Highlights fromHighlights fromPalmer & Palmer,Palmer & Palmer,

“The Alberta Experience”“The Alberta Experience”

Main Thesis:Main Thesis:

- Alberta has experienced - Alberta has experienced fundamental changes, in rapid fundamental changes, in rapid succession, with little time to succession, with little time to adapt before the next fundamental adapt before the next fundamental changes hit.changes hit.

Economic ChangesEconomic Changes

• Shifts in the Staples Base of the Provincial Economyfur -> buffalo hides -> beef ->wheat -> oil -> gas -> heavy oil

• Recurrent Cycles of Boom & Bust1898 Klondike boom

1914 Turner Valley1930s Depression1950s post-Leduc boom1970s OPEC boom1982 Recession1986 Oil Price Crash1994 Klein revolution: austerity1997 oil & gas boom

Some Profound Social Some Profound Social Changes in AlbertaChanges in Alberta

•

•

Ethnic & Religious

Commerce

Urbanization

The State

Social Protest

Role of Women

External Shocks to AlbertaExternal Shocks to Albertaand Vulnerability to Boom and Vulnerability to Boom

and Bust Cycleand Bust Cycle

• 1968: Multinational oil companies’ flight to Alaska

• 1973 ff OPEC price increases• 1974-81 Energy war with federal

govt.• 1980 N.E.P. & recession thereafter• Early 80s High interest rates• 1986 Oil price collapse• Mid-90s Cutbacks on federal fiscal

transfers

• Alberta has one of the most unstable economies of all the provinces in Canada.

Sources of Sources of American Influence American Influence

in Albertain Alberta

• Oil industry’s close links with Houston, Denver, & Oklahoma

e.g., U.S. execs; career circuit

• Early settlement (pre-WWI) by American farmers incl. Mormons; close ties maintained

• Strong ties btwn fundamentalist religious groups in Alberta & their American counterparts

• American markets for Alberta’s staples (e.g., gas, wheat, beef)

• American TV (cable; satellite)

Bases of Right-Wing Bases of Right-Wing Support in AlbertaSupport in Alberta

• Nature of the Oil Industry: - large middle class; small blue collar class - integrated w/ USA (Republican influence)

• Selective In-migration

- ardent free-enterprise entrepreneurs

- Post WWII in-migration of persons with aversion to left-wing ideas (e.g., refugees from eastern Europe, British, Dutch, Amer.)

• Frontierism - individualism carried forward to today

- mythology of the boundless opportunities of the frontier

• Economic, religious, & social ties to Republican USA