When a recession sent job-seekers to Alberta
Moving trucks were rolling in, but no one was moving out in 1990
The moving trucks were arriving full in Alberta, but they were having trouble leaving that way.
That's because in December 1990, not as many people were packing up to leave the province as there were coming in.
Alberta was one of the few regions of the country that was "holding up well" against the recession then underway in Canada, explained Peter Mansbridge, host of CBC's The National.
As correspondent Kevin Newman reported, moving companies in Calgary "couldn't keep up" with demand.
One way flow
"About the only problem moving companies in Alberta have is finding customers who want to move out," he said, as men were seen unloading furniture for a client who he said had moved from Montreal.
Don Kachur, a representative with United Van Lines, said they were in need of families "moving back to Ontario" so that the vans could go back full.
Newman said the recent migration, which had begun in the summer, was seeing four times as many people move to Alberta as in the same period the previous year.
"We've got more people working in Alberta now than we ever had in the history of the province," said Norm Weiss of Alberta Career Development.
Newman said the price of oil had been high enough for long enough that it meant it was worthwhile for oil companies to seek out new sources of oil.
The downside
But if the ongoing migration was good news for Alberta, it wasn't so good for Alberta communities having trouble coping with the influx, said Newman.
In Lloydminster, Alta., the population boost had driven up the price of rental housing.
"It's not going to do us any good, the people that have been in this town for a while," said a woman interviewed at her door.
Newman said the recession "may yet creep into Alberta," citing recent business bankruptcies and a downward trend for new house sales.
"But so far, that isn't stopping people," he said. "Canadians are still on the move to where the money is."
