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Calgary & Alberta Economy

I expect that will be it for Keystone. At least for the next five or six years, even if the Republicans get back in four years from now it’ll take a couple years to get the ball rolling again. I also suspect Biden had to make some promises to people on the left side of his party to allow him to get into the drivers seat. It’s an easy deal for Biden to make as cancelling Keystone isn’t that big a deal to him but the support from the left side of his party is.


By the Time the next election rolls around who knows what the situation will be. if fracking is slowed down and the US starts producing a lot less maybe will get more money for our oil. And things will at least be stable for the industry.
 
If can keep the regulatory world clear for Line 3 replacement, keep the line 5 strait crossing going, and not impose conditions/draw too much attention to debottlenecking the enbridge mainline, and the TC existing ones, could end up in a far better place for capacity than if we got mad and Line 3 started to become a target.
 
darwink said:
If can keep the regulatory world clear for Line 3 replacement, keep the line 5 strait crossing going, and not impose conditions/draw too much attention to debottlenecking the enbridge mainline, and the TC existing ones, could end up in a far better place for capacity than if we got mad and Line 3 started to become a target.
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The governor of Michigan wants to pull the permit on Line 5. Now that Biden has declared his hand, what is to stop other state governments like Minnesota and Wisconsin from reconsidering Line 3.
How did we (Canada) ever get ourselves into this mess? We are dependent on one customer for oil and now that one customer is making it extremely difficult for us to get our product in to their market. 😫
 
JonnyCanuck said:
The governor of Michigan wants to pull the permit on Line 5. Now that Biden has declared his hand, what is to stop other state governments like Minnesota and Wisconsin from reconsidering Line 3.
How did we (Canada) ever get ourselves into this mess? We are dependent on one customer for oil and now that one customer is making it extremely difficult for us to get our product in to their market. 😫
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Fortunately permits issued by standard administrative procedure are governed by standard administrative procedure to undo them and are justiciable. Unlike KXL's 'permit'.
 
Keystone xl is over hyped IMO...original Keystone is being expanded. The Trans Mountain pipeline will fill up tankers that will cross the Panama Canal to Texas and Louisiana. Enbridge line 3 should be fine since no one on Federal level in the US ever mentioned it. Alaska to Alberta railway should be built and running by 2025 and shipping oil! Railway is safe from regulations cause Buffet owns big chunk of it and donated tons of money to the democrats
https://boereport.com/2021/01/22/even-without-keystone-xl-u-s-set-for-record-canadian-oil-imports/
 
Just curious if someone knows why this migration into Alberta hasn't happened yet? something similar to Texas in that video. We got low corporate taxes, abundant office space, and cheap housing compared to Toronto and Vancouver. So why aren't more HQ's moving to Calgary, especially with the work from home trend picking up?
 
Things are slow.

And what Alberta doesn't have is enough graduates with the right skills. We have a far lower post secondary participation rate compared to other provinces, and of those, we have not invested money into pivoting what people learn more rapidly.

This is what Amazon told us. The cost of taxes, real estate, or housing matters little to them. What matters is being able to tap into an abundant pool of skilled workers.
 
gsunnyg said:
Just curious if someone knows why this migration into Alberta hasn't happened yet? something similar to Texas in that video. We got low corporate taxes, abundant office space, and cheap housing compared to Toronto and Vancouver. So why aren't more HQ's moving to Calgary, especially with the work from home trend picking up?
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Keep in mind the 8% corporate tax rate only took effect this past July 1, so I think we will have to wait at least another capital budget cycle to start seeing this impact in growth. Also, the re-designed innovation incentives only launched this month.

Anecdotally, I've had a few friends move back home from abroad the past six months (most keeping their previous employment - mostly in finance or tech). Perhaps this is reflected in the population growth we saw in 2020 despite horrendous economic conditions. It's going to be on us to ensure that we keep improving the city and making Calgary a desirable place to be.
 
darwink said:
Things are slow.

And what Alberta doesn't have is enough graduates with the right skills. We have a far lower post secondary participation rate compared to other provinces, and of those, we have not invested money into pivoting what people learn more rapidly.

