Alberta’s “Global Energy Leader” Plan seen as Ambitious, but Vague

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/headline_news/article.jsp?content=b082579A

Alberta Energy Minister Greg Melchin said Friday that with Alberta owning 81 per
cent of the province's mineral resources, the provincial government has "set the
right frameworks and macro-policies that would make us to be the best place to
invest and attract the people, the expertise and the capital."
And he said
the province is trying to help ease serious infrastructure and labour shortages
in communities like the oilsands hub of Fort McMurray in northeastern Alberta.
"No one ever anticipated the degree of growth - not government, not industry
- of how fast it's happened recently," Melchin told a news conference Friday in
Calgary.
"So it's true that we're all running fast to catch up with the
level of activity."

Everywhere you look, you can see every sector of Alberta struggling to cope with the consequences of the province’s economic success. I first blogged on the subject back in March of this year:

http://businessopinions.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_businessopinions_archive.html

By any standard of measurement, the pressures on employers, housing, and infrastructure have continued to build up.

The labour market has become even more constrained than it was five months ago. Last month, the 7-11 by my house announced a seven hundred dollar signing bonus on their roadside sign. I thought that was appalling, but when I mentioned that to a friend who lives in the West End, he replied “Really? The one by my house is offering eight hundred.” I can tell anecdotes about the situation until the cows come home, like how a Tim Horton’s franchise shut down because it couldn’t attract enough applicants to fill even one shift, or how the president of a maintenance company in Grande Prairie has been repairing transmissions in lumber trucks seven days a week because he doesn’t have enough heavy duty mechanics, but I think everyone gets the picture.

Additionally, our infrastructure is having difficulty accommodating the increase in demand. Everyone who has to make the drive between Edmonton and Fort MacMurray knows that the single lane highway is woefully insufficient for its traffic. In Edmonton, as residential housing booms all over, there is greater traffic pressures as roads that used to be local thoroughfares, such as Ellerslie Road have become arterial roads that become extremely clogged during rush hour.

Despite the hand-wringing by municipal governments, we have yet to see a clear plan of action from the Provincial Government to address the improvements that are being called for. At the moment, all we’ve seen so far is a grand vision, but no concrete steps to support Alberta’s growth.

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