Ed Stelmach will not admit in public that the royalty review and changes he brought about were a mistake, but he is surely trying to deal with some of the consequences.

Alberta, Canada’s top energy-producing province, offered its battered industry up to C$1.5 billion ($1.2 billion) in royalty breaks and credits on Tuesday to boost drilling and protect jobs as oil and gas prices sag.

Alberta Energy Minister Mel Knight, who championed a hike in royalty rates before prices collapsed, said the moves did not mean a softening of his stance, but rather a short-term response to the global economic crisis.

Offering to help with $1.5 billion in royalty credits is partially reversing his new royalty scheme. Of course, the reversal is motivated by the economic crisis, the government will say. And that’s partly true.

But in the meantime, Saskatchewan has become the immediate beneficiary, just as it was foretold. This is from a CNN report.

“It’s a great time to come to Saskatchewan,” said [Premier Brad] Wall, who even called the Toronto Star newspaper to tout his province’s economic success and let Ontarians know there were jobs for the taking.

“For those who are losing their jobs, we need them to know we have thousands of jobs open right now in both the private and public sector,” Wall said. “We have a powerful story to tell, a story of success and that’s something we want to share with those who are struggling.”

Wall’s province is one of the exceptions to the unemployment increases battering provinces across Canada. Saskatchewan’s unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent in January from 4.2 percent in December, making it the only province recording a decline. In Ontario and the city of Toronto, unemployment rates rose to 7.2 percent and 8.5 percent respectively. To the west, British Columbia shed 68,000 full-time jobs in January.

More Saskatchewan jobs should be on the way. To stave off any possible recession, Wall announced a $500 million infrastructure “booster shot” to help keep the economy strong.

Just like Alberta, Saskatchewan exists in the same world in which there is an economic crisis. The difference is that Ed Stelmach is not running it and not running businesses out of it.

If Stelmach thinks that businesses are going to trust him now, he is mistaken. The money that fled is not suddenly going to come back and expose itself to the less than honourable changes Stelmach introduced, often in contravention of existing contracts.

Ralph Klein used to apologise when he made mistakes, and then was quick to try to remedy the mistakes. Stelmach is too late to bringing remedy and does not have the strength of character to say that he was wrong. But he was!