The Financial Post reports in its Saturday edition that after a painful recession and a drawn-out recovery, Alberta's standard of living has still not returned to the highs of earlier glory days. The Post's Reid Southwick writes that there is hope the federal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney will help fuel a new era of growth for the industry by potentially approving a massive export pipeline for oil. However, even something as ambitious as a nation-building project, as the pipeline is described, may not be enough to create a bout of prosperity that parallels the last major boom, economists and industry watchers say. "Even if we went back to absolutely insane growth in oil and gas demand, we're not going to see the same growth in oil and gas hiring that we had before," says K.C. Waunch Petroleum Consultants president Tyler Pubben. Critics of the federal Liberals hold Justin Trudeau's government responsible for much of the oil patch's struggles since the boom years. However, global markets have shifted -- the long-term outlook for demand has dimmed, according to the International Energy Agency -- so any hopes for a return to the highs of the 2010s may just be a pipe dream.