Invest in Canada

The waning of the boom

by investor on 29/12/08 at 2:08 pm

Hungry young tradesmen like Evan Brewer used to be as plentiful on the ground in Fort McMurray as chips at the Boomtown Casino. They’d get off the plane from Atlantic Canada and score big money in the oil sands.

Now Mr. Brewer feels like one of the last of an endangered species. “I just got in under the wire,” says the 23-year-old journeyman welder from Fredericton, as he lines up for the 5 a.m. breakfast of cereal, doughnuts and croissants at the Ace Inn, a favoured downtown hostelry for young men in work boots and hard hats.

With a base pay of $40 an hour and living allowances, Mr. Brewer is pulling down better than $3,000 a week, much more than he ever dreamed of back in New Brunswick, where he was living in his parents’ basement.

But since he signed up at Suncor Energy Inc. in June, the floor has collapsed under the great oil sands bonanza.

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