News   Apr 03, 2020
Pastel Morning
 4.8K     1 
News   Apr 02, 2020
A Message to Our Readers
 6.6K     3 
News   Apr 02, 2020
Soon to be Gone
 3.8K     0 

Calgary & Alberta Economy

darwink said:
Calgary's business community has a low risk tolerance - we shouldn't kid ourselves. This is a myth we tell about ourselves. Rainforest, CDL-R, and others have been doing a good job slowly making that risk tolerance higher, but it is a battle for sure.
Click to expand...
Not low risk by Canadian standards.
 
calgary.ctvnews.ca

Conference Board of Canada predicts strong economic recovery for Alberta after COVID-19

With the COVID-19 vaccine rollout steadily underway, Canadians can start to look forward to their world returning to normal — which means good things for the economy.
calgary.ctvnews.ca calgary.ctvnews.ca

This is positive news but it needs to be put into context. Last year, Alberta's economy shrank by 8%. A 6% growth in 2021 does not get us back to where we were at the start of 2020. I am guessing that the 2022 GDP growth puts us, more or less, back to what the original GDP forecast was for Alberta in 2020, before the pandemic. So, maybe by the end of 2022, we will be where we should have been at the end of 2020.
 
Alex_YYC said:

Strathmore solar project looking for workers as construction ramps up this summer​


There was also this project by Amazon.

Another report saying Alberta could lead the country in Wind and Solar Power
Click to expand...
Solar and Hydrogen both on the go in Alberta. Throw in all the venture capital for new startups and things don't look that bad for Alberta.
 

While it is official, it is no surprise. $1.3 billion of tax dollars down the drain is however.
The anti-oil lobbyists are ecstatic. Now they have set their sights on Enbridge Line 3 and that will only galvanize Gov. Whitmer's position on Line 5. All it will take is a state judge somewhere to grant an injunction on either one and it will be Keystone XL all over again.
Stay tuned!
 
JonnyCanuck said:

While it is official, it is no surprise. $1.3 billion of tax dollars down the drain is however.
The anti-oil lobbyists are ecstatic. Now they have set their sights on Enbridge Line 3 and that will only galvanize Gov. Whitmer's position on Line 5. All it will take is a state judge somewhere to grant an injunction on either one and it will be Keystone XL all over again.
Stay tuned!
Click to expand...
What a disastrously bad bet with our tax dollars by Kenney and the UCP on a project that was completely outside of his jurisdiction and dependent on another country's election outcome. Betting $1.5B on a coin flip would have made a better business case given the expected outcome of the US election.

So quickly too. Usually boondoggle political investments take years or decades to be revealed as a bad deal. Truly moving at the speed of business on this one.

But seriously, has any government lost $1.5B on a bet within a year? Sure - there's been bigger loses, lots of write-downs and economic conditions destroying government project returns or causing cost overruns - but I can't think of another example that was this obviously risky (1) and this conclusively a failure (2) in such a short timeframe (3).
 
calgaryherald.com

Blow to Enbridge's Line 5 as pipeline tunnel proposal faces long environmental review

The requirement is a victory for environmentalists and indigenous groups that now will gain more time to oppose Line 5
calgaryherald.com calgaryherald.com
Not sure how to feel about this. Enbridge proposed the tunnel for their existing Line 5 which the governor of Michigan is in court trying to shut it down. The project was to upgrade the old pipe and provide additional safety through Lake Michigan. The review may delay this project for a considerable period of time. I hope something does not happen (i.e a leak) with the existing pipeline. That will surely give opponents added muscle and probably kill the pipeline.
 
Cowtown said:
Sort of economy related. An article pushing Calgary as an option to expensive Toronto.

www.theglobeandmail.com

Bright lights, cheap housing: Why you should check out Calgary if you can’t afford a house in Ontario

House prices have risen to levels over the past 12 or so months where some young adults are forced to move to other cities. If you’re priced out, Calgary is a natural place to look
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com
Click to expand...
Absolutely more Torontonians should consider Calgary as a place to live (or Edmonton, or Winnipeg, or Ottawa). Unfortunately, this article pushes the "cheap housing" without actually saying anything about the "bright lights". A lot of Torontonians never consider moving away from the city because they see the rest of the country as depressing hick towns sprinkled over empty wilderness, with the exception of Vancouver (too expensive) and Montreal (too French). Mentioning the price of oil and the lack of a provincial sales tax is going to do nothing to attract people from Toronto (or Vancouver). You need to demonstrate that Calgary's actually a nice place to live and not just a boom/bust oil town for people looking to get rich quick and then retire to Vancouver Island. Even the photo in the article looks dreadfully boring.

