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What happens when Alberta’s oilpatch — until recently Canada’s most robust growth engine and the nation’s key wealth generator — abruptly stalls?

The rest of the country is about to find out, and I’m afraid the news won’t be good, especially for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s new Liberal government, which is already ratcheting up its budget deficit projections mere weeks after the Oct. 19 federal election.

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Obviously, Alberta has already had a rude wake-up call. With oil prices down 60 per cent in the past 18 months and the province gushing red ink, the good times are long gone. Our province is in recession and will likely stay there for a while, barring a surprise uptick in crude prices.

But the rest of Canada has yet to feel the full impact. That could be about to change in 2016, as suppliers’ order books dry up and the flow of cash from Alberta, in terms of paycheques as well as corporate and personal tax revenues, slows to a trickle.