Alberta made mistakes

Dear editor: The numbers in this letter should scare the daylights out of concerned Canadians.

Several countries save and invest for the future. Canada did at one time, actually before Pierre Trudeau was elected in 1968; our dollar was worth $1.06 U.S. Our debt was $16.8 billion. Today the debt is $670 billion and rising.

When it comes to saving and investing a nation’s oil and gas wealth, Norway’s five million people are light years ahead of the rest of the world. Starting in 1974, about the same time Alberta started its Heritage Savings Trust Fund, Norway today with its North Sea Oil and gas-funded government pension plan owns one per cent of all the world’s free enterprise wealth.

Over the years, the Norwegians have saved and invested more than $2 trillion.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has the Norway numbers. One of the world’s largest investors, in 2012, the Norwegian fund grew by 18 per cent, the equivalency of $670 billion US.

The oil fund in 2012 had $800 billion invested. Norway spends about four to five per cent annually on infrastructure costs and government services.

After the U.S. sub-prime loans melt down, the Norwegian government wrote a cheque for $67 billion to bail out its banks, the fund balance after the cheque cleared was $572 billion. Five years later their fund was back to its original number of $1 trillion.

Alaska’s less than one million people’s oil and gas-funded permanent savings fund in 2015 had about $26 billion invested. Each citizen; man, woman and child in 2015 was paid a dividend of $1,877. The dividend for 2016 was $2,014.

Kuwait started its savings fund trust in 1953. By the time Iraq’s Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait before the first Gulf war, the fund was worth $300 billion; the same amount of money today as the Ontarian debt. Ontario is $300 billion in debt, with an annual operating deficit of $15 billion.

The Alberta Savings Trust Fund once had a value of $35 billion. Alberta’s numbers today are all over the map, some people say it is worth $17.5 billion, others say it is worth $2.1 billion.

The Albertans have sent more than $700 billion in equalization and transfer payments back east. Had that money been invested in the Heritage Savings Trust Fund since the beginning, the interest would have been more than $300 billion.

It is fair to say the Albertans have actually given away more than $1 trillion; unfortunately, most of that Alberta wealth transfer, has found its way into the rich and powerful Quebec establishment which has received thousands of federal grants and subsidies since 1962; beginning well before Trudeau was elected.

Had the Albertans kept their money invested at home; the Canadian dollar would not have been devalued by the IMF from its high of $1.06 U.S. to its lowest value in the 70s, 80s, and 90s to 62 cents U.S.

Ernie Slump Penticton