EDMONTON - A new report from the University of Alberta's Parkland Institute says that despite a provincial deficit, the Alberta government will forego some $55 billion in potential revenue over the next three years as a result of overly generous royalty cuts and the government's failure to meet even the modest targets set by previous administrations.

The report, an update to Misplaced Generosity: Extraordinary profits in Alberta's oil and gas industry, published in 2010, looks at the most recent data on profits in the oil and gas industry versus government share, and determines that despite tremendous growth in the industry the share of profits going to Albertans continues to shrink.

It was either the best of Throne Speeches or it was the worst of Throne Speeches. Heck, maybe it was both at the same time.

Yesterday being the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens, maybe there's something powerfully symbolic in that assessment of the first Throne Speech by the Progressive Conservative government of Alison Redford.

If the real rulers of Greece -- who would be German bankers, I guess -- need advice on how to put the democratic genie back in the Greek bottle, they need look no further than the Canadian province of Alberta to see how to properly manage a potentially restive population.

They've had a bad scare these past couple of days, those Europeans, what with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou coming up with the nutty idea of actually giving the citizens of a his country a vote on things that affect their lives and livelihoods, and those of their children.