Trudeau’s a good talker. I’d really like to see some action to go with the words though. Preferably actions that don’t bankrupt the country.

Axman: “I’d really like to see some action to go with the words though. Preferably actions that don’t bankrupt the country.”

Oh, you mean like his predecessor did? Trudeau inherited the current problems, same as Notley in Alberta. The Cons are truly adept at bailing out of office as soon as the economic handwriting appears on the wall telling them they’ve raided the public purse (our natural resources) long enough to the tune of their corporate handlers and it’s time to go, leaving the lefties to hold the (now empty) bag.

Oh, you mean like his predecessor did?

——

I didn’t say anything about his predecessor. Harping on the past isn’t conducive to solving our problems. And neither is endless talking or photo ops.

You must have really liked Harper and his party, you can’t seem to stop talking about them.

Trudeau talks about infrastructure, well with pipelines, LNG there is about 25 billion right there in infrastructure.

Time to put your adult boots on Trudeau, oh wait the big boys don’t want to play with you, reference the ISIS meeting.

You can also forget about Energy east . Montreal mayor has say NO . Further he says , the benefits do not out weigh the risks .

Diversification a good idea?

Sure it is.

But…diversification to what?

Lots of people have been saying we need to diversify our local economy beyond the forest industry of lumber and pulp.

Ok, what?

Ontario had a much more diversified economy but a high regulatory burden, high taxes and government mandated “renewable green” energy makes them uncompetitive and they’re suffering as a result. Are you going to reverse all that Mr. Trudeau?

Talk is cheap but reality isn’t.

Axman … you did not have to say anything about his predecessor. You did, however, call Trudeau a good talker, implying that he is not a person of action. Your sentiment is showing through loud and clear and does not change much on this topic.

Well, his predecessor was in his place for one term where he was at the helm of a large, non-economically diversified country. His priority should have been to attempt to diversify it. However, he thought the oil was going to keep on flowing. Well, he was wrong and did not take any reasonable steps to build a nest egg for Canada as well as Alberta for such times as we are seeing now.

One cannot turn the inaction of a previous government around in two months at the helm. A budget is due in March. We may see one delivered earlier than that. We are seeing some hints on what it might contain, such as a billion buck to Alberta and Saskatchewan to help them out of a problem they have created themselves with the help of the Feds at the time.

There is a new ball game for Canada and several other countries caught with their pants down on the oil situation. Norway is even worse off with their Krone plunging more than the C$ against US currency. A quarter of their economy in the last decade or more was dependent on oil. They had a fund of over 5.534 trillion Norwegian Krones built up at the end of September 2014. That was US857 billion at that time.

At today’s exchange rate, unless a substantial amount is salted away in US currency, it is valued at US$608.7 billion. Still, that is US$608.7 billion more than Alberta and Ottawa had stashed away for the current scenario. Actually it is worse than that. Alberta had twice created a rainy day fund and twice had depleted it because they were overspending. During good economic times.

So, for those wanting to ask a Federal Liberal government to step in and solve the problems of Alberta/Saskatchewan and the problems of a country left without a proper economic diversification strategy and fix it within 2 months of being elected is being rather disingenuous, and totally unrealistic. This will take more than just a year to turn around. This will take a whole new mindset for those in the Canadian Parliament and government administration as well as their counterparts in each of the provinces.

Of course, I do not expect the mindsets of those who spout off their mouths without thinking on the many web comment sections to change over that time. That is just the new “human nature” that we are seeing as a result of easily accessible places for the idle generation to vent no matter which side of the political spectrum they happen to fall. None of us will be changing our minds to fast. Most of us a much too long in the tooth to have decades of character building be interrupted by objectivity.

Dirtman wrote: “Ontario had a much more diversified economy but a high regulatory burden, high taxes and government mandated “renewable green” energy makes them uncompetitive and they’re suffering as a result.”

You obviously do not realize that most other western industrial countries and even countries such as Russia have government mandated “renewable green” energy policies. Why do you think European prices of gasoline at the pump is so much more expensive that the US and Canadian prices? They increased the prices over 4 decades ago to a price which would mean we would be paying C$2 to C$3/litre and more.

YET, virtually all those countries are relying on their people resources, their knowledge, their skills to compete in the goods as well as service industries.

So, you are saying we cannot do that, dirtman. Sounds to me that is what you are saying.

Dirtman has it right. Diversify to what?? Notice no one attempts to answer the question.

