Why Alberta needs to diversify from Oil and Gas

 It is no secret that Alberta gets its revenue from 3 major places, provincial income taxes, federal transfers and Oil and Gas royalties. 

The problem here in Alberta is that it DEPENDS on high oil prices to make its budget. If the oil price is down, Alberta finds itself running a big deficit. Alberta continues to stick it's head in the sand about planning for the future. It is like a lottery winner who keeps thinking there will be more lottery winnings in the future. 

Well the party is coming to an end. 

Forecasts for "peak oil" have been wrong before, but this is the first time they have actually been moved up by a year....from 2030 to 2029. More and more oil is being discovered. Some will argue that getting to that newly discovered oil under the ocean is expensive. However, when countries like Norway own their own oil company, they don't mind spending the extra money to get it. Because it still benefits them. In Alberta, we have sold out to the corporations, and they are not interested in anything that doesn't come easy. 

We are pretty clueless about what is happening around the world. Everything is becoming electric. Cars, home energy......gas and oil are being shown the door,  and the transition to electric is going to ramp up in the next few years faster than you know. 

Alberta needs to develop other ways to earn income. It will also have the massive environmental costs of cleaning up after the oil companies in the coming years. 

What can Alberta start looking at? Wind and solar, clearly. But this province is actually going in the other direction. It is insane that we do not have plans for a nuclear plant in the works as well. 

Alberta needs drastic action right now to find its way into the future. What are we going to replace oil and gas income with? All I see is more taxes and the continued selling out of our health care, and all government services. 

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