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There’s something new in Premier Rachel Notley’s Advisory Council on the Economy — union and non-profit members fill in the blanks between the usual business people and academics.

Apart from that, there’s nothing new at all.

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Alberta has tried this kind of thing — economic diversification, spinoffs, etc. — since the mid-1980s, when then premier Peter Lougheed wrote a white paper he handed to his successor, Don Getty, on the way out the door.

Later premiers, like Ralph Klein and Ed Stelmach, relied on advisory panels and even full government departments, to tell them how to save Alberta from its reliance on oil.

They have never succeeded.

These groups meet the premier, issue a report, and then slowly fade into the background clutter of agencies, boards, councils and commissions.

A familiar dynamic always defeats the good intentions; when times are tough, diversification is impractical. When there’s a boom, it isn’t needed. The initiatives sputter and die, time after time.