Salute to the oil and gas industry

[cowman]

The Olds Gazette came out with a very good paper this week with "A salute to the oil and Gas industry"! A lot of very enlightening articles about new technologies, better relationships with the community etc.
The real biter, that I sure would like Horse to read, is how much investment is going into the environment, the landowners pockets, small business and the workforce!
One article was "Energy Sector to get highest pay raise in Canada"! An industry spokesman said "We face some very serious challenges with recruiting as well as retaining people with special skills. That is just the market"!
Now Horse I would suggest you will need to revise your numbers... upward? You should probably not quote a $1000/day anymore? Maybe move it up to $1200?
It is good to see the people who make us all better off finally getting some fairer compensation!

[PureCountry]

Most weekly newspapers in resource based communities have a salute to the Oil and Gas industry annually, as do they have a salute to the Agriculture Industry.
Our paper goes one better with a salute to the service industry, which of course is what keeps towns like Edson, Whitecourt, Drayton Valley booming. I would suggest that industry does a significant amount of advertising for that segment of the paper.

[Horse]

Cowman how does paying higher wages help me I still work for nothing. The vet clinic says they have to pay $10,000 per mo for a vet to help out so he has to charge lots, how does that help me ,My power last yr is over $2000 and heating is $1600 how does that help car gas is .92/ litre and so on now I still have to sell my products or get my income at 1930 levels,So if I go on welfare I guess the gov could afford to pay me more but they wont.
What it boils down to is if you are not in the higher demand jobs you are losing ground in a hurry.
Ralph has a 10 billion surplus but how does that help the average people not in the patch, I know more people working at $12 to $15 per hr than those getting $35 /hr them there are those in the $1/200/hr range
I know you will say all the services we get name a few As I dont see many I actualy use.

[Horse]

horse, when I was on council people used to ask what they got for their taxes.
I used to list of some of the things:
It cost 2500 per year to maintain a mile of gravel road, that the drove on.
They had access to subsidized ambulance service.
Access to waste transfer stations
Access to subsidized campgrounds, community halls, sport facilities in town etc.

I am sure we all use services paid in part by resource revenue. I agree the wage differential seems excessive, but again the injection into the economy of numerous communities by the indsutry at this time is unreal.

Places that could hardly fill a motel or hotel have rooms reserved and paid for a year in advance.

I used to be able to call the Dodge dealer and get my vehicle in the same day for an oil change, now its a two or three wait because they are so busy. Their mechanics are guaranteed $75,000 a year, and most of them are farm boys who have never worked in the patch, but are making a good wage.

I don't know if your area of the province has absolutely now resource activity or assessment for your county or not, but it sounds as though you feel the wealth of the province is passing you by.

[ivbinconned]

"It cost 2500 per year to maintain a mile of gravel road, that they drove on."

Horse only walks!


"They had access to subsidized ambulance service."

Horse get hurt...they get shot...don't need an abbulance!


"Access to waste transfer stations"

Horse is only interested in a direct transfer of cash (redistribution)!


"Access to subsidized campgrounds, community halls, sport facilities in town etc."

Horse is to grouchy to have fun!

[ivbinconned]

ivbin..my post was not intended to make fun of anything Horse has said about the oil and gas industry. Merely, to point out that we do enjoy certain benefits from the industry, and one thing for sure our property taxes are significantly lower than if we did not have the industry here.

In my county the M E, Power and Pipeline assessment makes up 84% of the total. In actual fact we are all driving on roads subsidized by the industry assessment and so we should because the industry that uses them the most pounds the hell out of them .

Industry has pointed out many times that farmers hauling silage, manure hauling etc. damages the roads too but aren't charged for road repairs or forced to post a bond like industry is.

A person has choices in life, one being the type of industry they wish to work in. For some the agricultural industry has always been their way of life, and certainly it has been a tough row to hoe, and seems to be gettin tougher. I guess that those who aren't content to settle for barely getting by on a farm are either getting an off farm job or getting out of farming for good. Its all about choices.

[ivbinconned]

Amen...that is a point one seems to have to repeat again and again!