This BS about Alberta spending all their money and not saving it for a rainy day has about run its course. Your choices were clear, keep taxes down, build the economy and create jobs, or sit on your ass and count your oil dollars.

For all the time that Norway sat on their money and taxed the hell out of their citizens they did not gain a stroke. In fact they actually lost billions of dollars because the economy went for a tailspin.

So sitting on your money (rainy day fund) and doing nothing with it is nothing more than an exercise in futility, and is something that people like to spout off about, but it really is a tempest in a teapot.

Same thing goes for blaming Harper for the problems of the oil industry, or the state of the economy. Lets keep in mind that the Conservatives are not a left wing Government, and as much as possible leave the economy, and the creation of jobs etc; to private enterprise.

As the situation stands to-day business in Canada is sitting on 600 billion in cash, and hasn’t got the balls to invest it, or pay it out to share holders. That’s where a big part of the problem lies.

Canadian business is waiting for the USA to tell them what to do. Whats new??

Trudeau is merely a puppet, that is being manipulated by the old Liberal party, and we will get the same from him, as we did from previous Liberal Governments. ie; Nothing. Trudeau can talk, but the bottom line is I sincerely doubt that he can produce anything.

I believe that we will rue the day, that we elected this bunch of losers,. Trudeau was elected by a politically juvenile group of people with an anti Harper bent, and has no program to bring to the table, other than deficit spending on infrastructure. What a laugh.

Axman … you did not have to say anything about his predecessor. You did, however, call Trudeau a good talker, implying that he is not a person of action.

——-

That’s a bit of a stretch on your part. I implied nothing, as a matter of fact I stated I want to see some action.

Yes you stated that, 2 months after the government took over and are still wondering where their offices are and their files and trying to hire people to assist them in their various ministerial roles, let alone talk to the deputy ministers to be briefed on the real situations rather than the situations as described through political electioneering jargon.

You lack of reality is showing.

Ataloss. You are quite right about the pipelines not going anywhere fast. We have a new situation. Provinces are flexing their muscles when Ottawa tries to govern them in areas where they have not authority. Provinces are taking note from the First Nations. When it comes to the environment and ALL the resources whether it is recreation or industry based, people are concerned.

I had posted on this site a little while ago about a discussion I had with a fellow from the US who was working in the Saskatchewan oil industry near the border with Alberta. He was telling me that they have no way to get their product to market. I thought, at the time, that the pipeline could go east to the existing and possibly new refineries and we would then not have to import gasoline and oil from the southern USA. He set me straight on that very quickly. Plain and simple, they were landlocked and the only way out the oil companies could see is use rail. Well, Cherry Point, the largest refinery in Washington state improved their rail spur about 2 years ago for that very reason. We are not the only country with such “problems”.

Who do we have to blame? Those who want to transport dangerous goods such as oil and have not been building in sufficient safeguards into their systems and especially seem to have taken spill response measures far too lightly.

Let me bring that notion from my previous post a bit closer to home.

As part of the infrastructure improvement projects proposed by the Feds, how about the RDFFG and the City join forces in asking Ottawa to move the CN Railyards from downtown to somewhere out of town, even if it is just to the Fraser flats to the east, closer to industry, so that the chances of PG being involved in an incident such as Lac-Mégantic is mitigated.

That move will likely be supported by CN since they are very restricted in the first avenue shunting yards with the length of trains common today.

At the same time, it would open up the river front to recreational as well as higher density residential and associated commercial activities such as we can see with the winery on the north side of the Nechako.

Pal that’s pretty narrow thinking . The tools at his disposal are much deeper than a deficit . One of those other tools is cppib.ca . He could engineer a pretty Big Bang out of that one alone .

Palopu wrote: “So sitting on your money (rainy day fund) and doing nothing with it is nothing more than an exercise in futility.”

Who do you think is actually “sitting” on that money? That money is invested just like most funds are invested. It might be invested in gold bullion, it might be invested in Swiss Francs, it might be invested in mining, in Hong Kong small business ventures …. generally it is invested in DIVERISIFIED (there is that nasty word again .. LOL) enterprises.

Please do your self and all of us a favour and learn a bit more about the topics you chose to post on.

If you check out their investments in 2015 I’m sure you would find them as bizarre as I do . We are the proud owners of a U.S. Pet food producer . Huh ???? And all that Chinese infrastructure ? While our bridges are falling down ?

