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Is Calgary still an oil and gas town or has it moved on?

Surrealplaces said:
www.theglobeandmail.com

Opinion: Is Calgary still an oil and gas town or has it moved on?

Yes, Calgary is an oil town, but this city is not just an oil town – its identity is not binary, nor is it rigid
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com
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Only the most out of touch person actually thought Calgary was still an oil and gas town. I could be wrong but I believe our largest empty or near empty towers belonged to Husky and Nexen (or whatever they were before vacating). If you've been paying attention Calgary hasn't been an oil and gas town in awhile (8+ years?). It also hasn't moved on, nothing is black and white, and searching for answers you can write in stone is a fools game.
 
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CalgaryTiger said:
Only the most out of touch person actually thought Calgary was still an oil and gas town. I could be wrong but I believe our largest empty or near empty towers belonged to Husky and Nexen (or whatever they were before vacating). If you've been paying attention Calgary hasn't been an oil and gas town in awhile (8+ years?). It also hasn't moved on, nothing is black and white, and searching for answers you can write in stone is a fools game.
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That's really not true, though. It's true that we're not still an oil and gas town. People who live in Calgary and are involved with industry know that Calgary isn't still an oil and gas town. But people who already live in Calgary and are involved with industry aren't the ones that a national editorial is trying to reach. The point is that people outside Calgary don't necessarily know that.

The Canada West foundation did a study surveying 18-45 year olds with postsecondary education in Alberta, as well as Toronto and Vancouver. Here's one of the stats I found the most interesting, looking at Toronto/Vancouver residents who were more and less familiar with Alberta:
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Four in five of them don't think we have a diverse economy. And two in three Albertans!

They broke the people they surveyed into a subgroup of those who were the most likely to move -- the ones we are most likely to be able to attract -- and then broke that subset of movers into seven segments. Here's how these people describe Alberta when given a blank slate:
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Oil and Gas was the single largest thing mentioned; conservative second and intolerant fourth. (I wonder if the recent election might be one reason for the timing of this editorial.)


If we're just an oil and gas town, then we don't need to convince skilled young people to come, because -- like it or not -- you have to come here to extract our oil, and oil is a global commodity. But if we're more than that, then we need to attract a skilled, educated workforce to compete with all of the other places they can live. And to do that, they need to know that we're not just an oil and gas town.
 

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All that survey confirms is that Canadians misperceive their own country. I'm sure if you surveyed people from Calgary about their perceptions of Toronto and Vancouver they would identify them as poor, blue collar, expensive and crime ridden.
 
It's easy to have false perceptions when the media reports interesting anecdotes which isn't representative of the general population. Not saying that's the fault of the media as they are supposed to report on things out of the ordinary (news). For example, the few people protesting over social issues in Calgary or with * Trudeau signs across a school get more national news coverage than 99% of people that are nice, friendly and welcoming. As more people are moving to Calgary or Alberta in general due to Real Estate prices, that perception is definitely starting to change.

I also find a lot of people in Toronto, they're perception of Alberta politics gets mixed with Florida/Texas and US politics, whereas Calgary (definitely) and Alberta are arguably much less conservative than most US states.
 
My perception here in Calgary is that we're in the process of moving on, with one foot out the door, but the other still in. Calgary's changed from what it was 20 years ago, and even from what it was 10 years ago, but is still attached to oil and gas. The recent oil/gas downturn in 2015 has help speed up the change though. The mentality of Calgarians has shifted a lot over the past 8 years, with most people at least accepting that the oil industry is not a long term thing anymore. I know a number of people who work in the industry, and that seems to be the the outlook, whereas before 2014, it wasn't there nearly as much.
As for stereotypes, they take a while to go away, and there are still a fair number of redneck morons around to keep the stereotype alive unfortunately.
 
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I see Calgary as totally an O&G town still, we're moving away from being a one trick pony, but that is still the biggest driver off our economy. Love the growth of tech here though, O&G will be a tough business in 20 years.
 
As I've gotten a bit older I just don't really give a shit about what our "perception" is anymore, it used to really bug me that we were perceived as a redneck cowboy town. Life is to short to worry about what people think of you or where you live. I enjoy my life here and thats what matters.

