Guest Post: An election postmortem from an outsider's perspective, pt. 2

As promised, here is part two of JR's guest post. Yesterday, I posted part one, which describes the problem plaguing the exercise of healthy democracy in Alberta - so make sure you check it out before you read this one. Today, for your reading pleasure, we bring you a possible solution to Alberta's democratic malaise.

As I mentioned yesterday, JR is from out of province, so feel free to let him know if he's on track or totally off base in the comments.

Alberta Election Postmortem: An Outsider’s Perspective

Part Two: The Solution

There remains, however, a solution to Alberta’s democratic deficiency and a hope for progressive-minded Albertans.  As the First Law of Petropolitics dictates, the lower the price of oil the more a political culture becomes sensitive to opposition voices.  What I propose is for Alberta to implement a regulatory regime that caps oil prices and limits the amount of production in the tar sands annually. 

Though some of the more hard-headed readers of this blog may deride my prescription as an exercise of neo-Marxism I believe it would be in Alberta’s interest to regulate the price and production of oil.  Oil is not a renewable resource and thus there is a finite amount that can be produced (if you don’t believe me I suggest you check out the documentary A Crude Awakening). Such a policy will help Albertans create a more transparent political process that lets the people, rather than the oil companies and the governments that enable them, to have a stake in their own future. 

When the oil runs out, I doubt Alberta’s reputable knowledge-based economy will ensure the continued stability, viability and influence provided by an oil economy.  By controlling oil’s price and production through public-private partnerships between government and the oil sector, Alberta can ensure its continued influence in the federation and practice a responsible policy that saves its natural resources for future generations while limiting environmental damage today.

Comments

[paul]

"Though some of the more hard-headed readers of this blog may deride my prescription as an exercise of neo-Marxism I believe it would be in Alberta’s interest to regulate the price and production of oil."

Yeah, ok. I thought there might be something to this piece until I ran into this quote. In a word: garbage. Alberta can no more control the price of oil than they can control the price of tea in China. We are an important, but small, producer on the world stage. Oil is an internationally traded commodity. You cannot, by definition, control its price, unless all producers were to work in tandem. Even OPEC, which includes most of the major oil producers in the world and is the closest device to what you advocate, has effectively given up trying to control the price of oil. Can't be done. Remember their "price band" of US$22-US$28/barrel? nuff said.

Sorry to be so harsh, but when someone tries quoting Friedman and then lays into something so departed from reality, I felt obliged to respond.

[DJ Kelly]

Capping oil prices? How would you even go about doing that? True, we could cap the price of the oil "WE" sell but wouldn't that just make us have the cheapest oil in the world? That doesn't really solve your problem does it. (Besides causing all the oil sands business to go bankrupt.)

Capping production might be a good idea but I'm not sure 'fixing Alberta's low voter turnout' is the proper guise to do this under.

[DJ Kelly]

Capping oil prices? How would you even go about doing that? True, we could cap the price of the oil "WE" sell but wouldn't that just make us have the cheapest oil in the world? That doesn't really solve your problem does it. (Besides causing all the oil sands business to go bankrupt.)

Capping production might be a good idea but I'm not sure 'fixing Alberta's low voter turnout' is the proper guise to do this under.