There you go Palopu, Ataloss just gave you another example. Talk to the unions and their investments in for their member’s retirement funds. Also WorkSafeBC and their investments to cover their claims liabilities with the money they collect from industry. ICBC does the same…. we could go on and on …. it is the standard and also the best practice.

Only hermits stash their money away in their socks under the mattress and have it go up in flames.

gopg2015, you seem to have lots of time on your hands, so perhaps you might be able to research and let us know if Norway has been selling it’s oil at “world” prices over, let’s say the last 40 years and how much did they collect in royalties?

Then, perhaps you might research and let us know what price land-locked Alberta was selling it’s oil at for the last 40 years, and how much was collected in royalties!

Then, you might be able to find out and share with us how much oil was produced and sold in Norway and in Alberta, how much money was generated from the sales and how much was collected in royalties by Norway and by Alberta.

I’m not defending Alberta, but Norway is a very small country producing lots and lots of offshore oil and selling it at world prices. Alberta doesn’t have but would like to have the ability to sell it’s oil at world prices!

Comparing Alberta to Norway seems a bit unrealistic!

Posted on Thursday, January 21, 2016 @ 11:04 AM by gopg2015 with a score of 0

Yes you stated that, 2 months after the government took over and are still wondering where their offices are and their files and trying to hire people to assist them in their various ministerial roles, let alone talk to the deputy ministers to be briefed on the real situations rather than the situations as described through political electioneering jargon.

You lack of reality is showing.

—–

Good Grief. If any elected official is still “…wondering where their offices are…” we’re in a whole heap of trouble.

Has Trudeau been in the country long enough to talk to anyone?

Do you seriously believe they entered the election without a transition plan in place?

Gopg the noninvestor class can’t be taught anything . Can’t be told or shown anything . They are in their noninvestor vicious circle and won’t ever get out . I witnessed this first hand with our Share Plan at my corporate job . Even though the plan was like a 6% raise . Most were averse . Some even went as far as to call it evil , saying for me to gain others would have to lose . No amount of explaining it helped . In stead of teaching coding , schools should be teaching finacial literacy .

Yes, it is part of what I call functional illiteracy. When I use that term, there are very few that actually understand what that means.

We all have some level of functional illiteracy.

Palopu wrote: “Lets keep in mind that the Conservatives are not a left wing Government, and as much as possible leave the economy, and the creation of jobs etc; to private enterprise.”

Simple, isn’t it. I am going to allow myself to exaggerate a bit as others do so often. So a right wing government is one that gets elected to do nothing; to let the country be run by industry; to remove good practices standards because those are restrictive to industry; to let industry self-manage.

I seem to recall some sort of a banking crisis in the USA about a decade ago … something about subprime mortgages and the whole economy taking a nosedive when the rubber band was stretched to its limits and it snapped. The US of A is just now starting to get out of that after bailing out the banks (you know, private industry) and starting to bail out some of the people still left holding the bag of a residential mortgage which is higher than the current value of their house.

Now the US of A is starting to recover, at a time when the rest of the world was just starting to get used to a low US$. So, we, in the rest of the world, are getting the shaft on both the downward slide and the upward slide of the game the single most powerful country in the world is playing with the rest of us.

On the downward slide our manufacturing economy was starting to hurt because our largest trading partner was not buying as much anymore. Now we are hurting on the upward climb because our resource sector (primarily energy) is not competitive when cheaper oil is abundant even in the USA and our big investment in the expensive bitumen extraction industry is going for a dive.

So, for decades, Central Canada gave equalization payments to provinces like Alberta, and the only thing people are now posting is the fact that Alberta gave equalization payments to the rest of Canada for the last decade.

Does anyone understand that we are one country? Does anyone understand that reasonable counties take care of those living in the country, no matter where they live?

What is wrong with this country and its people? This is not the country I thought I grew up in. This is not the country I think the world thought we were.

My better half was born in the USA and grew up in a staunch Republican household. (I think that is a Springsteen song .. LOL)

We both agree that the Republicans of today are no longer the Republicans of the era we grew up in. As far as I am concerned the Conservative Party of today is not the Progressive Conservative Party of the 1950s onward until the days of Joe Clark brought on some new right wing thinker under the new banners of Reform and Alliance.

It is those who are the Conservatives of today. It is the Republican Tea Party we see in the south, the latest aberration being “The Donald” who has absolutely no sense of diplomacy and is the proverbial bull in a china shop. Even Putin has better diplomacy.

As I see it, we have to get ourselves out from under such leadership. A Hitler type can easily come to power if that point of view is allowed to fester for too long.