Our outdoor areas in the rockies and foothills are incredible and still quite accessible, compared to Vancouver where there is rushhour gridlock traffic to get to Whistler and every trailhead and hiking trail is over polulated. My cousin who lives out there used to be big into camping and just gave up because everywhere is just overflowing with people or impossible to get a reservation
 
potatopizzafan said:
As I've gotten a bit older I just don't really give a shit about what our "perception" is anymore, it used to really bug me that we were perceived as a redneck cowboy town. Life is to short to worry about what people think of you or where you live. I enjoy my life here and thats what matters.

Our outdoor areas in the rockies and foothills are incredible and still quite accessible, compared to Vancouver where there is rushhour gridlock traffic to get to Whistler and every trailhead and hiking trail is over polulated. My cousin who lives out there used to be big into camping and just gave up because everywhere is just overflowing with people or impossible to get a reservation
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I'm not personally affected by how people feel about Alberta but as the province moves into its next phase, it needs to attract the best people. If their high-level view of Alberta is a bad one, then they'll pretty quickly look at other places. O&G is here because the product is here. Other industries don't work like that.

This is happening here too. I've never been to Lake Moraine and will likely never go because I don't want to get up at 4AM. Have you every tried to hike in the fall to see the larches, it's Disney busy out there. And it is impossible to get a reservation at Lake O'Hara or any decent campground, the lottery system sucks.
 
As Calgarytiger put it, the product is here, so we’ll always be an oil and gas town in one way or another and until oil and gas is a minor industry, Calgary will be associated with it.
On the flip side as surrealplaces put it, the mentality has changed and IMO the mentality that oil and gas would last forever was a Calgary’s biggest obstacle. With that obstacle gone, you can already see Calgary trending in the right direction.
 
CalgaryTiger said:
This is happening here too. I've never been to Lake Moraine and will likely never go because I don't want to get up at 4AM. Have you every tried to hike in the fall to see the larches, it's Disney busy out there. And it is impossible to get a reservation at Lake O'Hara or any decent campground, the lottery system sucks.
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I'd almost argue that it's worse here. Banff is a bigger draw than Squamish and Whistler combined!
 
My question is, when will Calgarians stop calling themselves "Albertans"? That was one of the biggest culture shocks when I arrived here from Toronto. I never once heard anyone in Toronto refer to themselves as "Ontarians". But Calgarians always refer to themselves as "Albertans". I do think it affects Calgary's image, when people just see it as part of Alberta, which they associate with oil, wheat, and conservatives. The city needs to start standing on its own.
 
Silence&Motion said:
My question is, when will Calgarians stop calling themselves "Albertans"? That was one of the biggest culture shocks when I arrived here from Toronto. I never once heard anyone in Toronto refer to themselves as "Ontarians". But Calgarians always refer to themselves as "Albertans". I do think it affects Calgary's image, when people just see it as part of Alberta, which they associate with oil, wheat, and conservatives. The city needs to start standing on its own.
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I don't mind the Albertans thing. Calgarians don't have the Toronto or even Vancouver mentality for that matter where they think, rightly or wrongly, that their province revolves around them. Alberta is not Calgary's and I like that people who live here don't think of it that way. Granted I'm born and raised in Alberta (with a sprinkle of living overseas in there), but the things that make Calgary, Calgary is that it's in Alberta. Foothills and Mountains, Alberta's not Calgary's. Oil and Gas, Alberta's not Calgary's (Calgary was really just the office at the front of the Alberta Warehouse). I credit the Oil and Gas with making this city the urban, diverse, exciting city that it is. Without it, we're Casper Wyoming. Saying all that...

Calgary definitely needs to do its own bidding. For a long time, it was: Alberta wins, Calgary wins. We do need to be more selfish. This is a cool city, is it Vancouver or Toronto? No but that's the best part about it, it's its own thing. We're on the come-up and we can be a lot of things to a lot of people. We're defining what that is but do need to do a better job of broad messaging. I hear about Calgary doing the little things (getting on to startup rankings) but some big viral thing that shifts the narative would be good.
 
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