with words as a deflection from answering the question. AB is hurting because oil demand and prices slumped globally. AB has market access, the same access they had through the last oil boom when they were printing and spending money like there was no tomorrow. What they are wanting now is increased capacity to ship more product to the world market that is still suffering reduced demand and prices. They want to sell more for less, and make it up on volume which is not a smart strategy at the best of times.

[Guest]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&ved=2ahU KEwjtwd2p7t3lAhXsY98KHWS-B6UQFjAJegQIAxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2F5492 648%2Fpermian-oil-boom-west-texas%2F&usg=AOvVaw1Yflir-F9EH_r-j4G3tC5Q https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&ved=2ahU KEwjtwd2p7t3lAhXsY98KHWS-B6UQFjAJegQIAxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2F5492 648%2Fpermian-oil-boom-west-texas%2F&usg=AOvVaw1Yflir-F9EH_r-j4G3tC5Q https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&ved=2ahU KEwjtwd2p7t3lAhXsY98KHWS-B6UQFjAJegQIAxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2F5492 648%2Fpermian-oil-boom-west-texas%2F&usg=AOvVaw1Yflir-F9EH_r-j4G3tC5Q https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&ved=2ahU KEwjtwd2p7t3lAhXsY98KHWS-B6UQFjAJegQIAxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2F5492 648%2Fpermian-oil-boom-west-texas%2F&usg=AOvVaw1Yflir-F9EH_r-j4G3tC5Q

You're the one playing with words as a deflection from answering the question. AB is hurting because oil demand and prices slumped globally. AB has market access, the same access they had through the last oil boom when they were printing and spending money like there was no tomorrow. What they are wanting now is increased capacity to ship more product to the world market that is still suffering reduced demand and prices. They want to sell more for less, and make it up on volume which is not a smart strategy at the best of times.

ummm, why has texas been in a massive boom

[Guest]

having trouble with the hotlink again, hope it works, lol

[TASFarms]

You're the one playing with words as a deflection from answering the question. AB is hurting because oil demand and prices slumped globally. AB has market access, the same access they had through the last oil boom when they were printing and spending money like there was no tomorrow. What they are wanting now is increased capacity to ship more product to the world market that is still suffering reduced demand and prices. They want to sell more for less, and make it up on volume which is not a smart strategy at the best of times.

And that is the biggest problem. They still have the same access. 3 pipelines should have been brought on since the last boom. Pipelines are maxed out. It’s a good thing the light wells here drop off in production after first couple months or else there would be no drilling here