Sorry to confuse my readers right off the bat, but it really rings true, especially in the hard times everyone is experiencing.
When the oil and gas industry began the start of the downhill run in about August of 2013, a lot of people believed it would be a very brief bubble and that a few tweaks would help balance out things until the turnaround came.
Those minor changes from the provincial and federal governments of the day, along with some major ones by some local governments, obviously didn’t have the intended affects, because within a couple of months, the state of the economy began to fall even further.
In early 2014, production from drilling companies slowed while projections about prospecting for fossil fuels fell sharply to the point where a lot of exploration companies began what would turn out to be a significant series of layoffs.
In hopes of changing that path, there was a move to replace this province’s premier with someone that was thought (by some) to be the one that would lead Alberta in a new, more prosperous direction.
Well, we all know what happened there — a bunch of disgruntled opposition members jumped ship to the government, the new leader wasn’t able to beat the upstart Conservative-ish party they stole members from, which helped lead to an “orange” wave of change by voters.
In speaking to a lot of people following that May 2015 provincial election, the vast majority were looking at that “change” in hopes the economy would rebound with a government filled with ‘fresh ideas’, ‘a new direction’ and ‘to end the blatant cronyism’ within government.
A similar movement took place in much of the country later in the year, when there was “change” hoped for in a switch of governments on the federal side of the ledger.
As one can see now, little real “change” has been made in most people’s lives — unemployment and under-employment continues to grow slightly, inflation is keeping the cost of simply living hard to handle, food bank use in Canada has skyrocketed to levels never seen before and the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ is moving further and further apart.
So, what does it all mean in the grand scheme?
What with the continued complaints about the looming carbon tax, the beginning of the end for coal-fire electricity and the push for more renewable energy alternatives. As well, the hope to see more oil and gas pipelines built to get the product to other markets and climbing the debt ceiling to unheard of levels so front-line services and infrastructure aren’t cut to the bone as done by previous government.
It means some people will be happy, others upset and still others will wish they had the ability to “change” things in order to make the situation better for themselves.
For me, long ago I stopped worrying about attempting to “change” things that are out of my control or even let it bother me since it will happen regardless.
I simply look at what I can do and what can be done to mitigate or manage those items I do have some (well, sort of) control over and keep going forward.
Because “change” simply for the sake of making it, changes nothing in the end.
But that is…just an observation.