From Bloomberg:
Calgary Oil Transforms Canada to Energy Superpower of Immigrants
Alberta Premier Alison Redford says oil is opening Canada’s fastest-growing province to the world for the first time.
The population of Canada’s main oil-producing region has soared by 37 percent to about 3.7 million in the past decade as companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Statoil ASA (STL) attracted workers from China, Venezuela and the Philippines to develop the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East.
“Most people around the world believe that it has been a fairly parochial jurisdiction,” Redford, 46, said during an interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. “We are now going through a generational change in politics and in business. We have an ability to embrace the world in a way that we’ve never done.”
Alberta, one of only two land-locked Canadian provinces, is turning a farming and cowboy image on its head as the booming energy sector attracts global attention to its oil sands and welcomes newcomers to fill jobs.And the Francophones hate it.
The immigrant population of Calgary is growing faster than any Canadian city as oil companies fill as many as 100,000 jobs over the next eight years, according to a study by Deloitte and Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada.
“I came here because it’s easy to get a job,” said Hong Wei Pei, a 36-year-old accounting clerk from China who arrived in Calgary with her husband and two children in 2009. “Most people here are immigrants and the locals are friendly and welcoming. If you work hard you’ll be successful.”
Alberta has led economic growth in Canada in recent years and per-capita gross domestic product, at C$70,824 ($69,462) last year, is 75 percent higher than Quebec’s and tops among Canadian provinces....MORE
