The wisdom of Winston Churchill, who once quipped that you should never let a good crisis go to waste, clearly hasn’t been lost on federal Finance minister Joe Oliver, who’s already made considerable hay out of falling oil prices. Mr. Oliver’s finance department won’t table a budget until April, due to the uncertainty created by [...]
The hits just keep on coming for Alberta. Falling oil prices could now send the province into a recession this year, according to the latest forecast from the Conference Board of Canada. Despite the protestations of Premier Jim Prentice, other similar predictions are sure to follow given the spate of bad news for Alberta that [...]
What does Canada’s economy look like with oil prices at $40 a barrel? Certainly it won’t be the energy superpower envisioned by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. If $40 a barrel still seems a ways off, consider that the benchmark price for oil sands crude is already trading in that price range. What’s more, if production [...]
Adherents of index investing in Canada have had a rough month as falling oil prices have inflicted considerable pain on not just the energy sector but the entire Canadian market. After surveying the landscape I’ve finally thrown in the towel on the TSX and switched my investing allegiance south of the border to the less [...]
What a difference a couple decades can make. OPEC’s decision to maintain production has rocked the TSX, sending energy companies as well as governments scrambling to figure out what to do in a new world order where oil prices might continue to slide. Rewind to the energy crisis in the 1970s and a decision by [...]
At a recent investment conference sponsored by Royal Bank and Suncor I spoke about the likelihood that billions of dollars of carbon assets will never see the light of day. Contemplating the idea of stranded assets isn’t in either company’s interests, so both deserve credit for providing a discussion forum for a topic that’s going [...]