Your watch: Your fault

Dear Editor

Re: Catastrophic Climate Change in Alberta

“How are you?” “I’m fine.” How often have you overheard or participated in this brief conversation when you knew the respondent was NOT fine? Sometimes a very long way from fine? Such was my thought last week (September 8) reading the Edmonton Journal’s front page headline, “Fires burned oilsands growth plans”. Especially after two subsequent conversations with real people; but I am getting ahead of myself.

The Journal article reported on Alberta’s chief energy economist, Matt Foss blaming the Fort McMurray wildfire last spring for energy companies putting on hold $1 billion in planned capital spending this year alone. “It [the fire] interrupted the logistics chain for them such that their ability to deploy workforce [blah, blah, blah] has them just hitting pause for the moment. Hopefully, they will resume here later this year or early next year.” I.e., “We’re fine!”

Come now Mr. Foss! Suncor’s unplanned outage at their Edmonton refinery early last summer for which the Fort Mac fire was only partially responsible shut down some PetroCanada stations for a week and caused a brief spike in gasoline prices. THAT was fine; blame the fire for that! Please don’t stretch your theory so far as to blame the flames for inducing Alberta’s oil and gas producers to “just hit pause for the moment” on a billion dollars per year of capital spending. I am sorry sir; our credulity is not quite so elastic!

Let me share with you Mr. Foss, a couple of other conversations later that day – with real people far from the blackened landscape around Fort McMurry. The first was with a petroleum bulk agent from whom I buy fuel. We were talking about trees (I am a forester), then Wildroses (I am not a horticulturist!). He said, “We have got to do something! I haven’t delivered a truckload [of fuel product] for two days. Sure, the rain is a factor, but I have never seen it this bad before.” He wasn’t talking about the weather Mr. Foss, he was talking about the climate – the economic climate in Alberta.

You see, 16 months ago Alberta experienced catastrophic climate change when we temporarily took leave of our senses and elected an NDP government. A government that values its ideological dogma more than the welfare of its citizens. A government that seems to care a great deal about promoting the variability of our children’s sexual orientation and not so much about the quality of their education. A government that imposes carbon taxes on all of us in order to subsidize their chosen few. A government that displays such a bi-polar (personal opinion – I am not a psychologist either!) lovehate relationship with the oil and gas industry that is our lifeblood. A government that wants Alberta taxpayers to subsidize their election spending. I could go on Mr. Foss, but I think you get my drift.

My second conversation on more or less the same subject was with someone who wears one of the public faces of a prominent local organization, which shall remain unnamed. The comment that gripped me and triggered this letter was, “People are drowning.”

People ARE drowning Mr. Foss! Unemployment is skyrocketing. Our provincial debt now exceeds our assets and is accelerating at a dizzying pace. Businesses are fleeing if they can, and hunkering down to try weathering the storm if they can’t. Food bank shelves and office towers are empty. Unemployment lines and auction yards are full. And you throw them a straw – a straw that doesn’t even float: “hopefully, they will resume here later this year or early next year.”

You see sir, the problem is not the fire; it is the climate. Businesses, entrepreneurs and ordinary Albertans feel they can no longer trust their government to put their best interests first, honor contracts, promote certainty and stability in the marketplace and practice genuine concern for our well-being at home. Until this climate of distrust changes to a climate of confidence and hope, all those billions of dollars will not return to Alberta. Not “later this year or early next year”; not until we have the chance to go back to the polls in 2019 and fix the mistake we made last year.

Sincerely,

Clyde Corser, President Wildrose West Yellowhead Constituency Association