Axman wrote: “Good Grief. If any elected official is still “…wondering where their offices are…” we’re in a whole heap of trouble.”

It is normal. Even our Conservative MP sent out news releases which referred to him as the Honourable …. when he was just elected as a newbie and was not a member of the ruling party and was also not a Minister and thus not a member of the Privy Council. The title was a mistake. It was made by someone in the office, and, if it was vetted before release by him was also a mistake made by him.

How long does it take you to get used to a new job when you moved form one company to another? Perhaps you never did that. Perhaps you never were involved in an office reorganization of over 300 people over a two moth period while still having to do the old job of being a productive member of an organization yet not knowing quite what your role was and who you were supposed to work with and are you getting some private file of your predecessor, if there even was such a person or will you start fresh.

The lack of understanding of some of the people on here of the realities of the world of work, and then throw in having to work out of a hotel room, finding a place in Ottawa, getting movers for your private stuff, facing the realities of your family needs, celebrating Xmas and New years, overcoming a winter cold and on and on it goes …… it dimply boggles the mind.

Sorry, if find the whole thing bizzare. No wonder this country is in trouble. Obviously people like you have no desire nor expertise to help to fix it.

gopg2015, re your comment:

“I seem to recall some sort of a banking crisis in the USA about a decade ago … something about subprime mortgages and the whole economy taking a nosedive when the rubber band was stretched to its limits and it snapped. The US of A is just now starting to get out of that after bailing out the banks (you know, private industry) and starting to bail out some of the people still left holding the bag of a residential mortgage which is higher than the current value of their house.”

If you are going to mention the USA sub-prime mortgage fiasco in such a manner as to possibly denigrate the “right wing” side of things, then you also need to mention that part of the problem needs to be laid at the feet of the “left wing” and their insistence that each and every American should have the right to own their own home!

Unrealistic absurd low mortgage rates were given to people that had no business owning their own home, as their financial situation clearly did not support any ability to qualify for a regular mortgage at the rates of the day!

But the left wing was delighted at how many Americans were then able to buy their “own” home!

The Democrats clearly played a major role in the creation of the artificially low mortgage rate programs that were used to get so many “unqualified buyers into the home ownership market.

The chickens certainly came home to roost when all of those artificially cheap mortgage renewed, and renewed at “normal” rates, leaving many, many, many no longer able to meet their payment obligations!

Can’t blame the Republicans! Can’t blame the Democrats!

Actually, they all had a part to play in that fiasco!

Seems no end to the spewing of inane statements to-day. A Hitler type coming to power in Canada??? Give me an example as to how that might happen. Perhaps we would have a putsch on the Parliament. Or perhaps someone would stand up and declare us a Republic. Hmmm.

Trying to tie private industry in the USA to the subprime problem or Enron is just a convenient way to muddy the waters. Those types of problems were either criminal or borderline criminal, and in some cases people went to jail because of them.

The American free enterprise system cannot and should not be judged by these types of endeavours. You need to look at their economy as a whole, from manufacturing, to farming, to tourism, the film industry, etc; etc; etc;. That’s what drives America, and that’s what could drive Canada, if we had anyone in this Country other than Jim Pattison that was willing to invest some money.

Most of our industry is owned by the Americans or other Countries, because we sit back on our asses and complain and do very little.

If you look at North Central BC for the past 30/40 years you will see without a doubt that any talk of investment other than mining is just talk. No actual money invested, no new industry, and guess what?? Nothing on the books except more of the same. Mega Government give away with Site C built by tax dollars, and LNG. With LNG we are 30 years late and a dollar short.

Posted on Thursday, January 21, 2016 @ 10:37 AM by gopg2015

You obviously do not realize that most other western industrial countries and even countries such as Russia have government mandated “renewable green” energy policies. Why do you think European prices of gasoline at the pump is so much more expensive that the US and Canadian prices? They increased the prices over 4 decades ago to a price which would mean we would be paying C$2 to C$3/litre and more.

YET, virtually all those countries are relying on their people resources, their knowledge, their skills to compete in the goods as well as service industries.

So, you are saying we cannot do that, dirtman. Sounds to me that is what you are saying.
=====================================
European gas prices at the pump have always been much higher than here due to lots more taxes. It’s the price of electricity that’s hurting Germany (and Ontario) now due to the cost of “green” generation. People, resources, knowledge, skills and especially technology are what help any country compete, including China, India, Taiwan, Indonesia etc who don’t have similar high costs and regulatory burden but just as much entrepreneurship. Germany (and we too) has to compete against the whole world, not just other countries with similar costs and regulations.

