FILE--A sign on Highway 2 for new housing lots near Nanton, Alberta, Aug. 25, 2007. Western Canada has become a population and power magnet, largely thanks to Alberta's dizzying pace of oil and gas development. But those who come quickly get used to the downside of the boom - whether it's paying huge mortgages on small homes, being turned away from empty restaurants because of a lack of waiters, or schools and hospitals crammed to the rafters. Can the pace and the prosperity continue in 2008? THE CANADIAN PRESS/Bill Graveland