The oil industry is always susceptible to bust and boom cycles. As It Happens has interviews with people up in Canada looking at layoffs by the thousands now that oil prices have dropped thanks to the Saudis - and a world economy still staggering.
Tar sands oil is expensive to produce as well as being especially dirty. From a carbon reduction viewpoint, seeing the industry shut down is a good thing. It is not a good thing for all the people who will be laid off, lose homes, or those whose living depends on them doing well as layoffs ripple through the economy. The story is here.
Now, getting off of carbon and transforming to a sustainable energy economy just might reduce vulnerability to boom and bust cycles. Of course, another consequence of cheap oil is that it makes green energy less competitive, so it's a mixed bag.
In any event, it makes the case for building Keystone XL even less justifiable. GOP insistence on it is becoming openly a matter of ideology, not anything that makes sense.
But then, continuing to extract oil from the ground no longer makes sense either.