WHY CUTTING OIL PRODUCTION SEEMS UTTERLY UN-ALBERTAN

The Question is about: Why cutting oil production seems utterly UN-Albertan? That’s why the choice by the provincial government to order a production cut. By the industry flies within the face of what percentage Albertans self identify.

The province’s free-market spirit is set aside when money and jobs are on the line. Alberta is meant to be the house of the free-market in the province of privatization. It’s a wide open-market to sell brew-age, wine, cannabis, and insurance of each kind.

Take a test for your driver’s license and the person in the right-hand passenger seat works for a business, not the government. The province is often seen as a libertarian hotbed with the common view that less government is better government.

THE HEART OF FORMER PREMIER

Ralph Klein Alberta advantage mystique as he served up massive government cuts and promoted a free-enterprise ethos in the 1990s. It’s the place wherever business ought to thrive, and there is no want for government assistance.

That’s why The Canadian provincial government choose the industry that appears rather UN-Albertan to cut compulsory production.

The move flies in the face of how many people in the province self-identify. It’s especially uncharacteristic if one pictures what’s happened in recent weeks. The majority of the oil patch pleading with the left-leaning NDP government to interfere in the market.

A BIG STEP 

Mandatory production cuts to be on the oil sector by Alberta. A measure aimed at reducing an oil glut that’s punished the price of Canadian crude. Mandated oil production cuts are the kind of thing that’s expected from Saudi Arabia and OPEC, not Canada. 

RICHARD MASSON

To have a government intervene in a free market, which will create winners and losers, is just such a big step from the past 30 years of a deregulated marketplace. 

An executive fellow at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy who has three decades of experience in oil sands development, energy marketing, and finance. 

He said, “It’s right up there with the most difficult things Alberta has ever had to do”. In recent years, the oil industry has aired complaints about government policies driving away investor confidence. Now, it’s the majority of the oil patch wanting government intervention, precisely what investors traditionally dislike.

It’s like inviting poker players to a casino where the dealer might change the game on the fly. It seems free-market beliefs are set aside when tens of millions of dollars are being lost every day and job losses are set to mount.

Make no mistake, the financial pain was already starting to hit the oil patch and experts say widespread say-offs, spending cuts, and company bankruptcies were on the horizon. 

GOVERNMENT HAS TO ACT ON WHY CUTTING OIL PRODUCTION?

There is a feeling in Alberta that the economy is fragile. While the province has slowly climbed out of a recession. It’s hit associate degree slick with the recent oil worth collapse. Therefore the economy could fall straight back into a downturn. 

PETER DONOLO

There are times when the government has to act. Vice-chairman of public relations firm Hill Knowles Strategies Canada. He points to former Prime minister Stephen Harper putting aside his free-market beliefs to bail out General Motors in 2009. 

THE QUESTION NOW IS, WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS?

The fact about why cutting oil production is. Canadian oil costs fall so much below costs elsewhere in North America somewhat oftentimes. Former premier Alison role player represented it. Because the “bitumen bubble” in 2013 as oil prices were about $35 US lower per barrel in Alberta compared to the U.S. benchmark.

In January 2018, the outage of the Keystone pipeline was one reason the differential swelled to recently. Canadian oil sold-out at a reduction of over $50 North American nation per barrel. However, it’s narrowed in recent days to around $30 North American nation.

Over the last decade, the oil discount has become more than $20 US per barrel at least 10 different times. 

PAST INTERVENTIONS

Alberta does have a history of government intervention, whether it was former premiers William Aberhart printing money during the Great Depression of the 1930s or Peter Lougheed’s government owning several Crown corporations including an airline during the 1970s and 1980s.

Lougheed, too, mandated boring cuts in his battle with the central. Still, the newest boring cut by the government would seem to run counter to the Canadian province psyche.

Free markets area unit the answer to each drawback that society faces. That’s simply not true. Even a few months ago, most observers would not have guessed the majority of Alberta’s. Oil-patch would lobby the provincial government to meddle with the market.

It looks everybody needs government out of their method, till there’s one thing. The government will do to assist them, even in Canadian province.