From Binge to Bust: A Canadian Oil Town Lines Up at the Food Bank
Fort McMurray leads Canada with a 39% increase in insolvencies. Pipeline delays, investment slump, wildfire weigh on city.
Syncrude operates in the oil sands north of Fort McMurray, Alberta.
Photographer: Amber Bracken/Bloomberg
Dan Edwards watched Fort McMurray, Alberta, turn into the insolvency capital of Canada from a brown brick warehouse on King Street, home to the Wood Buffalo Food Bank.
Ten years ago, about 2,000 people came by every month for jars of peanut butter and cans of soup. Now, he and his staff help feed four times that. Before, the clientele was mostly folks struggling to pay rents that shot up during the oil boom. Today, it’s often men and women who were living high before the bust. Sometimes, they pull up in shiny pickups purchased just a year or two ago.