I spent some time in Alberta last week, enjoying interesting conversations with my oil-dependent friends. One particular interchange is worth noting.
Who Owns What?
We were talking about subsidies to the Oil Patch, and I noted in passing that “Nobody has 100% ownership of the country’s resources. The province doesn’t own them outright, and the federal government doesn’t own them either.”
I then went on to make another point, but I couldn’t help but notice that I had struck a nerve when I said, “The province doesn’t own them.” My friend was too much of a gentleman to pick a fight about it, but I could tell from his facial reaction that he disagreed with me.
And that’s too bad. Not unexpectedly, there is a feeling among those in charge of any single resource that they own it. I can recall B. C. logging interests complaining because, when it came to NAFTA bargaining, our rules and practices could be affected by policies designed to benefit Eastern logging interests.
The Next Step
Of course, then they noted that Equalization payments seemed to be flowing without end in an easterly direction. As with certain Albertans today, it was only a small step further to decide that if everybody wouldn’t play by their rules, they would take their ball and go home, and see how Canada likes it when we aren’t there.
Jump to B. C. today, where we are quite happy for our little dip from the Equalization barrel each year. It might come as a shock to Albertans riding high on the crest of the oil wave, but it is almost certain that, sometime in the next 50 years, oil will no longer be a driving force on the world stage. By that time, other provinces that have not been tied to old technology will be forced to bolster the prairie economies.
Like Buying Insurance.
The whole idea of getting together as a country is that all the strengths of everyone combine to counter all our weaknesses. As a landlocked province, Alberta must surely be aware of the necessity of cooperation with the rest of Canada, and even (shudder!) with the United States. Over time, it will all equal out, and if it doesn’t, then the winners can pat themselves on the back for helping everyone else in a true Canadian way.
Put it in simple terms. You own your house lot up to the point where the city needs to run a water line. Then it’s not so cut and dried.
The Bottom Line
If each home, city, and province were somehow allowed to have its own selfish control of its property, all those benefits would disintegrate into feudalism, a political system I thought had been pretty much discredited over the last 500 years ago.
Sometimes I’m not so sure.