"FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta -- It’s 11.30am in the pumping heart of Canada’s tar sands industry, on a day when local crude is trading at a rock-bottom $29 a barrel. For the down-and-out men and women heading down to the free lunch in the basement of a Fort McMurray church, it’s hard to see a way back up.

'It’s depressing not having work. I used to make $3,400 a week. Now look at me. I’m eating in a soup kitchen,' said Brian Earl, a construction worker.

This is life on the downturn in a country which prime minister Stephen Harper once promised to make an 'energy superpower', and on the eve of the 19 October general election, it is one issue the Conservative leader definitely does not want to talk about."

Suzanne Goldenberg reports for the Guardian October 16, 2015. [2]