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There’s no silver-bullet solution that will help staunch the bleeding for Calgary’s struggling business community, says a local economist.

Over the summer, nearly 2,000 city businesses closed their doors for good and another 1,785 changed addresses, victims of a moribund Alberta economy that shows little sign of strengthening in the short term. All told, in the first nine months of 2016, more than 5,500 businesses have been shuttered, while a further 5,900 moved, numbers the Calgary Chamber of Commerce said haven’t been seen in a generation.

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The three years previous, closures hovered around the 6,000 mark, reaching 6,300 in 2015.

But while Alberta has traditionally been a boom and bust economy, with financial chasms generally followed by peaks sparked by rising oil prices, University of Calgary economics professor Ron Kneebone said merchants hoping history will repeat itself may have to brace for the fact there may be no light at the end of the tunnel this time.