Oil price collapse Business Story of Year

CALGARY — The price of oil — and its far-reaching impact on the Canadian economy — has once again been voted The Canadian Press Business Story of the Year.

Editors and news directors across the country chose the crude collapse in a landslide with 24 votes. It’s the second year in a row that story got top billing in the annual survey.

“Was there any Canadian business story this year that wasn’t, in part, driven by tumbling oil prices?” asked Nicole MacAdam, senior editor at the Financial Post.

“From the ongoing struggles in the oilpatch, to the Bank of Canada’s decision to freeze (and possibly lower) interest rates, to market turmoil, stubbornly high unemployment, to the fall of the Harper government — the end of the oil boom has dominated the discourse this year, both in this country and around the world.”

A distant second with seven votes was ride-sharing service Uber’s aggressive foray into Canada — and the subsequent pushback from the taxi industry.

The slide in the loonie got three votes. Garnering two votes apiece were U.S. retailer Target’s retreat from Canada, the hacking of adultery site Ashley Madison and the travails of aerospace firm Bombardier.

After hitting a high near $108 US a barrel in mid-2014, West Texas Intermediate crude — a closely watched U.S. benchmark — is now below $40 US a barrel after spending much of this year below $50 US a barrel.

The result has been the loss of at least 40,000 Canadian industry jobs this year, huge revenue shortfalls in oil-producing provinces and a sharp drop in the Canadian dollar.

There’s no end to the doldrums in sight, with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries refusing to tighten the taps on their crude production, providing no relief to the global glut.

While the oil drop has had ripple effects across the country, Alberta has been hit particularly hard, announcing a $6.1-billion budget deficit in October.

Survey respondents who picked Uber as story of the year cited its political and technological ramifications. Pierre Champoux with Radio-Canada called Uber’s arrival a “game changer.”

Matthew Bisson, news director at Bell Media radio stations in Kingston, Ont., said “it’s a microcosm of a larger issue: old, faltering industries fighting the advancements of technology, and the new, share economy.”