Thinking about Torontonians moving to Calgary often reminds me of HBO's "Broad City", a show about two 20-somethings struggling to make it in NYC. The series ends (SPOILER ALERT!!) when one of them admits to herself that as cool as NYC seems, her life is actually terrible and she decides to move out to flyover country (Boulder CO) where she ends up becoming an artist and living the life she always wanted.
 
Last edited:
Silence&Motion said:
Absolutely more Torontonians should consider Calgary as a place to live (or Edmonton, or Winnipeg, or Ottawa). Unfortunately, this article pushes the "cheap housing" without actually saying anything about the "bright lights". A lot of Torontonians never consider moving away from the city because they see the rest of the country as depressing hick towns and sprinkled over empty wilderness, with the exception of Vancouver (too expensive) and Montreal (too French). Mentioning the price of oil and the lack of a provincial sales tax is going to do nothing to attract people from Toronto (or Vancouver). You need to demonstrate that Calgary's actually a nice place to live and not just a boom/bust oil town for people looking to get rich quick and then retire to Vancouver Island. Even the photo in the article looks dreadfully boring.

Thinking about Torontonians moving to Calgary often reminds me of HBO's "Broad City", a show about two 20-somethings struggling to make it in NYC. The series ends (SPOILER ALERT!!) when one of them admits to herself that as cool as NYC seems, her life is actually terrible and she decides to move out to flyover country (Boulder CO) where she ends up becoming an artist and living the life she always wanted.
Click to expand...
As you said and I fully agree with, no one gives a shit about oil anywhere else and no one moves to a place because of the sales tax rate. To be fair to the article, 90% of Calgarian's don't even recognize the "bright lights" of Calgary, so I am not surprised a generic housing article can't either.

When I show Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal friends Calgary I do a circuit by either bicycle or walking that goes roughly something like this:
  • Mission (coffee/brunch/viewpoints in Mount Royal)
  • 17th Ave (wander/shopping/patio)
  • Beltline (wander/patio)
  • Stephen Ave (wander)
  • River pathway /Kensington (wander/shopping)
  • River pathway / Peace Bridge / Prince's Island (wander/pictures/viewpoints up the stairs)
  • East Village / River pathway (wander pictures 2nd coffee)
  • Bridgeland/ River pathway (wander)
  • Inglewood (dinner / brewery)
I take them on as few busy empty garbage roads as possible and look up a few full houses available in the neighbourhoods we walked through and point out they are less than $1M. Along the way they see buskers, river surfers, lots of dog walkers and runners, tons of city life. I am stacking the deck, but no more than any of the same friends when they show me all the cool stuff in their bigger cities.

With that curated program, I have a 100% success ratio for generating comments like " I had no idea Calgary had all this stuff", " I could totally live here", "I can't believe how walkable and nice it is right in the city" etc.... and I win their votes all without a trip to the mountains, referencing stampede, low taxes, jobs or oil 👍
 
Mountain Man said:
When most people have guests in the city, they stay in the suburbs and they take them to Chinook or Market Mall for excitement. No wonder most people think Calgary is boring, it's like going to "Vancouver" but not leaving Maple Ridge!
Click to expand...
Exactly. Most Calgarians struggle to sell their own city, often going for the easy out of a Banff visit. Combine the average visitor experience with the continual misalignment between the loud voices representing us outwardly (probably not unfair to generalize as mostly loud, conservative, political, pro-oil, old white men living in the suburbs) and what this city actually offers creates a huge disconnect. This is our version of it but it's not a unique challenge, as most cities have a difference between the "stories" about them and the reality in them.

I've said this before but Calgary is the largest and perhaps only* place with big city, urban vibrancy that doesn't require a car between Vancouver and Toronto and one of only 5 to 10 cities in the whole country that offer even a tiny taste of that urban life. If you want a taste of urbanism in that 3,000km Vancouver to Toronto gap, this is it. As my favourite example, no Canadian city has anything close to our river pathway system for its level of urban integration, connectivity and natural park connections , yet I have yet to see anyone market/mention that beyond a generic Peace Bridge photo. And for every Peace Bridge photo in the media we get 10 pictures of sprawl, cheap boring houses that every city has, or big blue pickup trucks to "represent" Calgary.

* I want to throw Edmonton a nod here as they got some real nice pockets of urbanism and urban culture. I don't think they are at Calgary's level because the vibe there is so disconnected due to the mega-valley, but worth noting they also don't get the credit they deserve as being a city and offering urban things.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top