Analyzing provincial statistics in Canada is an exercise in spotting the odd one out.
Alberta, the heart of Canada’s dying oil patch, is a cautionary tale about boom and bust cycles and just how dramatic the difference can be between the good times and the bad.
To be sure, we’ve spilled quite a bit of digital ink documenting the plight of the provincial economy and we’ve also outlined some of the more shocking statistics that touch on the human toll exerted by plunging crude prices. Food bank usage in the province, for instance, rose 23% Y/Y from Q1 2014 through Q1 2015 and suicide rates had risen by a third through the summer of last year.
As far as the economy, the latest data out earlier this month show Alberta was the only province in which real GDP contracted in 2015. "Alberta is facing another recession this year as cuts in energy investment and job losses hit the economy hard,” Conference Board of Canada said, adding that “until imbalances in global oil markets improve, prospects for a recovery are bleak."
Meanwhile, a report out Wednesday showed that while manufacturing sales across Canada rose 2.3% in January, Y/Y sales plunged 13.2% in Alberta. That's the sixth decline in seven months and a sure sign that the oil slump has spilled over into the rest of the economy. Provincial manufacturing sales dropped 16% last year.
But at the end of the day, these are all just numbers. In order to get a true sense of the malaise, we bring you the following video and commentary from CBC, who shows you the people behind the statistics.
http://www.cbc.ca/i/caffeine/syndicate/
From CBC
Warren Sonnenberg, 35
Sonnenberg worked for five years on a drilling rig in the oil patch. He started at the bottom as a leasehand and worked his way up to derrickhand. Before he was laid off in January he was making $40 an hour. He never thought the good times would end.
"You're feeling this stuff for the first time, and you're feeling this worry and this fear and you're looking around and you don't see any relief," he says. "You want to speak to other people but they're embarrassed by their own situations.
Gert Raynar
"We are the canary in the coal mine," Raynar says about the food bank in Leduc where she is the manager. Raynar has never been busier, and she says it's the same situation all across the province.
Demand on the food bank in Medicine Hat, she says, is up an unbelievable 500 per cent over this time last year.
Clarence Shields
Clarence Shields owns the sprawling Blackjacks roadhouse in Leduc. It's a kind of unofficial union hall for oil workers.
He says, "you're seeing a rehash of the '80s. You're seeing a generation that has never experienced as quick and as decisive a downturn as we got right now.
"They don't know where to turn. All we have heard from our government so far is 'It'll be OK'. Well it's not OK. We need help. We really need help."