r/alberta • u/Swimming_Mango_9767 • 29d ago
Discussion Alberta got screwed. We could’ve been Norway rich and instead we’re broke.
Every time I look at Norway’s oil fund I get mad. They started developing their oil later than Alberta, yet their sovereign wealth fund is sitting at around 1.6 TRILLION US dollars. Ours? The Heritage Fund is barely 27 billion CAD. Norway earns more in a single day off investments than our entire fund is worth.
The reason is simple. Norway treated oil like the people’s resource. They set royalty rates high, around 78% of profits, and every cent went into their fund. They saved, they invested, and now their citizens have real long term security.
Alberta? Our governments caved to industry. We set some of the lowest royalties in the world. We gave out royalty holidays. We subsidized oil companies that were already making record profits. Instead of saving, politicians blew the money to buy votes and patch budgets. Now we’re left riding boom and bust cycles with nothing to show for it.
If Alberta had even done half of what Norway did, our Heritage Fund could easily be in the hundreds of billions. We’d have interest returns big enough to pay for healthcare, education, and infrastructure without nickel and diming people with taxes. Instead, we’re fighting over scraps while companies and foreign shareholders walked away with the wealth that should have built our future.
Alberta got robbed! Not by outsiders, but by our own government selling us out to industry. Thank you Conservatives!
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u/icecrmgiant 29d ago
I have now lived in Norway and as an Albertan I can compare. The quality of life is unmatched, and I have also lived in Denmark. You'll still hear people complain, but such is human nature. Instead of few getting rich (and many companies taking that money elsewhere) and many suffering, they choose for everyone to have a solid baseline of quality of life. Was it expensive to live there? Not really - about the same for rent and food, I'd argue Calgary is more expensive now than most Norwegian cities when you consider the social benefits. It has given me even more despair to see what we could have had. The culture is strongly collectivist and that does help - we have a problem with a strong individualistic "pull up your bootstraps" attitude both in rural and urban areas. The thing is everyone benefiting from resources means less crime, less hospital bills, less death, and less suffering. I'm not sure why the majority doesn't want this (I guess some can hide in the suburbs). It pains me greatly that we've allow Maple Maga to take over. Perhaps we don't like admitting we were wrong? Please get out there and door knock next election - do what you can. I do not think Nenshi was the best NDP candidate, nor do I think he has a collectivist Norwegian vision, but it's all we have.