Talk:Economy of Alberta

Anon Essay
I am putting below the lengthy but POV and unsourced contribution an anon user left on the main page. Feel free to pick through it for usefull material. Kevlar67 01:41, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Dubai of the North
Due to the incredible amount of new oilsands production coming online currently and in the coming decade, Alberta is seeing a massive boom in everything from housing prices, to personal incomes and personal spending, numbers of new corporate head offices moving from Toronto to Calgary, government spending, budget surpluses, like last year's 7.4 billion dollars into the Alberta Heritage Fund, seen it's projected budget surplus go from 2005's 1.5 billion dollars (7.4 billion dollars actual) to 4.1 billion dollars, has become debt-free, cut taxes for corporations (to 10%), reduced healthcare premiums, frozen secondary education tuition for the last two years, and is currently conservatively estimating oil and natural gas prices in its current budget estimate, with oil being budgeted at 56 dollars a barrel. Oil currently is holding steady in the mid-60s per barrel, with predictions that global tensions and the summer driving season demand leading to even higher (and record) prices this summer, further ballooning an already massive budget surplus.

Alberta currently has a 3.1% unemployment rate, and would be growing faster if the planeloads of workers arriving in Fort McMurray, Alberta were coming any faster. Numerous new pipelines to the rest of Canada and parts of the United States are currently being built or on the drawing boards, spreading Alberta's surging oil production further around North America, but also all the way to China via a pipeline to the coast of British Columbia and onto Chinese oil supertankers. Interest and competition for Alberta's massive Athabasca Oil Sands has become increasingly internationalized, with French oil company Total recently announcing investment, Japan pledging to invest in the oil sands (most likely to decrease reliance on oil from the volatile Middle East), the People's Republic of China showing increasing willingness to acquire more stable canadian oil production, the United States of course showing a strong interest in new pipelines, and even India announcing it would be investing some 1 billion dollars (US) in Alberta oil sands. Investment in the oil sands alone is currently estimated at over 100 billion dollars (Canadian), and is forecast to grow massively as new projects are announced.

Much like Dubai, Alberta and its capitol city, Calgary, have become enormously important in the realm of international geopolitics due both to massive private industry growth resulting from massive oil revenues (and reserves) found in both areas and increasing deregulation. It may be a sign of this new-found power economically and politically that the current Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, represents a district in Calgary. Current Alberta Premier Ralph Klein has stated he wishes Alberta to have some of the lowest corporate taxes on earth due to a need to combat growing international competition for investment and its resulting higher economic growth. While perhaps not going as far as the city of Dubai when it comes to free-market reforms, Premier Klein has announced his controversial plan for the "Third-Way" health care plan, which would allow doctors to choose work either in the free market or provincial system. Doing so may violate the Canada Health Act, but due to the huge budget surpluses Alberta will likely enjoy for years to come, it may be able to fund such a system without the financial backing of the federal government.

Proposal: Merge
This article should be merged with the Economy section of the main "Alberta" article, and the economic info from the "Athabasca Oil Sands", and "Alberta Advantage" articles to create a new Economy of Alberta article. Kevlar67 07:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)


 * yes, it makes more sense to have a general economy article. The info could be added here, and the title changed to 'Economy in Alberta'. --Qyd 14:56, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Future improvements
Any others? Kevlar67 22:57, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * describe briefly each sector
 * breakdown by geography where each sector is most important
 * put into context (what % of GDP and % of workforce works in each sector)
 * mention largest employers
 * some brief history of the economy (booms and busts) {but also link to History of Alberta}

Intro
The intro fails to say anything about what the Alberta economy is all about and yammers on and on about how rich the province is. That has a place, to be sure, but it can be said far more succinctly and leave room for other important information on the subject (sectors, trade with other provinces and the US, growth rate etc). TastyCakes (talk) 16:30, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Table added
I created this sortable table for List of Canadian provinces and territories by gross domestic product and have also inserted it in this article. Oceanflynn (talk) 17:00, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
 * A table listing annual ""Gross domestic product (GDP) at basic prices, by industry, provinces and territories (x 1,000,000)." from 2014 through 2018 with value chained to 2012 dollars.

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:51, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Leduc oil.jpg