Palopu wrote: “Most of our industry is owned by the Americans or other Countries.”
Is it? Most means more than 50%. Show me with facts.
“because we sit back on our asses and complain and do very little.” Do not use the internet blog commentators as representative of Canadians.
Foreign ownership means that more than 50% of a company is owned by a non Canadian entity. The notion that foreigner owned Canada is one that goes back to the 1960s. You are showing your age. Post 1980, that was no longer a common concern. Canadians owned solid corporations in other countries as well. Stats Canada uses Foreign Direct Investment statistics as indicators of foreign investments. Some of those would be through majority shares.
From Statscan foreign direct investment (stocks) stats for the five-year period of 2010 to 2014 inclusive. The figures for the years shown are:
1. Canadian direct investment (FDI) abroad (millions of C$)
2. Foreign Direct investment (FDI) in Canada (millions of C$)
3. Canadian investment abroad in excess of foreign investment in Canada (balance of investment)
4. Balance of Investment shown as a percentage.
2010 : $637,285 : $592,406 : $44,879 : 7.58%
2011 : $675,020 : $603,455 : $71,565 : 11.86%
2012 : $704,335 : $633,778 : $70,557 : 11.13%
2013 : $761,550 : $691,942 : $69,608 : 10.06%
2014 : $828,812 : $732,263 : $96,549 : 13.19%

Finding information about Canadians investing in Canadian enterprises is a bit more difficult. Maybe someone can help us with that.

Just as in any other trade, foreign ownership and investment works both ways in today’s world.

Specific to the USA the 2014 figures of Foreign Direct Investment was:

Outward FDI (stock), CDIA, 2014 : C$349,965.0 million
Inward FDI (stock), FDIC, 2014 : C$361,372.0 million

Pretty well even ….

“Stephen Harper harped on about Canada’s resources (oil) but Trudeau wants the world to see Canadians as resourceful”. I saw PM Zoolander give his “resources” vs “resourcefulness” speech. What embarrassing tripe. Nice play on words though. To bad it was on the world stage and not in drama class. Ya, “Canada is back”, with an immature elitist selfie sucking snowboard instructor at the helm. But he isn’t Harper, hey gopg2015.

Dirtman wrote: “People, resources, knowledge, skills and especially technology are what help any country compete.”

My words were people resources, (note there is no comma between people and resources)

It means two different things.

Okay, so at the end of the day I have learned that we should not diversify, that we should continue to strengthen our oil extraction capability and capacity and put all our money into that.

I agree, instead of giving Alberta and Saskatchewan a billion dollars. we should give them the who piece of the infrastructure improvement pie and subsidize our oil extraction resources to the hilt. We will do like some places are doing and giving people money to take the oil away.

Thanks for the education….

that should be: “the whole piece”

I need to invest $30 in a new keyboard infrastructure

Your losing any audience you might have had gus. As Palpou has asked over and over, diversify into what? Subsidize some wind mills? Ask Ontario how that’s working out. Free tuition? In my life time I have heard every government in every Province I have lived in spew “diversification”. Maybe we try making toothpicks again with a big subsidy. Maybe furniture, maybe AI, maybe satellite building. Give us some insight into what you would have government
do?

Harper’s way was low taxes, less red tape(that doesn’t mean do what ever), lower trade barriers and let the private sector get at it. I totally agree with this. Government can’t boil water without scalding someone and you expect them to drive the boat. Canada is littered with train wrecks of corporate welfare in the name of diversification. Bombardier comes to mind. I could google many more but Gus knows how.

Short of that your a posting idiot, blowing the same crap smoke that zoolander is

I think we are a bit late to talk about diversification. We started in the opposite direction when Mulroney gave us free trade. Most of our secondary industry went south and China picked up the remainder.

We no longer control our own destiny. When the wealth of our country belongs to 1% of the elites in our society. The debt of the middle class is %170 of their income.

How about some thought to solve this problem.
Cheers

I wonder if people get confused when Canadian companies are owned by or controlled by US investors. Statistics would show as being from a Canadian company but in fact the company is majority owned by Americans, or other investors.

As an example. Sears Canada is 51% owned by Sears Holdings a US company,.

Shell Canada is controlled by Shell Energy North America in Houston Texas,.

Imperial Oil is a **Canadian Co.** with 69.6% owned by US company Exxon.