[Horse]

IVBC if I am to grouchy that is my choice and shouldnt bother you.
Ambulance we had when oil was 10$/ bl waste transfer we had comunity halls we had more when oil was$10 than we have now sports fac well we have wery little here and none at oil co exp Subsidy camp grounds HA HA the gov gave them all away when Ralph was cutting back and they are all twice as much now as before
$2500 per mi I think that is way to high an estimate as that would be more than our whole public works budget.

[Horse]

Actually, horse that number comes from the public works budget of the county where I was formerly the Reeve, so unless I had trouble reading or understanding it that was the number.
That included grader time, repairs, operators wages, gravel etc. which is what most municipalities would factor in for road maintenance.

Now, maybe you live in a county where roads don't need as much maintenance if you don't have resource industry traffic so your costs could very bell be less.

I know during my council days we used to constantly hear hard luck stories from municipalities that did not have oil and gas assessment. It would be interesting to hear what your mill rate is horse.

[Horse]

Emerald I live in the County of Barrhead and it is considered one of the poorest countys in the province. The mill rate is 12.935 and school at 4.3839 But the assements took a large jump after this new acessment a few yr back.
There is getting to be a bit more oil locations to tax now but take swanhills they have a very good tax base because of oil and waste disposal.
So you were reeve well rember when I said you must be gov or something judging by your answers?No offence ment just when someone has to give a lot of answers they tend to give kind of non answers.

[Horse]

When I was reeve and on council I gave people straight answers horse, sometimes that isn't what they want to hear !!! I was always adamant that the county live within its means and not debenture for anything unless it was municipal services that were going to be paid back through an offsite levy.

Barrhead County is certainly an agricultural based municipality, and I doubt if you have the urban sprawl at your doorstep so you can take comfort in that.
The town of Barrhead seems to be growing some, judging by the street improvements and new housing areas.

The assessment throughout the province went up whenever municipalities moved to the market assessment. My taxes doubled the year that happened.

Your neighbouring county, Woodlands, is one of the richest municipalities, with lots of resource revenue from the oil and gas assessment plus the odd mill, but with a lot of their land in the green zone there are lots of areas without much population, where your municipality is noted for its good farm land and some very productive farmers, plus one good sized feedlot. If you don't have the resource revenue you don't have the adverse effect that goes with it horse !
Lac Ste Anne County is getting more resource revenue but for many years they were not a very well do to municipality.

[cowman]

In the paper yesterday there was an article about the expansion of oil refining east of Edmonton. This is basically refining the heavy crude coming out of Ft. Mac? This area is literally going to be one of the largest oil refining areas in the world!
The local Hutterite colony at Red Water figures all 22 families will be instant millionaires. They quoted land prices at $10,000/acre and this developement will take up a huge area. Sturgeon County has just zoned 50 sections more land for heavy industrial and the quote is 330 sq. kms of developement! It will take a labour force of 20,000 men five years to build it! If you are a younger person get your butt into an apprentice ship program and make some money! A welder can pretty well name his own price. The oil and gas industry is screaming for tradesmen and laborors...really no excuse for anyone bemoaning that they can't get ahead?
Red Deer College is building a trades/manufacturing innovation center where they will be able to crank out a lot of trades people. $27 million to get it built and some construction starts May 1st! They will be offering a "rig technician" course...the same thing we learned rough necking on service rigs...I presume? And if you ever think those boys don't earn their money on a service rig...just try it! It is a hard job and certainly weeds out the boys who can't cut it! Makes for tough men though!

[cowman]

and a bit scary when working over sour wells with a green crew !!!!
Edmonton already has refinery row spewing lord knows what into the air, and now more on the boundary, the air quality in the city will be as bad as Calgary pretty soon !!!
Glad I live out in the backwoods ! Horse, you should appreciate your county and the lack of industry, pretty soon your land will be worth a fortune to people wanting to get away from it all !!!

[Horse]

Realy no reason for not getting ahead. Just like in Fort Mac you make big money and you give it to those in power ask anyone who works there and you will see the few that control the land take all the money and the workers are just a flowthrough unless you are in the 6 figure salery but most are not.
If land in Redwater is 10,000 per acre how does that help any one but the land owners and developers or are you saying should have been there sooner.
By the way what is the mill rate in your countys?

[Horse]

residential and farmland 5.0000
Education on above 4.34

Non-residential 8.7000
Education on Non-Res. 6.7000

Some municipalities also include a mill rate for Seniors Foundations ours does not, it comes out of the regular assessment.