The thing is that house prices in Calgary and Edmonton are still highly affordable compared to prices in other major cities such as Toronto and Vancouver. The oil industry has its ups and downs, but for every down there has been an up. If you've been through this a few times, you know that the economy will always come back, so there's no real reason to sell at a loss. Just sit tight and when the market comes back you will make out like a bandit - I made a lot of money doing this in the past. 

The only bad thing is that when oil prices skyrocket again like they always do, people in Eastern Canada will think there is something wrong with the situation and the federal gummitup should do something to rectify it despite the fact they blocked the Energy East pipeline and it's physically impossible to get cheap Alberta oil to them. Let them pay full price for Arab oil since that's their choice. Alberta has already contributed about $200 billion to Eastern Canada and I think that's enough.