Alberta surplus

[cowman]

Well we shouldn't forget the overwhelming majority of the people of Alberta support Ralph Klein and the Alberta Conservatives? Without a doubt they have made a lot of mistakes over the years but I shudder to think where we might be if the Liberals or NDP had been running the show?
Consider the solutions they propose again and again? Tax big business and spend more! Perfect. Ruin a system that has made Alberta the richest economy in North America!
Ralph is almost done. He probably did his best work early on and now is on cruise control? Get ready for the next one! Jim Dinning is a good fiscal manager and hopefully he will be able to manage the economy in a way that moves us forward while keeping the jackals and hyenas from the east out of our bank accounts!

[cowman]

Still laughing about hiding their own easter eggs! Horse you are something else!

[cowman]

Don't forget the pittance in royalties they have collected to allow big business to run the province !!!!!

We need a more balanced approach to business in Alberta. Everything is geared to the success of business, large livestock operations etc., and not enough consideration is being given to the long term impact on PEOPLE and the environment.

[cowman]

I will agree the royalty structure needs to be updated, especially in the tarsands. And I believe the government has been moving in that direction?
Don't forget the federal government did everything in its power to foil developement in Alberta and Getty had to cut the royalty rates because the feds made a tax grab and put oil sands developement in trouble? It was only through Albertas committment that the oilsands were developed at all!
What most people do not know is the oilsands, while huge, do not contribute a lot of royalty money to Alberta coffers? However they do generate an enormous amount of commerce that puts tax money into the bank account!
My own belief is Alberta was blessed with a natural resource and through their own efforts(and the efforts of an industry that took a risk) they have created a very prosperous economy? I believe the people of Alberta and the industry should be benifitting from that natural resource?
It is like the story of the "little red hen"? Who will help me bake the bread? And just like her we should be saying:
"Who will help me eat the bread?" When the pig and the dog say "I will!" what should we say? How about "Sorry, you never did anything to deserve a share of the bread?"

[cakadu]

Amen to your statement emrald. We are moving ahead so fast that we cannot even begin to understand the footprint and the legacy we are leaving for future generations.

ALL of the resources that we enjoy as well as the booming economy that is being derived from them, are not ours to do with as we wish. We are the custodians of them and are borrowing them from future generations.

[wilagro]

Why worry about our resources? The oil pool where I am situated has seen a depletion of 2/3 rds in the last 25 years.
At the current rate of production it doesn't take much figuring to see that it will soon be kaput. Gone! Nada!
Same with some of the natural gas fields. This province is dead set on exporting every last smidgin of conventional crude and NG as is possible. NO thought for the future...just a quick money grab for their friends and a token royalty return for US.
I won't be around to see the results of this government's mismanagement but our grandkids will not thank past governments for their lack of foresight.
Oh well, they will just have to farm with alcohol fueled tractors or else back to the old reliable 4 legged oat eaters.

[blackjack]

cakadu and wilagro ...the next generation of entrepreneurs will figure away unless they have so many laws and taxs to curtail their acheivements...

[blackjack]

Things are happening so fast in Alberta that there haven't been any sober second thoughts about the long term impact on the province. Sure the resource industries fuel the economy and employ many people, but, cities and major urban centres in resource based areas can't begin to keep up to the demand for infrastructure, streets, roads, utilities etc.
Our highways are falling apart, and seem to be getting worse by the day lately.
We see special interest groups having to band together to fight every way they can to protect environmentally sensitive areas ( EG: Pekisko Landowners Group) and the numerous groups that are fighting the location of the large transmission line.

Anyone who hasn't seen the Wabumun area, should see what mega coal mining projects do to the landscape, then after the mining is done the country side can enjoy the chamomile that grows there forever !!!

I agree we need the resource extraction in this province or we would be in tough shape, but our government needs to have a vision for the future of the enviromnent and the generations that follow.
If we continue to spend like drunken sailors the quick bucks that are being made today will only be the subject of bedtime stories for kids in twenty years.

[cowman]

Well usually in most businesses you go with your strengths? You produce all you can when the market is good?
The fact is the age of oil and gas are coming to an end? There is better technology out there and in reality the oil and gas industry has done everything in its power to hold back that technology?
Consider Ralphs "clean coal" technology? Could keep Alberta ahead of the pack for another century? How about solar, bio gas, hydrogen? Wouldn't it make sense to invest in those energy sources?
What might have happened if we had been able to keep our wealth and invest it in new technology instead of being forced to finance the welfare state down east? What might have happened if we had been allowed to become a center for technology, instead a hewer of wood and a drawer of water? Do you really think the people of Ontario and Quebec have an inherent right to have all the manufacturing/technology base, propped up by the federal government, while our destiny is to provide them with cheap fuel, lots of money and a protected market? Because quite frankly that is the history of Canada!
The legacy we leave our children and grandchildren won't be whether we used up all the oil or gas, because that won't matter...it will be an obsolete commodity! The real loss will be that we let the wealth be stolen away to prop up a social welfare state, that kept us down and allowed our oppressors to flourish?

[cowman]

Martha Kostuch made Ralph look fairly dumb when she commented that there is no such thing as clean coal !!!!!
Ralph said that we already have clean coal fired power plants and that isn't true.
Ralph's advisors need to pay closer attention to fact before they brief him on what to say.
Cowman if you think that all the ideas the premier is putting forth are his own you will also believe in the tooth fairy.
Klein's proposals on anything are the programs and legislation that government bureaucrats want to see in place.
Case in point the proposed Integrated Land Use Policy Framework currently in the think tank stage.
Guess who is selecting the participants in the think tank ???
Its not the Premier, Ministers or even Deputy Ministers, its a handful of bureaucrats that have had a MISSION for years !!!!1

[cowman]

Well emerald, first of all I should be honest and tell you, like most people involved in the oil patch, Martha should be taken out in the woods and shot! Really she doesn't have a clue...and frankly she doesn't want to have a clue...never did, never will!
Now having said that.... there is a place for dissension! Without a doubt the oil and gas business, at times, have not been the best environmental citizens! I'm definitely not here to say that. I didn't just fall off the turnip wagon yesterday?
Everything in this life is a balancing act and hey we all have to live with the consequences? Has everything been just peachy? Well no it hasn't. But we really don't need the Marthas of this world to dictate to us? I don't say she doesn't have a place. She is a "conscience", if you will? She does raise some questions that need to be addressed....but she sure as hell isn't God that we need to fall down and worship!

[wilagro]

cowman quote: The real loss will be that we let the wealth be stolen away to prop up a social welfare state, that kept us down and allowed our oppressors to flourish?

Where did you come by this "myth" that our wealth is being stolen to prop up a social welfare state? If you believe that proposition, then I would say that you have been hanging around the wrong people. This is doublely (spellin') so if you heard this from oilmen.

Every time that I hear this old refrain about 'stolen' money, I wonder as to who is spreading this crap.