Dear Reader – welcome.
AbPolEcon.ca is the successor website to Albertarecessionwatch.com.
No more newspaper PDFs
AbPolEcon.ca has carried forward most of the content from Albertarecessionwatch.com but does not contain scanned PDF documents from Globe and Mail and Edmonton Journal articles. For readers who would like to see news articles related to blog postings, there are over 1800 news articles that are indexed into the classification system of this website. Please contact us for assistance.
Improved cross-referencing of posts
The migration of Albertarecessionwatch.com to AbPolEcon.ca includes improved cross-referecning of related articles.
What’s Coming
As Alberta moves closer to election day, posts will focus on the most pressing issues faced by the province. These issues include the rising polarization between environmental advocates and economic development proponents. This polarization is evident in the continuing battle over the Trans Mountain pipeline as NDP Premier Notley has staked her government’s future on “shovels in the ground” before election day. Less visible, but equally important to the energy industry is the emerging battle of who pays for the energy industry’s contamination. The Supreme Court will likely render judgment on the Redwater case in the next several months.
Abpolecon.ca will be following the evolution of the provincial government’s fiscal position. The First Quarter Fiscal Update, released at the end of August, showed improvements on the revenue side with expenses tracking pretty much to budget, producing a slightly lower $7.7 billion deficit for 2018-19.
As Albertans prepare for a spring 2019 election we will critically evaluate party platforms.
History
We will take a look back at fiscal and economic history of the province. The Provincial Archives of Alberta (PAA) is one of the unknown gems of the province. One of Archives’ gems includes the over-100 boxes of files donated by the late Treasurer Lou Hyndman. Memoranda, briefing notes, correspondence, and hand written notes provide a fascinating glimpse of the energy wars and the 1983 “rainy day budget.”
We analyze Alberta’s financial, economic and political development by looking back at the staples theory of the late Harold Innis. Innis, schooled at the University of Chicago at the beginning of the 20th century, is the father of the “staples theory” of economic development. His rich historical understanding of the evolution of the Canadian economy from the fish and fur trade to the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway are relevant today. Innis’s meticulous examination of communication and transportation systems underline the importance of geography and technology in Canada’s social, poltiical and economic development. Another important historical study is William Kilbourn’s classic history of the Pipeline Debate – Pipeline. His study, written nearly 50 years ago, illustrates the many similarities to today’s Trans Mountain debate.