We have just one generation left in which to convert the
Alberta Advantage (in non-renewable resource revenue) into a New
Advantage built upon renewable and sustainable energy and human
resources.
It is probably already too late to ever
build the Heritage Trust Fund into what it should have been. But by
sticking its head in the oilsands and deliberately ignoring the real
problem (i.e. government’s continuing reliance upon the energy-revenue
roller-coaster, against the global backdrop of ecologically induced
shifting demand and technologically induced over-supply), and
ideologically pretending that the solution is simply one of cutting
taxes and expenditures, this government risks squandering the few
opportunities we have left to get our transition to the low-carbon
economy right.
As a result, we may ultimately find
ourselves no better placed to face the conditions of the mid-21st
century than our neighbours in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. And that would
be no “Advantage” at all.
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