OF PLANNERS REGIONAL DIVERSIFICATION POLICY IN ALBERTA

Planners in Alberta cope with the most uncertain provincial economy in Canada. Using an index of regional economic instability, Mansell and Percy (1990) clearly established the variability of Western Canada in general and Alberta in particular. Whether measured in total personal income, gross domestic product, employment or population, Alberta has experienced greater variance in the amplitude of its business cycle than any other province. This volatility has far reaching ramifications for urban and regional planning. Planning depends on assumptions about future growth and nowhere else in Canada are these assumptions more tenuous than in Alberta. For example, Edmonton's Census Metropolitan Area dropped from an annualized growth rate of 6.0 percent over the 1976-1981 intercensal period to 0.4 percent between 1981 and 1986. Oil sands megaprojects caused the City of Fort McMurray to grow by 16.2 percent per year over the 1971-1981 intercensal period but this plummeted to-0.1 percent per year from 1986 to 1991. While these examples illustrate extremes, they portray frie regional pattern of boom and bust resulting from specialization in relatively unstable resource sectors. The volatility of the Western economy is generally attributed to its dependence on crude and semi-processed resource exports: petroleum, gas, and grain in the case of Alberta. And while there are other stabilization policy instruments, diversification has been commonly perceived as the best way to attenuate the amplitude of the business cycle. The most concerted effort ever undertaken t