NEP hysteria

 When the hated-in-Alberta Pierre Trudeau introduced the National Energy Program in 1979, Albertans went insane.  Frankly, living as I was in Ottawa, I didn't understand why?  Turns out, I had good reason to wonder.  

In a very informative letter to the editor in 'The Calgary Herald', a man named Tom Kerwin laid out a few facts:

• The 1973 OPEC price hike put the price of a barrel from $17.50 to more than $70 in today's money, creating stagflation across the Western world
• The expectation then was that it would rise to the equivalent of $350 in a few years

Mr. Kerwin points out that the NEP was a reasonable and coordinated approach to create a made-in-Canada price to ensure Canadians didn't freeze in the dark.  Remember all those tags on light switches, warning us to turn out the lights and conserve energy?  I do.  The intent was also to turn Canadians away from oil heating (didn't happen, of course), to break the stranglehold of American oil companies and give all Canadians ownership of the country's oil, as Norway had done.  

Naturally, the oil companies screamed because to accomplish this, the federal government increased its take from 10 to 24 percent.  To me, that was a very moderate increase to make the resource truly Canadian and distribute this national resource fairly for the benefit of all citizens.  Afterall, wasn't Alberta part of Canada, a province that just happened to have oil underfoot through no genius of its own?  

But, as I said, the oil companies went berserk and they are still berserk.  When we moved here and people found out we were from Ottawa and had worked for the federal government, they attacked us over the NEP as if we had held the pen in drafting it.  Editorials and columns still cry over it all.  

But Alberta is in a complete mess of its own making because, in spite of every government for the past 50 years talking about how they were going to diversify the economy, none has done it.  For Alberta, whither gas and oil, whither the entire economy.