I grew up in the oilsands. Well, not in the oilsands, but you know, my Dad worked there. He moved to Fort McMurray some time like 1975 and I was born a couple years later. He moved a lot of dirt and supervised a lot of other people moving lots of dirt and together they squeezed oil out of the sands to power our cars and all manner of other contraptions. He retired last year and moved back to Newfoundland.
I never thought of Suncor and Syncrude as anything other than my Dad’s employers: large, complex, well-funded organizations managing their business and assets; providing employment for thousands; economic engines for Alberta and certainly for Fort Mac; digging deep and expansive holes in the Northern wilderness; and run and owned by wealthy, influential folk. I don’t think my Dad did either (that is, think of the oilsands as anything other than the above).
But apparently I own the oilsands, which changes the equation slightly. I am not a shareholder in any oil companies, but as a citizen of Alberta, the rules say I am a shareholder in the resource. In fact Albertans own 81% of all oil and gas resources in Alberta. My Dad’s employers were just the folks who got to make a business out of production.
As long as the oil remains in the ground, it doesn’t provide a whole lot of economic value. If I want to develop it, though, there are capital costs and heaps of environmental considerations. So what to do?
