Another beautiful day in Alberta, Calgary, and you can see the haze over the city, smell the smoke from the wildfires, Fort McMurray's on fire and it's the perfect metaphor for what's happening to this province...
...business, at the restaurant, up and down, still don't think he's turning a profit but he's hopeful. Oil's up to $45.00 a barrel. Everywhere on buses and the radio there are ads for debt consolidations, restructure, reorganize, house prices are 10% down and there's still a long ways to fall, no one can remember ever having seen it this bad...
The landlord, meet him in the hall, this building, 4 stories, 6 units per floor, at the moment 7 are vacant. That's 25%. "There's a lot of competition out there now," he tells me ruefully, "We've managed this building for 30 years, never seen it like this...". Now would be a good time to bargain on the rent, but I haven't the heart, the fuse is lit...
We have our busy nights, the waves of people not related to oil and gas, but they're few and far between. In the afternoon, trying to doze, the phone rings, short term business lenders wondering if we need a quick injection of cash, everywhere the vultures, the scavengers are circling, there's a whole economy devoted to mining the chaos and misfortunes of others...
"Blame the NDP", "Blame the Liberals", ""Blame the Saudi's", the finger's quick to point, never a thought to blame ourselves, our province, like it's citizens, has overspent, lived beyond it's means for too long, and now we're all beginning to pay the price...
The lunch customers, lone stragglers, all complaining, there's a lot to complain about, a good many of them are here on stolen credit and borrowed time, filling our ears with denials about climate change, merely a good warm winter, El-Nino, it's propaganda, this carbon tax, environmental bullshit, Alberta needs industry, business, Oil and Gas, Coal, and the sky fills with smoke and I'm thinking it's time to get out of town...