natural resources

6:00AM
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From the fur trade to fisheries and forests, Canada was built on the toil and sweat of those who wanted to prosper. But these days, it’s harder to create opportunity. And sometimes, government is to blame. The latest example comes from Nova Scotia.


2:00AM
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As Albertans approach another provincial budget, the usual fables about Alberta's finances often crop up. To inoculate ourselves in advance, let's ponder two myths.

Myth Number One: Alberta's wealth is a result of luck.

This tall tale assumes that the existence of natural resources automatically results in wealth creation, jobs, and a higher standard of living. That's hardly the case. Plenty of jurisdictions have little in the way of natural resources but prosper, while others have plentiful natural resources yet flounder.


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After more than a decade of war and nation building, members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan are heading for the exits. Although what ISAF will leave behind is better than what was there in 2001, Afghanistan remains a battered land. However, the resources Afghanistan’s land holds — copper, cobalt, iron, barite, sulfur, lead, silver, zinc, niobium, and 1.4 million metric tons of rare-earth elements (REEs) — may be a silver lining.


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Quebec’s political leaders seem to have fallen for the Great Green Dream of economic prosperity without energy or natural resource production. It’s a magical vision of a world powered by unicorns and rainbows, where consumer goods are somehow conjured out of thin air rather than being manufactured with resources extracted from the ground. But experience in Europe as well as in Ontario show that chasing the green dream is a path to financial ruin, not utopia.


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On November 6, 2012, the citizens of the United States decided to maintain, essentially, the status quo: they re-elected Barack Obama as President, left the United States House of Representatives solidly in Republican hands, and left the United States Senate under the control of the Democratic Party. But as with all U.S. elections, there are implications for Canada, which, for better or worse, is usually pulled by the tides of American regulation and economic prosperity – or the lack thereof.


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It seems everyone has advice on how Western Canada should manage its resources. NDP leader Thomas Mulcair blames the oilsands for “Dutch disease,” the notion that high resource prices cause a hollowing out of manufacturing. It’s a largely mistaken claim, given that manufacturing in Western economies has been under pressure from more competition from emerging economies for some time. Nevertheless, Mulcair would slow down the energy sector by adding a carbon tax (though he’ll skip the same as applied to the automotive industry).


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Ever since the northern Ontario reserve of Attawapiskat burst into public consciousness late last year, a plethora of pundits and politicians assert that if only reserves had more cash from the minerals or oil around them, reserve hamlets could be turned into Hong Kong.

Perhaps. There are examples of reserves that capitalize on their location. The Osoyoos Indian band in the south Okanagan does smart things, having created a first-class winery (Nk’Mip), hotel and conference centre and thus profiting from wine sales and tourism.