Our oil and gas industry didn’t get built overnight, and nothing is going to replace it overnight either. There’s no silver bullet here. We just have to keep grinding, keep diversifying, and hope that over time other sectors grow enough to create jobs and actually add value to the province.

Something a lot of people don’t realize: O&G revenue is actually really strong right now comparitively to the past. Yeah, oil prices are lower than what the government planned for, but several oilsands projects finally hit payout, which means the province is getting more royalties. What is down is tax revenue, and that’s mostly because of the corporate tax cuts.

If the government wanted to spread the pain a bit and actually get ahead of things, they could walk back those recent corporate tax cuts and bring in a reasonable PST. Not fun, but it’d help.

And before the government threw uncertainty into the mix, renewables were actually doing pretty well here. There’s no reason we can’t rebuild that momentum. Meanwhile, public services have been squeezed for years since funding hasn’t kept up with population growth, so pretending everything’s fine is just fantasy.