I wish I could answer that question. If I was an economist, I could speak more generally about it.
Based on my own experience within the province I live in, the low oil prices of the past were in line with the lower cost of living and a slower economy. With the boom in oil (and the price going up) there was a lot of money to be made here and the economy grew strong. In other words, the price of oil rose and so did the employment rate. Our government built a budget around the high price of oil and the rest of the country (Canada) profited from our oil sands. Investors flocked to our booming economy and so did workers from across the globe. With the dropping price of oil, our economy will slow down. Investors will leave or halt their projects and workers in the oil industry will be laid off. A slower economy means lower house prices which is good if you want to buy, but bad if you want to sell (and depending on how long ago you bought a house, that could mean a very depressing loss). The issue is, too, that the cost of living is not going down with the oil prices, which means if you can't find a job or you got laid off, it'll be very hard to make ends meet.
We survived the low oil prices of the past because they were never high before. Now that we've built an economy around it, we rely on it and the price being higher.
