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Calgary & Alberta Economy

I hate to be the devil's advocate, but the Infosys announcement may not be the great news it appears to be. It can potentially be good news, but it's not going to create innovation or necessarily help create a tech hub. They are a solutions provider, much like a company such as Longview Systems, only way larger. There's a possibility the move will create 500 jobs at Infosys, but it probably means taking away jobs from other solution providers or take away IT jobs from various local companies. There are only so many IT solutions/support jobs around Calgary and Alberta, so we could simply be seeing jobs move from one company to another. In that scenario, Calgary will still benefit to some degree as the overall number of IT support\solutions jobs will increase, due to some overlap, but it might not be an overall gain of 500 new jobs, but rather more a case of how a headline was worded.

The way Calgary really benefits from this move is if they use the Calgary hub to support other cities across other regions, and this may very well be the case. Currently they have offices in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, and they plan to increase headcount in all of those offices, but they haven't mentioned opening new offices in other cities, so that bodes well for Calgary as Calgary could potentially be the hub for say, the prairie provinces.

Still, this is a large multinational company with hundreds of offices around the world, and Calgary is just one of them. It's good for Calgary, but it's not necessarily going to be a huge local benefit the headline makes it out to be.
 
Chinook Arch said:
I hate to be the devil's advocate, but the Infosys announcement may not be the great news it appears to be. It can potentially be good news, but it's not going to create innovation or necessarily help create a tech hub. They are a solutions provider, much like a company such as Longview Systems, only way larger. There's a possibility the move will create 500 jobs at Infosys, but it probably means taking away jobs from other solution providers or take away IT jobs from various local companies. There are only so many IT solutions/support jobs around Calgary and Alberta, so we could simply be seeing jobs move from one company to another. In that scenario, Calgary will still benefit to some degree as the overall number of IT support\solutions jobs will increase, due to some overlap, but it might not be an overall gain of 500 new jobs, but rather more a case of how a headline was worded.

The way Calgary really benefits from this move is if they use the Calgary hub to support other cities across other regions, and this may very well be the case. Currently they have offices in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, and they plan to increase headcount in all of those offices, but they haven't mentioned opening new offices in other cities, so that bodes well for Calgary as Calgary could potentially be the hub for say, the prairie provinces.

Still, this is a large multinational company with hundreds of offices around the world, and Calgary is just one of them. It's good for Calgary, but it's not necessarily going to be a huge local benefit the headline makes it out to be.
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500 jobs is not material in a city of 1.5M no matter the employer, but it’s an indication that middle skill/income service sector jobs can be a growth industry. Agree that the key question is whether these jobs can support Canada or North America-wide companies (great) or just the local market (ambiguous benefit as you say).
 
calgaryherald.com

Braid: Even in hard times, the head office is still Calgary's bedrock

The majority of big companies and many smaller ones have stuck around during a period of deep economic hardship and doubts about the future of the energy…
calgaryherald.com calgaryherald.com

Interesting take and some surprising statistics. I did not realize Calgary (second place) was still so far ahead of Vancouver (third place) for corporate headquarters in Canada.
 
Overall, the Infosys announcement is good, but as always with headlines for this kind of stuff, there's more to the story. If Infosys does make Calgary a base that covers an area of other cities in Canada or even the U.S. as mentioned, than it should be a benefit.

A fair concern would be Infosys getting a foothold in Calgary and western Canada, and over time taking customers from the competition. Then slowly and silently migrating some of that work overseas to one of offices they have in developing countries. It's a legit concern as Infosys will do what works best economically for them. A lot of work can be done remotely these days, and it would be tempting to to move some of the work overseas where labour is cheaper.

On a positive note, if Infosys did that, it likely would be their downfall, and they would lose the business back to local providers. Generally the roles that work well overseas are the simple tasks that don't require solid relationships or any knowledge of the company. Roles that can be done by anyone and can be handled by a large pool of people...such as creating basic trouble tickets, etc.. or executing mostly automated tasks.
Roles where the work requires more knowledge and more of a relationship works better when the people are local, or at least in the same country and timezone. I've personally seen instances where companies have moved more elevated work roles overseas and it hasn't worked well, and in some cases it's been a total disaster causing the company to lose the business altogether.
 
JesseLikesCities said:
calgaryherald.com

Braid: Even in hard times, the head office is still Calgary's bedrock

The majority of big companies and many smaller ones have stuck around during a period of deep economic hardship and doubts about the future of the energy…
calgaryherald.com calgaryherald.com

Interesting take and some surprising statistics. I did not realize Calgary (second place) was still so far ahead of Vancouver (third place) for corporate headquarters in Canada.
Click to expand...
From the article: "Of course, EnCana left for Denver and rebranded as Ovintiv, one of those meaningless names that sounds like a hemorrhoid treatment. They are welcome to it." LOL
 
JesseLikesCities said:
calgaryherald.com

Diane Francis: Canada's biggest mistake was not building a cross-country oil pipeline — and the Line 5 standoff proves it

Resurrect Energy East and the calamitous possibility of stopping the flow of more than 500,000 barrels a day would never happen again
calgaryherald.com calgaryherald.com

What's your opinion on this Op-ed @darwink & @JonnyCanuck?
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I wonder if there is an easy way to compile all Herald op-eds from the past 20 years that mentions pipelines. They probably average 1 or 2 a week over the past 2 decades. Would make a comprehensive industry publication.