On and on it goes. So even though they are legally registered as Canadian Companies, they are in fact American, or Foreign owned.

CN Rail majority shareholder is Bill Gates with 12.67% of the shares. No one person or company can own more than 15% of CN Rail shares, however Americans own a lot of shares, and if you look at CN’s board of directors you would see that they are mostly American.

Tim Hortons is owned by US company Burger King.

Husky Energy Inc is a so called Canadian company controlled by Hong Kong Billionaire Li Ka-Shing.

So there you have it. They may appear to be Canadian Co’s however they are in fact owned by Americans, or Foreigners .

Have a nice day.

Actually R2 , that’s 171 debt to income ratio . Part of will solve itself . Once christy et al figure out that they can charge up transportation at night . There by having a huge market for the bchydro monopoly when the prices fall . There by keeping BCs transportation capital here rather than going to some refiner . All she has to do is the math . Must be a tightrope her brain must have to walk when she thinks about energy .

Pal , when did the Brazilian finance company sell Tim Hortons ? I missed that one .

gopg2015, earlier in this discussion you brought up Norway as an example of how to put away oil royalties for future use, something that you criticized Alberta for not doing!

I asked if you wouldn’t mind doing a comparison of the amount of oil produced by both jurisdictions and the revenue generated from royalties, considering that Norway is able to sell it’s production at world prices while Alberta does not have that luxury.

Obviously you have been to busy to do your normal research and that’s ok, because there really wasn’t any need to bother in the first place as I was just trying to make a point!

Speaking of making a point, I just saw something on Facebook that made me think of you. Someone posted an image to the “Albertans Against the NDP” page that stated:

“Since 2007, Quebec has accepted 73 Billion in Transfer Payments. I think we found Alberta’s Trust Fund!”

Gee, I guess that Norway not only had the benefit of world prices, they also didn’t have Quebec suckling on their teat!

In the future, perhaps we should compare apples to apples, instead of Norway to Alberta, haha!

The question is not what industries can Canada compete in on the world economic stage. In a free enterprise system that is up to investors to decide.

The question should be what does Canada need to do to provide a competitive investment climate to encourage the development of such businesses. That is the role of government although government can encourage certain sectors to develop more than others if it is of national interest by providing improved opportunities to entrepreneurs. I do not think there is any significant economically successful country which does not do that.

The answer to improving the competitive investment climate does not lie in reducing corporate tax levels. If it did, the USA would be one of the worst countries to invest in since it has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, something which most people seem to either not know or conveniently forget.

One of the answers is to encourage the growth of Small and Medium-size Enterprises since we have been finding that it is a fundamental component of a healthy economic development. SMEs are a significant source of employment and also help to stimulate innovation, economic dynamism, and competition.

Key indicators of SME development and promotion in developed countries.
First % = Contribution to National GDP
Second % = Contribution to National Employment

Germany = 57% : 70%
Italy = 55% : 71%
Japan = 52% : 70%
Great Britain = 52% : 56%
USA = 52% : 50%
France = 50% : 57%
Canada = 43% : 47%

Source = Best Practices Guide for a Positive Business and Investment Climate – OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe)

saudi arabia = 8,865,000
russia = 7,201,000
kuwait = 2,300,000
iran = 1,808,000
iraq = 2,235,000
nigeria = 2,500,000
uar = 2,595,000
angola = 1,738,000
venezuela = 1,712,000
norway = 1,680,000
canada = 1,579,000

The above are the estimated daily production of oil (bbl/day) for the top 11 oil producers in the world for 2012.

The difference between Norway and Alberta are two-fold. Alberta oil is very expensive oil while Norwegian oil is relatively cheap to extract. The WTI price versus the Brent price is not a significant factor when compared to the cost of production.

Also the royalties received per barrel are not a significant factor. It is the mindset of the population of what to do with the financial gains from the oil. Alberta set up the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund. It is the model Norway used. Norway ran with it, Alberta decided they did not care about building a nest egg for future generations.

Then there are the transfer payments to Quebec, the Maritimes, Manitoba and for a few years to BC as well. While we are at that, we must remember that Alberta used to be the recipient of transfer payments at one time as well. If they had salted away the oil money as Norway did, they may not have had as much as Norway has now since production costs are far more, but they also would likely not have had to send money to the Canada transfer fund kettle.

Read the report from the Globe and Mail which I find is an excellent comparison: Alberta and Norway – Two oil powers a world apart.

theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/european-business/norways-sovereign-wealth-fund/article25973060