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Wildrose leader Brian Jean wants the NDP government to hold a special “jobs summit” to help figure out ways to help Alberta through its economic recession.

It’s an idea that manages to be both worthwhile and useless.

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On paper it’s worthwhile because, let’s face it, we need all the help and ideas we can get as the province sinks deeper into a recession created by the collapsing price of oil.

Jean would like the summit to look at how the government can better respond to that collapse by inviting business leaders, energy experts, representatives from charities, and politicians of every stripe to participate.

Who could argue with that?

Well, here’s one argument.

Over the years, Alberta’s former Progressive Conservative government held summits on a litany of troublesome issue … and in practice all of them proved a waste of time.

We had a health-care summit in 1994 and another in 1999, followed by more public discussions and an international symposium on health care in 2005. We had the Future Summit of 2002 that looked into, among other things, what to do with the Heritage Savings Trust Fund — and reached no consensus.