I googled the author of that article, turns out she really doesn't like made-in-Canada vaccine programs too, so stay tuned for her upcoming scathing attack piece against the UCP's recently announced made-in-Alberta vaccine program as an economic diversification strategy:

February 4, 2021 - Diane Francis: Made-in-Canada vaccine announcement was little more than smoke and mirrors​

https://nationalpost.com/diane-fran...rors/wcm/b4abc7fb-2a0d-4709-a122-e4100f38341e

Mar 8, 2021- Alberta government seeking proposals to develop, manufacture COVID-19 vaccines at home​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmo...nufacture-covid-19-vaccines-at-home-1.5941335
 
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President of the Anti-vaxxer White supremecist Housewives Association of Alberta? 🤷‍♂️
 
JesseLikesCities said:
calgaryherald.com

Diane Francis: Canada's biggest mistake was not building a cross-country oil pipeline — and the Line 5 standoff proves it

Resurrect Energy East and the calamitous possibility of stopping the flow of more than 500,000 barrels a day would never happen again
calgaryherald.com calgaryherald.com

What's your opinion on this Op-ed @darwink & @JonnyCanuck?
Click to expand...
I have always believed that Canada lacked and lacks any national vision with respect to pipelines and energy exports. If we had a national pipeline strategy that transcended from one government to the next, we would not be at the mercy of the U.S being our only customer, and also being judge and jury on any pipelines going south (i.e Line 3, Line 5 and Keystone XL). Whether we expanded Trans Mountain sooner or extended Energy East to New Brunswick a couple of decades ago, we would have put ourselves in a position to move oil east and west within our own borders and refine it for national consumption as well as export.
Instead we allowed the environmentalists enough time to build a case against any and all expansion, as well as let provinces have their own jurisdiction. This has made our federal governments (Liberal or Conservative) ineffective for the last twenty years.
I don't know whether it was in this blog or somewhere else that someone made the point there was a hugely missed opportunity for Canada to build an all purpose corridor for pipelines, power grids, communication lines etc. from coast to coast. It was this same vision a century ago that lead to a national railway and highway corridor. Try getting something like that accomplished today. 🤨
 
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Canada already refines more than we consume. And the biggest problem with the argument comes down to: who was going to pay for a cross Canada pipeline, or expanding TMX before Brent was more expensive than WTI to the point that the extra pipeline toll margin was covered?

Because let me tell you, if a Liberal government had of forced it, it would have been considered National Energy Program 2. And the Conservatives would never have done it, because the entire industry would have been against it.
 
darwink said:
Canada already refines more than we consume. And the biggest problem with the argument comes down to: who was going to pay for a cross Canada pipeline, or expanding TMX before Brent was more expensive than WTI to the point that the extra pipeline toll margin was covered?

Because let me tell you, if a Liberal government had of forced it, it would have been considered National Energy Program 2. And the Conservatives would never have done it, because the entire industry would have been against it.
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Was TransCanada not willing to pay for Energy East? Also was Chevron not willing to pay for TMX before the Feds bought it?
 
JesseLikesCities said:
Was TransCanada not willing to pay for Energy East? Also was Chevron not willing to pay for TMX before the Feds bought it?
Click to expand...
The answers change over time.
Energy East’s customers were willing to sign take or pay contracts from around when it was announced to when KXL was resurrected by Trump, for the a price which didn’t cover the entire capital cost (since the capital cost was still growing). When TC let EE committed shippers give up their EE contracts without paying into the EE development cost pool (TC wrote this off) in exchange for signing on to the resurrected KXL TC made its choice. To build the cheaper and easier project.

As for TMX, sure the shippers are willing to pay in the 2005-now timeframe. But KM wasn’t willing to get into a situation with unmitigated regulatory risk (recently). Basically KM would have been left holding the bag if they had continued and failed. And before ~2005 shipping more oil to Vancouver to be loaded onto a tanker would have meant lost profit versus shipping it to Chicago.

The key isn’t about Energy East, KXL and TMX fights of the 2010s. The argument made in the article is that Canada should have implemented an entirely different economic development path for oil for the past 70 years! One which would have meant less profit for Alberta oil companies, less royalties for the Alberta government, and higher prices for Canadian consumers.

As an aside I find columns like this fascinating. They demonstrate that our columnists can hold two entirely contradictory views of history and policy in their head at the same time.
 
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darwink said:
As an aside I find columns like this fascinating. They demonstrate that our columnists can hold two entirely contradictory views of history and policy in their head at the same time.
Click to expand...
It's almost as if most of these columnists aren't there to actually illuminate or provide information on a topic, rather fit a topic to a pre-existing ideology.
 
Government is never agile. Rather than building pipelines, or other inter-provincial infrastructure projects, it should have remove barriers rather than solidifying them. For example:
-actually exercise its indisputable constitutional authority to permit such projects by immediately and forcefully quashing provincial and other opposition: oppose a pipeline or road or powerline and suffer significant reductions in federal transfers for health and education
-push back on the ridiculous Supreme Court decisions around indigenous consultation. Few Canadians realize that the Courts require consultation around use of traditional lands (i.e. all public land) not just Reserve land. Will the Courts continue this scope creep into privately owned land?
-reduce the ability for alleged stakeholders to intervene in regulatory hearings. If a party is not directly impacted by a project, they cannot intervene
-repeal over-reaching legislation like C69 that impose non-sense requirements like gender based analysis in regulatory hearings. If government wishes to virtue signal, it can do it on Twitter, not via legislation or allegedly impartial regulatory bodies

I'm far more confident in the government framework of my adopted country of Australia. Australia has no concept of group rights beyond the right of employees to bargain collectively, It, for example, grants no special rights to ethnic, religious or linguistic groups, Australia also has no equivalent to the Charter or Rights. Parliament is supreme and voters can hold politicians to account rather than obfuscate to the Courts
 
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