Mud Sweat and Tears

• Aida Edemariam, The Guardian, Tuesday October 30 2007

The vast tar sands of Alberta in Canada hold oil reserves six times the size of Saudi Arabia’s. But this ‘black gold’ is proving a mixed blessing for the frontier town of Fort McMurray, fuelling both prosperity and misery. As the social and environmental toll mounts, Aida Edemariam reports on the dark side of a boom town

Trucks on the tar sands of Alberta. Photograph: Jeff McIntosh/AP

You’ve only got to stroll down Hardin Street to the main drag, then hang a left and walk a couple more short blocks, to see what Fort McMurray is about. It wouldn’t be the whole story, but you would catch the drift. You’d pass the Boomtown Casino, strip malls, and a club called Cowboys proudly advertising “naughty schoolgirl nights”. Then the Royal Canadian Mounted Police station, the municipal offices, the Oil Sands Hotel, and Diggers bar, with its advertisement for exotic dancers. You would be passed by Humvees and countless pick-up trucks, each more souped up than the next, many covered in dried mud, many carrying further 4×4s - in winter, snowmobiles; in summer, all-terrain vehicles on which to go chasing through the bush, which is visible from the main street. And if the wind is from the north-west, you can smell oil on the air: heavy, slightly sour, unmistakable. Round here, they call it the smell of money.

Iraq’s oil boom isn’t delayed, it’s relocated to Canada

As Baghdad burns, destabilising the entire region and sending the price of oil soaring, Calgary booms (from Asian Energy Today)

Naomi Klein
Friday June 1, 2007
The Guardian

The invasion of Iraq has set off what could be the largest oil boom in history. All the signs are there: multinationals free to gobble up national firms at will, ship unlimited profits home, enjoy leisurely “tax holidays”, and pay a laughable 1% in royalties to the government.

This isn’t the boom in Iraq sparked by the proposed new oil law - that will come later. This boom is already in full swing, and it is happening about as far away from the carnage in Baghdad as you can get, in the wilds of northern Alberta. For four years now, Alberta and Iraq have been connected to each other through a kind of invisible seesaw: as Baghdad burns, destabilising the entire region and sending oil prices soaring, Calgary booms.

For some in Alberta, slower growth is welcome

NORVAL SCOTT, January 12, 2008

CALGARY — In Alberta, where job creation has hit record levels, there are signs that the province’s white-hot growth may be slowing - and that may be good news for some. One such industry: food services. The industry would welcome some weakening of the job market in “superheated” Alberta, said Neil MacLean, chief financial officer of the Keg Royalties Income Fund, which runs the Keg restaurant chain.

In Alberta, he said, it remains hard to recruit employees, and “we haven’t seen a softening in the labour market.”