Oh John, you're living in the GTA bubble of "we're always right and the rest of you are wrong"
When Alberta is prosperous, the nation prospers. End of story. The amount of tax outflows via transfers is enormous, both on the corporate side and the personal side. What do you think allows provinces like Quebec to fund all their special programs that everyone else would die to have? Equalization.
Alberta has 11.6% of the population of Canada, but contributes far more to GDP than every other province except Ontario. And even per Capita, we crush all other provinces, even in a DOWN year. 2017 we had $78K per person GDP contribution, Ontario was 55K. You may have 3.5x more people in Ontario, but your GDP contribution is only 2x Alberta. Lag much?
You can brag about tech, you can brag about banking, you can brag about Auto and other industries (hydro, LOL), but reality is we fund the bulk of the country.
We argue for pipelines primarily to assist in the disparity. Quebec causes more pollution allowing tankers to come in to the seaway and buying oil from Saudi Arabia than it would with a pipeline. BC causes far more pollution with cruiseliner traffic in a single day than the increase of tanker traffic would cause in a year.
Equalisation is simply a political program, not an economic one. If the numbers were revised *fairly*, transfers would not be the same. Quebec would not have $5 a day day care, the lowest university tuition in canada, etc, etc.
Oil companies just like every other company out there (all the big banks, lenders, and everyone else) operate to make a profit. They haven't raped shit, they've run businesses that employ people and feed the desperate need of canadian consumerism. Money is leaving the province because of stupid decisions made by the present government to discourage investment. You know how money works, it moves to where it sees the potential for the best return. Create a climate for investment, money comes in. Make it difficult, money moves out.
If ontarians actually took the time to read monetary reports, study economics, learn how the world really works you would understand why Albertans (and to an extend those from Saskatchewan) get so upset. We work hard, but we play hard. Our wealth isn't fake created from rising housing prices (caused partially by poor liberal monetary policy decisions with inflation in the 90's), it's created from a functioning economy that fuels so many subsectors it's not even funny.
I've lived in both provinces. I've seen people from all sides, I'm not going to spout that I'm an expert but I think I have a far better pulse to the ground than someone living in a bubble in Toronto. :)