This is what Amazon told us. The cost of taxes, real estate, or housing matters little to them. What matters is being able to tap into an abundant pool of skilled workers.
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But that's the advantage of working from home isn't it? If companies can now locate anywhere that gives them a tax advantage, can't they just keep skilled employees working from wherever they please or require some of them to relocate? Clearly, companies like Oracle are able to do it, why are we not seeing this trend with companies in Canada? Set up a base in Alberta for tax purposes, then ask top employees to relocate or just have the majority of your workers continue working from home wherever they please. Even if a company relocates with a work from a home model, if not thousands, it would still bring hundreds of new jobs into Alberta.
 
I think you've weaved together many myths about work from home, the long term nature of comapnies, the advantages of different tax regimes, what attracts companies, what grows businesses, and what makes places rich.

To be honest, we do know that for temporary periods work from home works, and works well. What we don't know is after 5 years, does it work? We know it works for the digital world equivalent of factory work: tech support and call centres. But does it work for teams building new products, companies growing from 100 to 1000 employees - heck does it even work for most employees? We really don't know.

What we know is that corporate structures and tax treatment change things very little on the face of it. A company can live almost anywhere. Corporate taxes aren't about getting lets say, Manulife to be officially located in Calgary. It is making any business that is investing in a large capital asset weigh whether the higher costs in Alberta are worth it since the investment doesn't need as big of a margin to succeed in Alberta as in Ontario.
 
gsunnyg said:
Just curious if someone knows why this migration into Alberta hasn't happened yet? something similar to Texas in that video. We got low corporate taxes, abundant office space, and cheap housing compared to Toronto and Vancouver. So why aren't more HQ's moving to Calgary, especially with the work from home trend picking up?
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I literally saw that video yesterday and was wondering the same thing
 
gsunnyg said:
Just curious if someone knows why this migration into Alberta hasn't happened yet? something similar to Texas in that video. We got low corporate taxes, abundant office space, and cheap housing compared to Toronto and Vancouver. So why aren't more HQ's moving to Calgary, especially with the work from home trend picking up?
Click to expand...

I am bullish on the long-term prospects of Calgary attracting jobs from Toronto and Vancouver due to lower taxes, office space, and housing. The trend has been very strong in the US, since well before the pandemic. Tech companies have shifted their growth from SF and NY to places like Austin, Denver, and Nashville. It's not so much about the corporate office - Google is still headquartered in the Bay Area and likely always will be, but they have added significant campuses in lower cost places.

On top of this, since the pandemic individual employees have shifted to remote work in cheaper cities and towns with high quality of life.

This hasn't happened yet in Canada to a significant extent, but I do think it will over the next 10-15 years.

The key is not to be the cheapest - people are not relocating from the Bay Area to Amarillo, they are relocating to Austin. The key is to be cheaper, with a high concentration of amenities and a culture which values knowledge workers. Of those three ingredients, I think we have the most work to do on the last, but it is within reach to make corporate and individual relocations a meaningful trend.
 
zagox said:
I am bullish on the long-term prospects of Calgary attracting jobs from Toronto and Vancouver due to lower taxes, office space, and housing. The trend has been very strong in the US, since well before the pandemic. Tech companies have shifted their growth from SF and NY to places like Austin, Denver, and Nashville. It's not so much about the corporate office - Google is still headquartered in the Bay Area and likely always will be, but they have added significant campuses in lower cost places.

On top of this, since the pandemic individual employees have shifted to remote work in cheaper cities and towns with high quality of life.

This hasn't happened yet in Canada to a significant extent, but I do think it will over the next 10-15 years.

The key is not to be the cheapest - people are not relocating from the Bay Area to Amarillo, they are relocating to Austin. The key is to be cheaper, with a high concentration of amenities and a culture which values knowledge workers. Of those three ingredients, I think we have the most work to do on the last, but it is within reach to make corporate and individual relocations a meaningful trend.
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Agreed. There needs to be a balance of cost savings and quality of life. Places like Austin ans Nashville are lower cost, but are also attractive destinations. Calgary as a city has some good things going for it...Well connected international airport, well developed and improving parks and pathways, solid restaurant scene, strong ethnic diversity, and skilled labor pool, a high percentage of population with post secondary education., etc..

Calgary also has one very significant advantage over a lot of other Canadian cities: The Rocky Mountains. I've known people who have moved to Calgary over the years, just for that very reason. If we can just keep improving on the other things we can control, we'll be in a decent position.
 
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