It's grim up north... and getting grimmer. Amid soaring suicide rates, Canada's once-booming oil patch is rapidly accelerating its downward trajectory. "Canadians should be concerned in times like these," warned Tim McMillan, president and chief executive of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, noting that the oil and gas sector will see 100,000 job losses by the end of this year. Even if oil prices rise early and fast next year, Financial Post reports, it may take a while for Canadian oilsands to rebound as the industry has mothballed a number of long-term projects.
Over the past year, we have extensively chronicled the tragic story of Alberta - Canada's once booming oilpatch - disintegrate slowly at first, then very fast, into an economic and financial wasteland:
- "Canada Crude Contagion: Calgary Home Prices Drop Most In 2 Years"
- "Canada's Biggest Oil Casualty To Date: Calgary's Nexen Shutters Oil Trading Desk"
- "The Canadian Housing Bubble Has Begun To Burst"
- "Canada's Oil Patch Confidence Crashes"
- "Canada Mauled by Oil Bust, Job Losses Pile Up – Housing Bubble, Banks at Risk"
- "The Stage Is Set For A Massive Housing Market Correction in Canada's Oilpatch"
And, in one of the latest articles of this sad series describing the Alberta "bloodbath", we said that the worst casualty of Canada's recession has been the local commercial real estate market, where office vacancies are about to surpass the aftermath of the (first) great financial crisis.
But, it turns out the biggest casualty of Canada's recession, which unless oil rebounds strongly soon will follow Brazil into an all out depression, are people themselves. As CBC reports the suicide rate in Alberta has increased dramatically in the wake of mounting job losses across the province.
Sadly, as The Financial Post reports, the situation looks set to get worse... as policy uncertainty has exacerbated the pain of low prices...
The oil and gas sector will see 100,000 job losses by the end of this year, including 40,000 direct jobs, as a combination of policy uncertainties and low crude oil prices decimates the sector, the head of the country’s oil and gas industry group says.
“Canadians should be concerned in times like these,” Tim McMillan, president and chief executive of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said in an interview. “We have a lot of big policy pieces moving around. We need … to ensure we can compete in a slower price environment and if prices do bounce back , that we are the preferred investment jurisdiction and that we are picking up more than our fair share.”
Apart from the protracted price declines, Alberta’s oil and gas sector has also had to contend with a 20 per cent hike in corporate taxes, a carbon tax and new regulatory policies to limit rein in carbon emissions.
Meanwhile, a new provincial royalty regime is to be announced in January, leaving Alberta oil and gas producers under a cloud of uncertainty. The new federal government also plans to unveil new policies, including a review of the regulatory process, which the sector sees as more burden in an already difficult environment for the industry.
McMillan said those burdens are chipping away at Alberta’s competitiveness as an energy jurisdiction. In the 1990s, Canada attracted 37 per cent of all oil and gas investments in North America, a figure that now stands at 17 per cent, he said.
Furthermore, on Friday, American lawmakers lifted a 40-year ban on U.S. crude oil, which would bring a new competitor into the already-crowded international suppliers market. McMillan said while scrapping the export ban will bring more efficiency to the North American oil landscape, Canada should try to forge its own path to international markets.
However, as Financial post goes on to say, even if oil prices rise early and fast next year, it may take a while for Canadian oilsands to rebound as the industry has mothballed a number of long-term projects.
Canada has led the world in deferments since the oil crisis unfolded in November last year, with just under 40 projects scaled back due to low prices and lack of market access, according to Texas-based energy investment and merchant bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.
As we concluded previously, Nancy Bergeron, who has answered distress centre phone lines for a few years, says this year has been the hardest. "People are just at wit's end and they're contemplating it, right?"
Why? Simply because the price of a commodity has dropped to a third of what it was just over a year ago, and the shocking impact has been a paralysis of every aspect of financial, economic and social life, first in Alberta, and soon everywhere else across Canada, as the local recession (on its way to a depression) spreads across the country and eventually crosses the U.S. border.