01 December 2008

Look out Iceland, our turn's next to f*&k it up...

Alberta floats idea of financial hub

The Stelmach government has launched exploratory talks with banks big and small on establishing a western-based "financial hub" that clusters more of the operations of the banking sector in Alberta and turns the province into a global financial powerhouse. While the province looks for ways to shift some of the financial sector's influence away from Eastern Canada, a new government-commissioned report recommends a series of fiscal reforms that would see Alberta and British Columbia create a joint pension plan. While both moves would require sweeping systemic changes, the Alberta government and major financial players are already crafting a plan that would see the province snare more control of the financial sector and station it in their own backyard. Finance Minister Iris Evans met recently with Alberta-based officials from the major banks and other organizations to discuss how they can concentrate more of the financial sector in the province and be more responsive to the region's banking and investment needs. Evans said major banks based in Toronto often don't understand the financial needs of the energy industry and other emerging sectors and it would be in the province's best interest to create its own investment hub. She hopes to attract more banking institutions to the province and said the strategy would work in concert with the government's plan to retain its provincial securities regulator, rather than proceed with a single national authority.
(Calgary Herald 081201)

As much as Alberta's power-trip leaders want complete dominance over the world, is it really such a good idea to let these goons control that which wrecked the financial industry based out of Toronto and New York? Albertan leaders are even more wreckless and short-sighted than the ones in the East....watch as they make Alberta a bigger financial basketcase than Iceland....have you seen how financing for everything half-built in downtown Calgary has suddenly dried up? Yikes.

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