I guess that explains why Alberta's premier announced new venture capital incentives to lure more technology companies to the province today.

Other effects of our oil boom never mentioned include forcing employers in other industries to pay more than minimum wage, or if they can't afford it or don't want to, as is the case of the greenhouse growers in Redcliff and Medicine Hat, Alberta, import cheap labour from Mexico and Thailand. Also you wouldn't believe the number of people driving enourmous gas-pigs like the Ford F350 for "work".

What a load of shit. Working folks responsible for high oil prices? What side of stupid did the author bite?

Anytime workers have leverage, it inspires dismay and outrage in their overlords. History is filled with examples of violent responses of business owners to workers who had the temerity to try to organize themselves into unions and demand their fair share. If only it were somehow possible to crate-up and move the oil-rich areas of Alberta to China, those poor, suffering oil companies could enjoy the same higher profit margins as the rest of their fellow cheap-labor corporatists, who have only to move their factories to the land of the properly-compliant worker. Instead, because they're dealing with trying to exploit an immoveable natural resource, they're stuck with uppity western workers who believe in claptrap like this:

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

-Abraham Lincoln

...is going to happen.

Peak-oil will creep upon us, like crabs in the pot, the water temperature getting a little hotter, and a little hotter...we keep adapting..until a crisis point is reached..then, we're toast. Gasoline supplies dry up and....make your own scenario. None of them will be very pretty.

Or, the Saudis will keep camouflaging their flagging production until they can't hide it any longer, even with the cooperation of 1st world governments and mainstream media... Cantarell begins its steep decline, we can't find any immediate new sources of oil...and, BOOM, no creeping catastrophe, rather, it hits us in the face like a piano from five floors up.

Either way, things are gonna get very, very ugly. I really don't see how we avoid it now. It's just a matter of time. Short time, really. Cantarell is in decline now. Informed opinion is that Saudi production is stagnant, in spite of quite frantic efforts by Aramco to drill new wells. The North Sea is declining at nearly 20% per year.

Even if first-world oil companies, somehow, find a way to make up part of the decline from the big producers, we're still looking at something like 5-10% world oil production declines per year, in the very near future. That will be catastrophic right there. Let alone 20%. That's the apocalypse.

We're fucked, folks. And oil sands and oil shale are NOT going to save us.

I wish it were not so. I love my affluent life in La-La land. But it can't last. I see this town from downtown, a town that will be almost totally unable to function without fossil fuel for transportation, and I wonder what in HELL to do. What will any of us do?

CDN$ or US$? Inquiring minds wanna know...

Not that the differential is all that great these days...

Peak oil problems? Too funny.

Obviously the author is completely unfamiliar with the entire concept of supply and demand.

I work for a engineering and scientific consulting company in Alberta that specializes in... amongst other things... environmental remediation of decommissioned oil and gas sites.

The labour market in Alberta for skilled tradesmen as well as professionals such as engineers and scientists is so tight right now practically every company in Calgary is recruiting overseas. We just hired a dozen PhD and Master's level candidates from the UK as the well has quite simply run dry inside Canada.

And as on a conecpt as it must be to the author that's driven the salaries through the roof at the same time. As well as all the associated costs of living. For example my condo's resale value has quite literally gone up over 200% in the last three years.

Is it surprising that tradesmen want more cash? Not terribly when you consider the cost of an "average" home in Fort McMurray is approximately $650,000 today.

I won;t even bother with the rest of his article as it's just more of the usual peak oil, global warming you can find all over the net.

Next time the author wants to write about peak oil and global warming he needs to just stick to that... his grasp of the economic situation here in Alberta and the actual business of the oil industry is so weak he certainly has no business commenting on it.

A point in case is his out of context quote about operating margins... unlike operating in a place like Venezuela or Nigeria where you have to have double digit percentage margins due to the risks of doing business there a 7-8% margin is considered acceptable by all the major firms in Alberta as no one is worried about having their assets nationalized or blown up.

Stick to the alarmism... real commentary isn't your forte.

The quest for oil and the money flowing in the province has washed away all sense of common sense. I'm so happy I don't live there anymore.