The first rule of business is not to put all your eggs in one basket. For the past 50 years, Alberta has had boom-and-bust cycles in the oil industry. One week everything is rosy and the next week it is: 鈥淧lease just give us another chance.鈥�
I believe we have just completed the last boom cycle globally for crude oil and fossil fuels in general. So what has Alberta got other than oil?
Southeast Alberta and southwest Saskatchewan have more sunny days than anywhere else in sa国际传媒. Nationally, we have an enormous need for vegetables that currently are imported from Mexico and California. I think this should be their calling: Create a greenhouse industry like no other.
Large supplies of natural gas are available and jobs are needed. Start an industry to grow food for all of us who would rather pay for food grown in sa国际传媒 and keep our money at home. Good technical positions would be created and people would not have to leave home and go north to find employment.
This should be given serious thought, as it would give permanent long-term jobs, as people will always eat vegetables.
Look around the world and see what is happening: The end of an era has arrived, and getting ahead of the curve is now important. To hold on and hope for some glimmer of light is not a good strategy. The only people making money in the oil industry today are the refiners.
Robert Tritschler
Parksville
