The NEP was an agreement between PET and Lougheed’s crews. The purpose was to increase Canadian ownership of the oil industry which was predominately owned by the US oil consortium. 

This worked, Canadian ownership moved from somewhere around 7 % up to over 20% There was no internet to hash things out on all the  Media Reporters who took the sides where the cash was. Deep pockets from the US oil consortium put out all the wild stories about the NEP.

Albertans were encouraged by the Conservative Government to invest in the oil sands by the Conservatives and the stockbrokers. Many Albertans mortgaged their homes to start a fledgling business. Interest rates were 7% and 8% at that point. Then massive inflation set in. People were losing their houses or couldn’t sell them because the mortgage rates were up to 25%!

Then, on top of this, and at the same time, came a glut on the oil market. The US drew on their reserves to curb the price of oil. (Obama did the same thing recently).  And, with 2000 miles of new pipelines it is easier to do.

Now oil companies couldn’t sell their oil, the interest rate was beating the families who Mortgage at 8% to start their new business were now asked to pay 25% and yet, they struggled along with the rest of us. Real heroes in my mind.  Many went bankrupt losing homes and businesses.  There were several suicides and grievous accidents!

The NEP did not cause a world sustained drop in oil prices as the US oil companies put out on their BS press lines and blamed everything onto the NEP.  There was no internet and the oil companies with the cash made the news.

It wasn’t the Liberals nor the NDP or the NEP it was simply the oil industry doing what it does.

It remains today one of the most manipulated stocks on the market. I wouldn’t touch oil in my portfolio at all.

Might as well finish this:

A horde of reporters and cameras were following PET down the train platform shouting questions at him. His reply was no comment. One guy in the scrum offered up a particularly cutting sound bit, a smart entrapment question. and PET threw him the bird.

That frame was cut out of the film and published in the press and on CTV as PET flipping Alberta.

If we had the internet and commented, things would have turned out very differently.