{"id":305,"date":"2012-08-07T00:15:33","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T04:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sdaconseil.com\/blog\/?p=305"},"modified":"2012-08-09T07:54:54","modified_gmt":"2012-08-09T11:54:54","slug":"field-trip-albertas-dragonflies-the-rise-of-a-provincial-powerhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/?p=305","title":{"rendered":"FIELD TRIP : ALBERTA\u2019S DRAGONFLIES – the continuous rise of a provincial powerhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Montreal, 06 August 2012<\/p>\n

Dragonflies are big in Alberta.\u00a0 They are big enough to challenge your windshield on the TransCanada Highway at high speed.\u00a0 They come straight at you and manage to veer off at the last second.\u00a0 Amazingly none smashed in.\u00a0 They are powerful enough to rule the air in their own decided way.\u00a0 Just then, you know you are in a robust country.<\/p>\n

Large and robust pick-up trucks also rule the roads.\u00a0 They are increasingly driven by young workers surfing the oil boom.\u00a0 Alberta pays the highest weekly wages in Canada and has the lowest unemployment rate.\u00a0 It is on a roll:\u00a0 Production of crude oil is expected to double to 6 million barrels a day by 2030.<\/p>\n

It is also a boon for the rest of Canada.\u00a0 More than 10,000 workers have come from Newfoundland in the past two years only, far exceeding the 6,000 remaining fishermen in the province.\u00a0 Equalization payments from Alberta to Ottawa were close to $15 billion last year, of which approximately $7 billion ended in the coffers of Quebec.\u00a0 It is estimated that about 35,000 new jobs were created by the oil industry \u00a0in Alberta.\u00a0 That is quite a relief for the Eastern provinces struggling with growing health care costs, shaky pension funds, stubborn entitlement programs, budget gimmicks and tepid growth prospects.<\/p>\n

Now the dragonflies are moving to British Columbia.\u00a0 Mining and oil activities have picked up in a province that saw its forest industry dwindle in the last 10 years:\u00a0 Over 70 lumber mills closed down, shedding some 30,000 forestry jobs.\u00a0 China\u2019s demand has recently perked up the industry a bit, but then 99% of accessible old growth forest has already fallen to the chainsaws.\u00a0 Port Alberni, which gave birth to the BC lumber industry just before Victoria was founded 150 years ago, is now a pale self image.\u00a0 It is struggling.<\/p>\n

The stakes are now moving on to the oil pipelines in the province.\u00a0 The TransMountain pipeline, currently linking Edmonton to Burnaby, will see investments of $4.1 billion in the next few years to increase capacity from 300,000 barrels a day to 750,000 barrels a day.\u00a0 This means one super oil tanker a day will pass through the harbour of Vancouver, as opposed to merely one a\u00a0week today.\u00a0 Local beachgoers are getting a little nervous about this.<\/p>\n

On the table of negotiation is the projected Gateway pipeline from Edmonton to Prince Rupert.\u00a0 This is the next big oil project in the province \u00a0\u00a0Fights about the spoils have recently made the headlines news.\u00a0 Yet there is a lot of economic momentum behind this project and Greens might just have to compromise and bow to the combined political forces of Alberta and Ottawa.\u00a0 The rise of Alberta as a major international oil player hinges on those pipelines as they would not only\u00a0consolidate significantly higher volumes, but also fetch higher international prices!<\/p>\n

In the 1970s the rest of Canada did not need Alberta\u2019s might.\u00a0 This time around, the deck of cards is in their hands.\u00a0\u00a0 Oil is taken seriously there: The Oil Sands Review lies next to The Economist and Times magazines in most local newsstands.\u00a0 The Canadian Petroleum Hall of Fame, created in 1997, is as busy as it could be.<\/p>\n

Dragonflies will continue to rule.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Du Sault, MBA (LBS), MPA (Harvard)<\/p>\n

PS: sources \u00a0from \u00a0the Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, BC Business magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Montreal, 06 August 2012 Dragonflies are big in Alberta.\u00a0 They are big enough to challenge your windshield on the TransCanada Highway at high speed.\u00a0 They come straight at you and manage to veer off at the last second.\u00a0 Amazingly none smashed in.\u00a0 They are powerful enough to rule the air in their own decided way.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,3,7,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions\/315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdaconseil.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}