[URBAN NOTE] "Fort McMurray and the Canadian boom-to-bust experience"

[rfmcdonald]

CBC's Don Pittis reports about how Fort McMurray's vulnerability to the boom-and-bust economy is an ancient Canadian pattern.

Hark Savinsky remembers the boom days when every kid out of high school could walk right into a good job. And the first thing each youngster did after getting that job — with a little help from the bank — was buy a shiny new truck.

Those days are gone. In fact, they're long gone.

Because Savinsky, who now works at Scotiabank's corporate headquarters in Toronto, grew up not in Fort McMurray, Alta., but in Atikokan, Ont. He watched the northern Ontario community boom, and when the mines closed one after the other, he witnessed its pain as the boom turned to bust.

Fort McMurray is going through the same difficult process experienced by communities dotted across Canada as the single industry they depended upon sinks following an exhilarating rise.

The wealth and sophistication of Fort McMurray is hard to compare with smaller boom towns, but one common feature is that the decline is often gradual, as enormous reservoirs of wealth seep out of the community. After many years of prosperity, residents cannot accept that the party is over.

"There was a lot of hope," Savinsky says of Atikokan, which saw its population shrink from about 7,000 to just over 2,000. "And this is part of the denial, I suppose."